Bizarro m1330 power problem.

Hi, I've been playing with my m1330 for the last couple of days and it for the most part it has seemed to be pretty sluggish, even after a clean vista format and install.

At first I attributed this to only having 1 gig Ram in the laptop, but today I did something that I had never really paid attention to before, I unplugged my laptop.

Suddenly apps are faster, the network card responds, cpu usage drops from 50-100% to around 2-4%

The truly weird thing is that going into task manager and watching the processes' cpu usage, it the only thing that seems to happen is that apps that are already open use far more of the cpu.

No new processes seem to be created, nothing jumps from 0% to something much higher.

For instance on battery the taskmanager process hovers between 3-5% cpu usage, but the second I plug in the power cable, taskmanager starts to use 10-12% cpu.

Is this some hidden program opening or activating only when plugged in?
Did my processor power states get messed up some how?

Specs are
T7500 2.2 Ghz
1 Gig Ram
120 GB 5400 HD
LED Screen
Finger Print Reader
VGA Webcam


Any help would be greatly appreciated, I just don't understand it, it's like the power cord is cruise control for slow!

 

I thought I remember reading something about someone having the opposite problem with you. Their notebook seemed to respond better with the AC adapter in place, which makes sense if, indeed, the power-saving feature is enabled and forces the processor into a low-power mode.

I guess it is possible that, for some reason, your settings may have been reversed. I am not sure how it would happen or how to fix it though.

 

go to Start>Control Panel>Change Battery Settings>Change Plan Settings (for current one)>Advanced

you should see an option that sets minimum and maximum processor percentage on and off batery. Check this. Chances are, you have processor power limited in the wrong section for some strange reason.

rep me if im right

 

Nope, set maximum and minimum power levels for plugged in at 100%, still have the same problem, once I plug in the cable, everything screeches to a halt.

It's really strange because what's happening is opposite of what you'd expect.

 

ok... thats wierd.

here's another suggestion ( a long shot )

hibernate on battery. Then, take out battery (physically) and plug in power (leaving battery out).

wake up.

Is it slow still?

 

Computer never woke up from hibernation, I'm at wit's end, I don't even know what piece of software I would need to reinstall to fix this computer, let alone dealing with the hassle if it's a hardware problem.

 

Well...that's pretty damn weird. If anything, I would expect it to go slower WITHOUT the AC Adapter plugged in. However, I have heard of this problem before. Hopefully you have some sort of warranty....just call Dell.

 

on battery i had 57 processes running, on ac power i had 59. maybe those two processes ( i didn't catch the name, they stayed on after unplugging the power ) are taking up your processes, i'm at 48% memory useage, and I have 2GB, so you only have 20mb free on your computer if its ratio equivalent to mine.

I would step up now and buy 2GB of ram before contacting dell, as it is recommended by them for vista.

 

Did u try reinstalling windows from scratch?

 

"even after clean vista format and install"

 

I just installed 2 2gig Ram sticks, computer recognized them fine (seeing all 4 gigs in BIOS) and vista saw the 3.5~ gigs fine as well, no luck. Computer still crawls on ac power, but with just battery it flies. On the phone with xps support, the lady was like "ooh, that is a very rare problem, let me put you on hold" She had no idea what to do, so she's sending me out another ac adapter. If that doesn't work, it looks like I'll be getting a new motherboard. :-/