Vyper 17 Slow on Battery

[Redcloud]

I've put the laptop through more testing and restarted it a couple of times and now I have the exact same problem as @GiuFam !
During a cinebench run I get random drops in the CPU clocks and lower cinebench results: 1866 points.
So yeah the EC update is pretty much useless...

 

[barlew]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all for your feedback regarding this. I have given this to TongFang for further review as the beta of this EC did not exhibit this behaviour.

@barlew It sounds like this EC is not one that is intended for your particular chassis. Would you be able to tell me the exact model of your chassis? I'll sort out the correct version of the EC for you and send it over if it does indeed use a different version.

Chris

So I have just experienced what the other guys are saying. This fix has certainly improved the issue however my laptop started displaying performance issues just as aggressively as before.

My laptop has just entered probably the last quarter of battery life and video playback has started to lock up, lag and desynchronise the image and sound track.

The OS locks up completely and stutters really badly. As before this can all be viewed in HWMonitor, when the CPU package power drops below around 10W all of the cores throttle back aggressively to around 780 MHz and the laptop is unusable for a good few seconds until the CPU stabilises.

I accept that all laptops performance decrease when on battery and I fully understand that, however they do not lock up completely or lag when doing basic things like watch Youtube or use office apps.

So that's the bad news the good news is it appears to be improved in so much as it happens far less frequently at least for me however I think there is still work to be done as I do not accept that this is normal.

 

[GiuFam]

@PCS_Chris

some news from tongfang? they said something about our new reports?

 

[PCS_Chris]

Hi guys,

I've been pressing for further information from TongFang about this issue. It looks like the power output of the battery is what's causing the issues at the deepest level. To quote directly from the manufacturer:

"
This phenomenon occurs because of the normal setting of our EC: once the current exceeds 6A, the battery may be burned down if the duration is long. To avoid this risk, when the current exceeds 6A, we will reduce all GPIO & Prohot & PL setting & D state, and everything will return to normal after 5 seconds.
"

This explains why we're seeing drops down to 800MHz on the CPU during heavy loads and a little about the whole system slowdowns on very low battery.

I'm asking for some form of resolution from them regarding perhaps reducing the throttling when current exceeds 6A or alternatively providing better batteries that are able to handle an increased current load.

That's all we have so far unfortunately. I'll relay on any major updates to you guys as and when they come through.

Many thanks,

Chris

 

[GiuFam]

Hi guys,

I've been pressing for further information from TongFang about this issue. It looks like the power output of the battery is what's causing the issues at the deepest level. To quote directly from the manufacturer:

"
This phenomenon occurs because of the normal setting of our EC: once the current exceeds 6A, the battery may be burned down if the duration is long. To avoid this risk, when the current exceeds 6A, we will reduce all GPIO & Prohot & PL setting & D state, and everything will return to normal after 5 seconds.
"

This explains why we're seeing drops down to 800MHz on the CPU during heavy loads and a little about the whole system slowdowns on very low battery.

I'm asking for some form of resolution from them regarding perhaps reducing the throttling when current exceeds 6A or alternatively providing better batteries that are able to handle an increased current load.

That's all we have so far unfortunately. I'll relay on any major updates to you guys as and when they come through.

Many thanks,

Chris

the strange thing is that it not shown only when battery is low... i tested carefully and the drops are present even immediately unplugged from charger. The drop begins immediately when there's a high load on cpu (for example starting a big program like photoshop or using a cpu only benchmark). Anyway i trust what they said, seems to be right the explanation... just hope in a solution! Is not great to see this beast go like a old i3 4000y ulv when using under battery

Huge thank you for your support! Keep us updated when you have more news!

 

[barlew]

Hi guys,

I've been pressing for further information from TongFang about this issue. It looks like the power output of the battery is what's causing the issues at the deepest level. To quote directly from the manufacturer:

"
This phenomenon occurs because of the normal setting of our EC: once the current exceeds 6A, the battery may be burned down if the duration is long. To avoid this risk, when the current exceeds 6A, we will reduce all GPIO & Prohot & PL setting & D state, and everything will return to normal after 5 seconds.
"

This explains why we're seeing drops down to 800MHz on the CPU during heavy loads and a little about the whole system slowdowns on very low battery.

I'm asking for some form of resolution from them regarding perhaps reducing the throttling when current exceeds 6A or alternatively providing better batteries that are able to handle an increased current load.

That's all we have so far unfortunately. I'll relay on any major updates to you guys as and when they come through.

Many thanks,

Chris

So reading between the lines here they have just confirmed my musings in the Throttlestop Configuration guide I wrote. The reason this is happening is because they have configured the laptop in a way which will allow them to advertise enormous battery running times to the extreme detriment of usability.

Thanks for keeping at them @PCS_Chris, a battery upgrade is not necessary all they need to do is increase the PL states to an acceptable level. The problem for them is then they will not be able to advertise the battery times that they currently are.

Unless of course what they are saying here is they have fitted their laptops with substandard batteries and they literally mean the laptop battery will burn out under a normal user load.....

 

[Redcloud]

the strange thing is that it not shown only when battery is low... i tested carefully and the drops are present even immediately unplugged from charger. The drop begins immediately when there's a high load on cpu (for example starting a big program like photoshop or using a cpu only benchmark). Anyway i trust what they said, seems to be right the explanation... just hope in a solution! Is not great to see this beast go like a old i3 4000y ulv when using under battery

Yep, same here, I'm experiencing this issue even when the battery is at 100%.

