Dell Still Looking Into Throttling Issues

To those who are having issues with CPU throttling on your Dell XPS Laptop, specifically the 1645, Dell released a blog entry on their community website a few days ago to let you know they're still working on the problem.  According to their post, a BIOS upgrade which would adjust the algorithm used to throttle the CPU under load is, they feel, the best bet toward resolving the issue.

Over at notebookreview.com, they have different ideas.  They've started a thread on their forums with user-submitted details on the issue.  They feel that, not only is a BIOS upgrade necessary, but a higher-powered power supply is needed as well.  They're recommending at least a 130W power supply, to replace the factor-supplied 90W supply.

Just in case you're not sure if you're experiencing the problem, here's the description according to notebookreview.com:

Symptoms usually occur during gaming or other stressful applications. Can be in the form of extremely large stuttering under certain conditions. Even if these slow downs do not occur it is very likely you could see a performance boost by allowing the laptop to run properly, given a modern game. A quick test is to run on battery, giving the system a few min's to settle, and see if performance is improved.

The problem occurs due to the cpu slowing itself down to maintain the 90w power limitation set by the adapter. The cpu speed is calculated as 133mhz * a multiplier. This multiplier should be 15x + for most games, but due to throttling can be observed around 8-10x or the minimum 7x, a huge performance hit.

Of course, this only applies specifically to the Dell XPS 1645 and Studio 17 laptops.  If you own one of these two models, and are experiencing issues, make sure you head over to http://support.dell.com and put in a ticket.  This will help Dell track the issue when a resolution is found.