XPS 15 9560 throttling

[Pranshu_2]

Hey everyone,
I have a Dell XPS 15 9560(i7-7700HQ ,8gb ram, 256gb ssd, 4gb GTX 1050) bought in December 2017. For the first 3 months(ie. in winters), I played COD:WWII and Rise of the Tomb Raider and did not face any throttling whatsoever and got frame rates as mentioned in various online benchmarks.
However, since then I started noticing throttling and clean installed windows 2 times. Even in old games like the NFS Mostwanted 2012 and battlefield 4, the game would start of right but after 5-10 minutes the CPU or the GPU would start throttling.. Gpu would settle to about 1000-1100mhz and in not so rare cases the CPU would go down to 802mhz killing all the fps.
I monitor using MSI afterburner, and when throttling happens, the CPu is usually at 73-80C range and stays there while GPU is at 65-70C range.
This is the situation when ambient temp is 35-38C, the throttling is much less in an air-con room.
Atleast, in old games the XPS should be able to give full perforemance

From various youtube reviews (Dave2d, Tech chap, Western Giant United, Mobile Tech Reviews), they are getting stable fps while gaming.
Is this a manufacturing defect or just simple behaviour like any other XPS 15 9560?

I am considering going for repasting and using thermal pads.

 

[jay32267]

Which i7 is that? There are i7s out there with TCase Max in the 60s.

 

[Prostar Computer]

The question is whether this is a power/firmware throttle, or a thermal throttle. Your temps look fine, but I can't speak for Dell's firmware. 802 Mhz on the CPU doesn't sound like either, though.

Have you checked Dell's site for any BIOS updates? And if you're running the Windows 1803 update, try rolling back to/installing 1709, or even earlier, if you can.

 

[Pranshu_2]

Which i7 is that? There are i7s out there with TCase Max in the 60s.

That's a i7-7700HQ in there clocked at 2.8ghz. I haven't underclocked or overclocked it nor undervolted it.

 

[Pranshu_2]

The question is whether this is a power/firmware throttle, or a thermal throttle. Your temps look fine, but I can't speak for Dell's firmware. 802 Mhz on the CPU doesn't sound like either, though.

Have you checked Dell's site for any BIOS updates? And if you're running the Windows 1803 update, try rolling back to/installing 1709, or even earlier, if you can.

Hey, first of all sorry for the downvote, I didn't mean to do it, am new to the site so that happened accidentally and I can't find a way to undo it.
I have already installed the latest BIOS from dell's site and have also tried running the previous versions but to no avail. I am on Windows 1709 version and I don't know if I can roll back any further.
How do I know if it's a power throttling or thermal throttling?

I talked to Dell Tech support, the person did some changes here and there to driver settings etc. and at last said that the XPS is not a gaming laptop and the it is designed so as to throttle whenever temperature reaches above 70C. I told him that that is a bunch of crap to which he escalated to issue to higher tech team from whom I am yet to hear.

I am ready to go for repasting and thermal pads, just I want to make sure that there's no hardware/manufacturing problem with my laptop and it is normal behaviour in XPS 15 9560 laptops.

 

[Prostar Computer]

Hey, first of all sorry for the downvote, I didn't mean to do it, am new to the site so that happened accidentally and I can't find a way to undo it.
I have already installed the latest BIOS from dell's site and have also tried running the previous versions but to no avail. I am on Windows 1709 version and I don't know if I can roll back any further.
How do I know if it's a power throttling or thermal throttling?

I talked to Dell Tech support, the person did some changes here and there to driver settings etc. and at last said that the XPS is not a gaming laptop and the it is designed so as to throttle whenever temperature reaches above 70C. I told him that that is a bunch of crap to which he escalated to issue to higher tech team from whom I am yet to hear.

I am ready to go for repasting and thermal pads, just I want to make sure that there's no hardware/manufacturing problem with my laptop and it is normal behaviour in XPS 15 9560 laptops.