The chassis sold by the US reseller works great, so there is solution to this for sure.

 

[Redcloud]

which will allow them to advertise enormous battery running times to the extreme detriment of usability.

The chassis sold by the US reseller have really good battery (6-7h youtube) without this issue though. And I think they have the same battery.

 

[barlew]

The chassis sold by the US reseller have really good battery (6-7h youtube) without this issue though. And I think they have the same battery.

Yeh but you have to remember they are only getting that when the screen brightness is turned down and all background apps are disabled along with the LED strip and keyboard. I am more interested in real world battery life as I for one wont be massively reducing my laptops usability just to get 7 hours battery life out of it.

You are correct though the American resellers don't appear to have the same issue presumably because they are selling a version of the chassis with a different configuration.

 

[Redcloud]

Yeh but you have to remember they are only getting that when the screen brightness is turned down and all background apps are disabled along with the LED strip and keyboard. I am more interested in real world battery life as I for one wont be massively reducing my laptops usability just to get 7 hours battery life out of it.

This is exactly how I use my unit on battery and I dont feel like the usability is reduced at all, this is just turning off the gimmicks.
Different strokes for different folks.

presumably because they are selling a version of the chassis with a different configuration.

The only thing I can think of that is different is the BIOS/EC and maybe the 2933/3200MHz RAM.

 

[GiuFam]

So reading between the lines here they have just confirmed my musings in the Throttlestop Configuration guide I wrote. The reason this is happening is because they have configured the laptop in a way which will allow them to advertise enormous battery running times to the extreme detriment of usability.

Thanks for keeping at them @PCS_Chris, a battery upgrade is not necessary all they need to do is increase the PL states to an acceptable level. The problem for them is then they will not be able to advertise the battery times that they currently are.

Unless of course what they are saying here is they have fitted their laptops with substandard batteries and they literally mean the laptop battery will burn out under a normal user load.....

i have the bad feeling that we have to live with the problem (and so on use your own guide of TS to live with it)...

 

[Redcloud]

i have the bad feeling that we have to live with the problem (and so on use your own guide of TS to live with it)...

There is no way I'll accept that, if that is the case I will ask for a refund.

 

[barlew]

This is exactly how I use my unit on battery and I dont feel like the usability is reduced at all, this is just turning off the gimmicks.
Different strokes for different folks.


The only thing I can think of that is different is the BIOS/EC and maybe the 2933/3200MHz RAM.

Nice how you stealth edited your post.

So you are telling me that turning your screen brightness right down along with disabling all background programs and just running YouTube on a browser to get the advertised battery life is just getting rid of a gimmick?

Come on its a pretty narrow use case and should not be used to advertise real world battery life.

*edited* for further context

 

[Redcloud]

Nice how you stealth edited your post.

what are you talking about ?

So you are telling me that turning your screen brightness right down along with disabling all background programs and just running YouTube on a browser to get the advertised battery life is just getting rid of a gimmick?

As I said: Different strokes for different folks.
Yep, I use my laptop with the brightness at 30-50% and with all background apps disabled even when pluged in. Obviously I don't use my laptop only for YouTube. I do some productivity and CAD work and get some pretty good battery life out of my settings. I don't game, render or run simulations on battery anyways.

 

[Redcloud]

Come on its a pretty narrow use case and should not be used to advertise real world battery life.

that I agree on though.

 

[barlew]

what are you talking about ?

As I said: Different strokes for different folks.
Yep, I use my laptop with the brightness at 30-50% and with all background apps disabled even when pluged in. Obviously I don't use my laptop only for YouTube. I do some productivity and CAD work and get some pretty good battery life out of my settings. I don't game, render or run simulations on battery anyways.

And herein lies my point. The reviews that have rated the battery at around 7hrs openly admit that the test was through leaving the laptop just running YouTube videos for 7 hours. That is not a realistic use case and there fore should not be used as a benchmark for the battery life of this laptop.

The stealth edit referred to the fact you edited your initial post in a way which gave it very different context and meaning to your original post and you did not highlight the fact.

I am not disputing this laptop has good battery life because it does but touting a 6-7 hr life is not realistic.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I have no doubt that PCS will get a fix out via EC BIOS update, no doubt at all, just with the way things are currently, may take a little trial and error.

 

[raygun57]

Please ask TongFang for the BIOS/EC that they developed for the USA distributor. That combo seems to have great performance and adds a number of improvements to the current options.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Please ask TongFang for the BIOS/EC that they developed for the USA distributor. That combo seems to have great performance and adds a number of improvements to the current options.

It's not TongFang that made the BIOS, it's the distributor that makes the BIOSes.

PCS are doing what they can in working with TongFang to correct the issue.

 

[GiuFam]

It's not TongFang that made the BIOS, it's the distributor that makes the BIOSes.

PCS are doing what they can in working with TongFang to correct the issue.

that's great, hope they will sort it out soon!

But as raygun and redcloud said i think should be nice if pcs can read here and offer more bios option like other vendors, such as ram tuning or increasing undervolt via bios (at least -70mv should be nice compared to actual -50mv). In the end we buy those machines as pro users, almost most of us here know what we are doing doing (for example i buyed it for mux and unlocked xtu interface compared to other machines). So, should be nice maybe to insert via a key combination on the bios an andvanced setting mode such as msi does in the new gs and ge series. If someone is a noob for sure they not find this section... but give who have the knowledge of such thing the possibility to tune our machine to it's best.