Question Dell XPS with GREAT SPECS but EXTREMELY SLOW benchmarks

[recycleking]

This is my first post here, so please be gentle.

About a year ago, I bought a refurb Dell XPS desktop direct from Dell. I have had good experiences with them in the past. Here are the specs:

• 12th Gen i9 12900K
• 64 GB DDR5 SDRAM PC5 38400
• Samsung SSD 2TB
• Nvideia Geforce RTX 3080
• Windows 11 Pro

I am not sure if I had just not noticed it before, or something changed recently, but I felt like the computer was running sluggish. For example, it takes over 30 seconds to boot, which is unusual given the specs. I decided to run some diagnostics, so I downloaded Performance Test 11.0 and most of my benchmarks are extremely low.

Notably, here are some random results:

• CPU Mark: 3436 (11th percentile)
• RAM Latency: 174 (<1% percentile)
• DirectX 12 Score: 12 (27th percentile)
• The rest of the scores are ALL low too (graphics, cpu, ram, etc)

Here are things I have already done:

• Made sure I have all the latest drivers and windows updates
• Set BIOS settings to default
• Removed basically everything from the windows start-up sequence (no change)
• Ran several malware searches (nothing came up)
• Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic (everything passed)
• Ran Dell Internal Diagnostic from boot window (everything passed)
• Removed RAM chips one at a time, rebooted, and ran Memory Latency (same bad results each time)

Any idea what could be causing this?

 

[COLGeek]

This was a couple months ago via the Dell Update app. I just checked for updates again and its telling me the system is fully up-to-date.

I was just reading up a bit, and it appears that the CPU may lock into idle if its getting insufficient power. Do you think this could be a power supply issue?

Possibly, Dell PSUs are generally pretty robust and engineered well for the systems they are put in. Seems like a longshot.

What about running the full diagnostic?

 

[recycleking]

The voltage to the cpu is locked in at 0.750V. Based on a quick google search, it seems that this is lower than the range that would be expected for a 12900 processor.

Any thoughts on that?

 

[COLGeek]

Yes, seems low. That is why I think you need to bite the bullet and run the full diagnostic. There is definitely a CPU related issue here.

 

[recycleking]

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

I found some articles saying that others have had the same issue with the xps 8950. When the bios got updated to the latest bios, the system was getting locked into CPU clock speeds of 399 MHz . I downgraded the bios from the latest 1.16.0 to version 1.10.0 and everything is now working perfectly.

There are mixed reviews on what happens when you upgrade back to 1.16.0. Some people say the problem comes right back. Other say that it works fine once you re-upgrade.

I am going to just enjoy my computer working for now at 1.10.0 and ill try messing with it again in a couple days. Thanks for all your help!!!

 

[COLGeek]

Glad you worked through it. Well done!