XPS 15 9570 Owners Thread

Sounds like it's true.
That means the GPU throttling is actually enforced by the Intel thermal management driver and not BIOS itself, which probably just sets the "recommended" throttling temperature...

 

Maybe I will try that by time, I dont really want to mod my XPS internally though. No, the "quiet" profile doesnt change the fact, that lowest fan spin is 2500RPM.

Sadly, no, I dont know any new updates on it.

It has nothing to do with bios 1.5.0 or 1.4.1 (maybe 1.4.1, but not 1.5.0). It is the same issue I reported here months ago ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-15-9570-owners-thread.817008/page-130#post-10795925 ). I can easily reproduce it still in several games, and I even said the same he mentions in the article, that you kinda can "work around it", by opening, for example, a video in the background and "push" the GPU load a little bit. The threshold where and how the dGPU wants to save energy is just too aggressive, and that is already there since months, not sure if it was from the beginning or introduced somewhen with Nvidia drivers or bios around 1.3.0 maybe. Using the "prefer high performance" profile in the Nvidia control panel doesnt really help much, and is kinda ignored. It is mostly in "low load" games, but also randomly with others, like I mentioned Life is Strange 2, for example. I have to toggle back and out of the game so that triggers a high GPU peak load, and then, from some point, suddenly the clocks boost up properly and FPS stays stable at 60. I actually hen, after it happened, use a hotkey with TS, to disable turbo boost and cap CPU at 2.2GHz. If I do it before opening the game, the GPU mostly will be stuck around 900MHz and wont boost up correctly, mostly because of a too low trigger load point in GPU activity. I noticed it actually happens more often in games which have no true fullscreen mode but use Window fullscreen, so it may also be a Windows 10 bug in a combination of this laptop, for whatever reason.

One interesting thing of the article though is this:

"The NVIDIA GPU achieves between 5/15 FPS in the UNIGINE Heaven benchmark when the core temperature is below 48 °C/118 °F. The GeForce GTX 1050 constantly power limit throttles to between 949/1,278 MHz when operating at below this temperature threshold, while the system also keeps the Intel UHD Graphics 630 running during this time too."

That would be a total "Picard double face palm". So if the dGPU temp gets below 48°c it just throttles down (even more) regardless if youre in a game and it has 99% load, seriously? That could explain, why under lower load games, it doesnt boost up. How stupid is that if it's true...

I was always wondering, why in some games it didnt boost up and kept at 99% GPU load, good low temps, but bad FPS. Then randomly it started to work and then randomly fall back. I never got on the point, that it might be TOO LOW temperature related.

Ok I also read the reddit post and now it all makes total sense...

If this is true, it is ridiculous. So if dGPU temps fall below 48°C... it throttles DOWN... maybe even switch to iGPU... regardless of the load it has? This cant be true. But it would explain a lot.

Because I try a lot to optimize my XPS 15... undervolt, set all to low in games, fps cap at 60, and I dont game intensive games anyway. That could explain, that I optimized the laptop "too good", and then it throttles because of this? This is pathetic. Pure pathetic Dell. I just love this laptop...

So not even now we have a >=74°c throttle... we also have a <=48°c throttle. HOW PATHETIC IS THAT...

I am sure it is in bios, but the Intel thermal driver just loads the recommended value and then uses it as the first throttle point. If you disable it, then the chip itself uses the last hard coded emergency throttle temperature. So it mostly has two values, one recommended used by software throttle, and one shutdown/throttle point via hardware around 90.

 

I've noticed that the GPU sometimes (rarely for me) doesn't run in full power mode. Typically just letting the game run for a minute or two causes the GPU to be properly utilized. Well properly until it hits 74C and then throttles again...

Looks like the bug is present in multiple Dell models though, based on the comments of the article.

 

Lol. Dell should then adjust XPS specs sheet to say:
operating temperature of nVidia GPU: 48 - 75 degrees. Keep it hot, but not too hot.

Shall we warm up the laptop in the oven before playing a game?

 

I honestly dont know if I should laugh or cry right now... I actually did a few tests in the last hour and it seems to fit 100%. If the temps of the dGPU fall around somehow <48°C it throttles down to 900MHz and FPS go bad. That explains, why I saw it just in "low load" games like WoW and others I play. And why for example, I had a few "cold runs" with Cinebench, where the GPU wasnt warm enough and still under 48°C to give proper results.

I wonder what motivation behind this is!? To cheat with battery life maybe? "Hey the GPU is under 48°C, so they dont game at all, lets switch to iGPU to give them better battery"... I WANT to decide how MY LAPTOP behaves, for STANDBY... for fans, GPU, clocks, or whatever.

If this wont get fixed, I will try to get rid of this laptop and look for something else. I guess a Gigabyte Aero, Asus Zenbook Pro or maybe Razer...

 

Hi, could someone here extract the IFR of a 9570 BIOS?
You can follow this tutorial to get a file called "setup IFR.txt" and then paste it to pastebin or wherever you want.

I want to check the full BIOS menu to see what hidden "features" these new XPS models have (and maybe changing a few settings using the EFI shell can solve some of your problems).

 

I not quite sure what you’re asking since you list three different methods of charging the laptop. That said, the only power source is the 130W adapter that came in the box.

I’m fairly sure I did this in the past and there wasn’t anything useful in there. That said, I’m not going to say anything definitive and leave it to people who know more about the BIOS than me.

 

What is the best bios to use if you like gaming? Mine currently has 1.3.1.

 

I remember when @maffle, @custom90gt and I talked about this issue a month ago or so. It got mixed up with the 75c threshold reduction.
I would have never have thought that they also introduced a cold threshold. Can't really understand why. Anyway, this is software solvable... let's hope that they do something...

Regarding the C-states/sleep drain, they told me that they have escalated the issue and are looking into it.

@maffle perhaps something can be done regarding the fans. In HWInfo if you open the fan control page, you can see that the fan can actually only have 3 values. 0/2500/5000. If you slide to 5000 and click "set manually", it looks like nothing happens. However, if you click constantly and quickly "set manually" you will hear the fan actually spinning faster. This happens because the value that you set only lasts for fraction of a second until the DELL fan management regains control and sets its value. I don't know if there is a way to disable it.

 

The c-states power issue is present on nearly every laptop I have plugged into my eGPU. It is why I don't use my Thinkpad P1 with the eGPU