Dell G7 - i7-8750h - Very Slow on Battery

[mmx4000]

Discovered an interesting issue with the Dell G7 and the i7-8750H processor (system I have includes 16GB RAM, GTX 1060MaxQ). System runs very well for all the tasks I throw at it when it is connected to the AC power (Virtual machines, gaming, even CPU intensive tasks such as 7zip). However the experience changes completely when I switch to battery power.

 

Now I don't expect miracles when running solely off of battery power, but the CPU throttles down to a meager 0.8GHz with a TDP limit of ~15W. As you can imagine, this makes even the general use cases of browsing, moving windows around, and opening folders a rather slow / choppy experience. As soon as I plug the power source back in, it bumps right up to between 3 and 4 GHz, and the TDP shoots back up to 45W and higher with Turbo Boost. All drivers and BIOS have been flashed to the latest versions. Even Dell tech support was stumped as to why this is happening. I know I'm not the only user facing this issue as there is a post on the Dell community forum with others having this same issue.

 

Thinking this might have to do something with power management settings in Windows 10, I tried setting everything I can think of and then some. Nothing changes this behaviour. Even played with Throttlestop but with no results. Lastly, I booted up an Ubuntu install on a usb drive and did a stress test with the exact same results. 3+ GHz in AC power, 800MHz on battery. So I'm guessing this is an issue with the firmware/BIOS implementation that Dell chose for this laptop model. There is no such option to change this style of power management in the BIOS. Now I'm left guessing if this is the intended behaviour or if this is an actual issue?

 

Is this a reasonable behaviour for this era of 8th gen processors? My previous Dell Latitude running a 4th gen i7 was able to pump out 30W or more to the CPU to keep performance strong when on battery power. It feels really bad when this brand new G7 performs worse than a 4 year old laptop when comparing their battery power performance.

[genexis_x]

Maybe just a bad firmware/BIOS. Your case is really weird

[Joshblck1]

On 8/27/2018 at 2:48 PM, mmx4000 said:

Discovered an interesting issue with the Dell G7 and the i7-8750H processor (system I have includes 16GB RAM, GTX 1060MaxQ). System runs very well for all the tasks I throw at it when it is connected to the AC power (Virtual machines, gaming, even CPU intensive tasks such as 7zip). However the experience changes completely when I switch to battery power.

 

Now I don't expect miracles when running solely off of battery power, but the CPU throttles down to a meager 0.8GHz with a TDP limit of ~15W. As you can imagine, this makes even the general use cases of browsing, moving windows around, and opening folders a rather slow / choppy experience. As soon as I plug the power source back in, it bumps right up to between 3 and 4 GHz, and the TDP shoots back up to 45W and higher with Turbo Boost. All drivers and BIOS have been flashed to the latest versions. Even Dell tech support was stumped as to why this is happening. I know I'm not the only user facing this issue as there is a post on the Dell community forum with others having this same issue.

 

Thinking this might have to do something with power management settings in Windows 10, I tried setting everything I can think of and then some. Nothing changes this behaviour. Even played with Throttlestop but with no results. Lastly, I booted up an Ubuntu install on a usb drive and did a stress test with the exact same results. 3+ GHz in AC power, 800MHz on battery. So I'm guessing this is an issue with the firmware/BIOS implementation that Dell chose for this laptop model. There is no such option to change this style of power management in the BIOS. Now I'm left guessing if this is the intended behaviour or if this is an actual issue?

 

Is this a reasonable behaviour for this era of 8th gen processors? My previous Dell Latitude running a 4th gen i7 was able to pump out 30W or more to the CPU to keep performance strong when on battery power. It feels really bad when this brand new G7 performs worse than a 4 year old laptop when comparing their battery power performance.

This!! This is my second g7 in two days and it’s doing the same thing! I thought the first one was a malfunction. I really really hope dell hears us and figures this out in a firmware release! My laptop is almost useless unplugged! 

[DellG7]

Yeah i dont unplug mine lmao fml.

[Faruk]

This is not nice. Experiencing the same issues. Once not plugged in, it becomes like any other normal Laptop. Even Worse Sometimes.

[mmx4000]

3 hours ago, Faruk said:

This is not nice. Experiencing the same issues. Once not plugged in, it becomes like any other normal Laptop. Even Worse Sometimes.

Update the bios firmware. This solved the issue for me a few months ago. I believe bios version 1.5 is what I'm running.

[genexis_x]

9 hours ago, mmx4000 said:

Update the bios firmware. This solved the issue for me a few months ago. I believe bios version 1.5 is what I'm running.

Did the latest BIOS slow down the fan speed and cause throttling?