Solved Alienware m14x r1 laptop performs poor on battery

[logo897]

hi all,

just have a quick question:

why is it that when I play a game on my alienware laptop, for example black ops 1, that my fps drops drastically when I go on battery power?

I get over 100 fps with the ac adapter plugged in the laptop, but it goes down to 30 when i unplug it.

This concerns me for when I travel in the future and have battery only for a certain period of time.

hopefully there's an easy solution to this.. thanks

So far I have changed the power plan settings and made sure the nvidia gpu was the default. still no luck.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

This was an answer I found on superuser.com and I think it answers your question spot on.

Running a high-performance GPU at full speed while on battery can damage the battery or require more power than the battery can safely supply

• High-performance mobile GPUs can require significant amounts of power to operate at full speed. The GTX 765M requires 75 W, while top-of-the-line mobile GPUs like the GTX 780M and GTX 980M can consume up to 122 W.
  
  
• The GPU is not the only power-hungry part in a laptop. A modern Intel performance mobile CPU typically draws about 47 W at full power. In addition, you need to power other system components, such as the display, disk, and USB peripherals. When you add it all up, you might need anywhere from 140 W to 200 W to operate a gaming laptop under full load depending on your system configuration.
  
  
• A typical battery in a gaming laptop can store about 60-80 Wh of energy. Most Li-ion batteries are not designed to be discharged faster than twice their Wh rating per hour (2C). In addition, sustained discharge at rates exceeding 1C can significantly reduce the overall service life of the battery. Continuously pulling 150 W or more from a typical 77 Wh battery is not a great idea and your battery could overheat and fail or even catch fire. While it's likely the battery's own protection circuitry would shut down the battery if overloaded or overheated, a device should never subject its battery to an unsafe load at any time during operation.
  
  
• To avoid overloading the battery, the GPU will typically throttle to a lower clock speed. The GTX 780M on my personal laptop will not run faster than about 400 Mhz when on battery. Lower clock speeds reduce power consumption not only by having transistors switch less rapidly, but also by allowing lower core voltages—power consumption and heat dissipation scale with the square of voltage.

Cheers, /Boris

 

[logo897]

Ah that makes sense.

Thanks and my other question is that if I switch it to integrated and try a game, will it perform better than 30 fps. Should I try it or will the battery get damaged?

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

Yeah no problem happy to help, well I would stick to doing light things when on battery and when in the wall do more power consuming stuff.

I mean honestly both you and me don't want to see your laptop turn into mush.

 

[logo897]

Alright that's a good idea to me! I'll mark this as solved now