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fiskjavel

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fiskjavel

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May 3rd, 2020 04:00

XPS 9300 reducing speed when battery drops below 15%?

Hello

 

Is it possible that the XPS13 9300 is reducing CPU speed when the battery level falls below 15%? I notice a strong drop in performance around that mark which affects usability. Is there a way to disable this behaviour? Since the 9300 doesn't last a full working day on a charge anyway, I don't mind so much that I have to charge it faster, but I'd prefer if it maintain full speed throughout.

 

Cheers

  • ejn63

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    Posted May 3rd, 2020 07:00

    It's very possible - but you shouldn't routinely run a battery that low anyway.  Doing so will appreciably shorten its lifespan - and likely hasten the swelling of the battery that happens to many of these at end of life.

    The three surest ways to shorten the life of a lithium ion or polymer battery:

    Overheating

    Overcharging

    Deep-discharging.

     

  • fiskjavel

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    Posted May 3rd, 2020 08:00

    That doesn't apply if the battery is managed by firmware. When the battery 'runs out' it hasn't actually run out, it's just the firmware saying so. So you can absolutely use your notebook battery until it 1%. Overcharging and overheating are impossible for the same reasons.

  • Gilbou92

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    Posted May 6th, 2020 11:00

    Please don't let your battery go below 15 %

    At 15 % or below, turn it off until it's plugged and charged (don't disconnect before 80 %, dont let it run all the time plugged once at 100 %)

  • fiskjavel

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    Posted May 10th, 2020 07:00

    Guys you are living in the past and dealing out incorrect advice. On an ultrabook 15% can be many hours so it'd be ridiculous not to use the battery's full potential.

     

    Can someone from Dell confirm whether there's CPU undervolting going on and if there's a way around it?

  • ejn63

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    Posted May 10th, 2020 08:00

    It's unlikely.  More likely, as the battery nears empty, its voltage is decreasing, which is why the system slows down.

    Lithium ion batteries have remarkably flat voltage output over time, but EVERY battery, no matter the chemistry, will see a voltage drop as it nears empty.

     

  • jphughan

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    Posted May 10th, 2020 10:00

    @fiskjavel  It's true that overcharging is prevented by firmware.  But it's also still true that running a battery near empty shortens its lifespan.  Yes, on modern ultrabooks 15% remaining life can mean a lot more usable TIME than it has in the past -- but that doesn't mean that the chemistry of the lithium-ion batteries has changed.  And if 15% means hours of usable time on your laptop, it also means that the 85% you already consumed was a huge amount of time, so you could (and SHOULD) have charged your battery up again long before you ever got down to 15%.  Obviously it's your PC so you can use it however you prefer, but don't delude yourself into thinking that this thinking is all from the past.

    The major things that wear out lithium-ion batteries are being actively discharged -- especially deeply discharged -- and also being kept topped up at max capacity all the time.  That last point is why for example Tesla vehicles limit themselves to an 80% charge unless you specifically specify that you want a Max Range Charge, which you have to specify every time you want it; you can't make that the default.  And it's why Dell and many other laptop vendors offer BIOS settings allowing you to limit your max charge capacity.  iOS has recently implemented a routine whereby when you plug your phone/tablet in for charging overnight, the phone will only charge itself to 80% initially and sit there for most of the night, and it and will wait until shortly before it expects you to unplug it in the morning (based on machine learning, checking your calendar/alarm, etc.) before charging all the way up to 100%.

    I have my own laptop set to never charge past 80%, and then I also set a MINIMUM charge level of 50%.  This means that once my battery reaches 80%, when the system is running on AC power, it does NOT keep the battery topped up.  It doesn't actively drain it either since it's still using AC power to run, but instead the battery is allowed to "self-discharge" down to 50%, which will take several days, and only THEN will the firmware charge the battery back up to 80%.  Since my laptop spends the vast majority of its time plugged in, this means that my battery spends the vast majority of its time completely idle, i.e. not being charged, nor actively discharged, nor being kept topped up.  That's the best possible setup for longevity.  Of course the possible inconvenience is that if you have to disconnect your system from AC power unexpectedly, you might only have a 50% charge available.

  • jphughan

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    Posted May 10th, 2020 10:00

    @fiskjavel  one additional note: With respect to the firmware just saying the battery has run out even when it hasn't, the nature of battery controllers is that the estimated remaining capacity is always an estimate, and it gets less precise as the battery drains.  The reason is that as ejn63 already said, lithium-ion batteries maintain a remarkably consistent voltage until their capacity reaches very near the end, then the voltage drops off a cliff.  Some other battery chemistries have a voltage that drops off linearly with capacity.  The problem this creates is that it's difficult to predict exactly how much capacity a lithium-ion battery has left.  This is why you might have seen your device keep operating at a reported 1% capacity for far longer than it "should" have based on the estimated drain rate up until that point.  It's also why laptops can die unexpectedly when the battery was reported to have 5-10% capacity remaining.  In both cases, the battery controller estimated remaining capacity incorrectly.  Smart battery controllers will use full discharge events like this to revise their estimates going forward, so in that sense they can be helpful, but they also do reduce longevity.

    The advice shared here is not incorrect advice based on people living in the past.  It's still completely current and correct advice that is rooted in the chemistry of lithium-ion batteries.  Laptops are still using lithium-ion batteries, and there have not been any major changes to their chemistry that change these fundamental principles.

  • fiskjavel

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    Posted May 13th, 2020 06:00

    Fair enough - but it is still not an answer to my question: how do I keep operating at full speed. I bought this laptop for its presumed long battery life. I often work full working days away from home. I need 8 hrs and I need them at full speed. Saying that I shouldn't use my laptop once the battery drops below 15% isn't addressing the problem, much less helping me.

  • RuskinF

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    Posted May 13th, 2020 07:00

    Apart from the solutions presented by other members over here, I would like to add...

    To plug in the laptop to a socket and charge the battery while working.

    This will ensure that you can discharge your tasks on the laptop and it would charge itself as well.

  • jphughan

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    Posted May 13th, 2020 09:00

    @fiskjavel  Go to Start > Settings > System > Battery and make sure the "Turn battery saver on automatically if my battery falls below" setting is disabled.  Battery Saver reduces performance -- but if you turn it off, obviously expect reduced battery life.