Hey, no worries. Mistakes happen.

You shouldn't be experiencing throttling until around 93 Celsius per Intel's & NVidia's spec. I think that narrows it down to power or firmware.

Do you notice your AC adapter not charging the battery suddenly when you get the throttling? I wonder if the charger, or a circuit on the board, is cutting out. That would be a power throttle. If not that, then I'd guess it's firmware.

And yeah, it sounds like the Dell rep was grasping at straws. Lol. At least he tried. If you hear from the higher up tech, let us know what they think.

 

[Pranshu_2]

Hey, first of all sorry for the downvote, I didn't mean to do it, am new to the site so that happened accidentally and I can't find a way to undo it.
I have already installed the latest BIOS from dell's site and have also tried running the previous versions but to no avail. I am on Windows 1709 version and I don't know if I can roll back any further.
How do I know if it's a power throttling or thermal throttling?

I talked to Dell Tech support, the person did some changes here and there to driver settings etc. and at last said that the XPS is not a gaming laptop and the it is designed so as to throttle whenever temperature reaches above 70C. I told him that that is a bunch of crap to which he escalated to issue to higher tech team from whom I am yet to hear.

I am ready to go for repasting and thermal pads, just I want to make sure that there's no hardware/manufacturing problem with my laptop and it is normal behaviour in XPS 15 9560 laptops.

Hey, no worries. Mistakes happen.

You shouldn't be experiencing throttling until around 93 Celsius per Intel's & NVidia's spec. I think that narrows it down to power or firmware.

Do you notice your AC adapter not charging the battery suddenly when you get the throttling? I wonder if the charger, or a circuit on the board, is cutting out. That would be a power throttle. If not that, then I'd guess it's firmware.

And yeah, it sounds like the Dell rep was grasping at straws. Lol. At least he tried. If you hear from the higher up tech, let us know what they think.

Hey,
So I switched on Power Limit indicator in MSI Afterburner.
Playing Witcher 3 and Battlefield 4, for first 15 minutes or so the GPU and CPU would run at full speed and the GPU would be at 76-78C while the CPU at 82-85C but when the GPu throttles (ie drops to 900-1100mhz) the power limit indicator shows up and the entire time the temp remains in the range 65-68C and then after a while the GPU speed would go up and so the temperature.
Similarly when the CPu throttles to 800-1000mhz the temperature goes down to 73-77C, since afterburner has no power limit indicator for CPU, I am assuming that it is Power Throttle as well.
This is when I play in an air-conditioned room with temp set to 24C, the throttling is much more pronounced when the air-condiitoner is switched off and ambient temperatures is in range of 32-35C.

Now, I think the reason can be any of these two:
1. The VRMs get too hot and cannot deliver enough power to the CPU and the GPU - VRMs getting too hot is a known issue in XPS 15 9560 but it would be this bad I never imagined!
2. Faulty charger. I always play plugged in and battery fully charged. The charger used to get very hot earlier when games used to run well but now-a-days it doesn't get that hot - infact, a lot less hot

Here are some pictures where you can see the throttle -
https/drive.google.com/open?id=1SSMSfS4qyhbLrD2ucg208GDB-PgTjsax
https/drive.google.com/open?id=1fyPprOgxwIQq-WIHHFMS_c7LRh9iWe2D
https/drive.google.com/open?id=1XyJJ-IeI56-NQvvLp_fPSK8GBk5nj9oH

 

[Prostar Computer]

The VRMs get too hot and cannot deliver enough power to the CPU and the GPU - VRMs getting too hot is a known issue in XPS 15 9560 but it would be this bad I never imagined!

Well of course. "The XPS is not a gaming laptop and the it is designed so as to throttle whenever temperature reaches above 70C."

If it's faulty by design, it's up to you on what you decide to do with it. There might be mods you can employ, but if you have any warranty, I'm guessing you can say goodbye to it if you try. If just the AC adapter, under warranty or not, you should be able to acquire a new one fairly easily.