Loosing my mind, over XPS 14 9440 CPU power throttling

Power throttling in laptops occurs when the system reduces the performance of the CPU to manage power consumption and heat generation. This can happen under various conditions:

• Power Profiles: Using "Balanced" or "Dell" power profiles can lead to quicker returns to lower clock speeds, which may throttle performance during CPU-intensive tasks. Switching to "High Performance" allows the CPU to maintain higher clock speeds for longer periods, beneficial for processing large amounts of data.
• Hybrid Power Design: In systems with hybrid power designs, the laptop can draw power from both the AC adapter and the battery to prevent throttling until the battery level drops below 20%. If the battery is fully charged, it stops charging to prolong battery life.
• External Power Connection: When connecting an external power source, some laptops may experience a momentary drop in CPU speed as the system adjusts to the new power input. This is a normal behavior and not indicative of a fault.
• Thermal Management: The processor may throttle to reduce heat generation, especially during heavy workloads or if the system is idle for power savings.

If throttling persists or affects performance significantly, consider adjusting power profiles or contacting Dell Technical Support for further assistance.

To receive assistance from Dell chat support, they need to verify the warranty status and ownership. Then you must troubleshoot with them.  Click the "Get Help Now" icon on the right to start a live chat session. If already out of warranty, click here for the Dell out of warranty offering.

@DELL-Jesse L​ Thanks for your response, im just adding a droplet to the sea of dicontent, from the other users, experiencing the same problem. I think it would be really great to have an option to override these extremely strange CPU limitations, because i can clearly see, that at least my XPS 14 9440-s cooling system is capable of handling much more than miserable 18W sustained on CPU. The modern power limitations are completely not understandable to me, because they seem to be artificial, and not responsive of the real-world hardware capabilities, as it was pre 11-th gen. Intels. Throttling the performance of the processor, while being lower than 80C, (in a laptop!!) - is just crazy to me.

(It's also much much cooler than 17 9700 to the touch, so i assume, that temperatirer readouts are correct.)*

I have the same experience with a WD19TB and 180W PSU, with the stock 65W brick and other power supplies.

And of course i've tried different performance modes...

The only thing, thats left to try is - rendering or playing outdoors or in the fridge.

So I'll just repeat it again - it would be AMAZING to have a better control overe the device, that you own.

For now, this beautifull, capable and a bit quirky machine just makes me sad.

Every system is designed with a set of performance parameters in mind, dictated in part by the form factor.  There's a world of difference in the cooling capacity of a 17" notebook vs. a 14" one, so there's a thermodynamic limit to the 14" one that's much higher in the 17" model.

That said, there's also a design lifespan to consider (which you're rendered irrelevant here with your application of liquid metal, which itself will be the limiting factor in how long the system functions.  It will eventually destroy the system -- probably in months rather than years.  Adding it certainly voided any warranty on the system.  The hotter a system runs, the less lifespan it will have 

Further the 18W is only the CPU draw -- the GPU draws far more power than that when the system is running at high performance levels.

Very few manufacturers have succeeded at producing 14" or smaller notebooks with high performance levels.

Bottom line:  you're asking questions that indicate you chose the wrong system for your intended purpose.  

Well, I'd say that my experience with the "set of performance parameters in mind" on the XPS 17 9700 was not the best either (discharging while being at full load, with its 130W supply), but i was able to tweak most of the things to work worlds better than the stock DELL's variant (undervolting and by-core top frequency limitation gave me about a 30W headroom - wild stuff, huh? (no more, i guess ...)), and that's what this post is all about. Just give the user control over the machine he owns.

I dont care about the warranty, got it used, and to be sincere, there were exactly 0 times, when warranty saved my money or time.

I'm well aware of what I am doing to my system, but sure - would be interested to get some information on killing my laptop with LM, sitting between silicon die and copper tubes ...

By the way, system throttles the same way, while pushing the CPU alone.

While in Turbo it reaches almost 45W, for a few seconds and never breaks 80C.

And yep, GPU is just fine at 25W and 66C, so i really dont see any signs of thermodynamic limits.

And at last, fun fact - this laptop can also be discharged, with it's stock 65W block, which seems like a suboptimal choise for it's battery "design lifespan" or whatever is the excuse for limiting more and more ways to tweak the system, each year.