I’m the guy who wrote the 59-page report on (Score 2, Interesting)

Even though I first started figuring this out 5 months ago (and others have been complaining about it online since late 2008) this is STILL an unresolved problem, at least for the E6500 (I don’t have an E6400 I can test with).

New information since my report:
1. Not only is the CPU deliberately throttled, but if it’s warm enough, even the GPU is severely throttled (for the E6500 systems that have the optional discrete NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M - I don’t have an integrated Intel graphics model to test).
2. It’s definitely a BIOS issue – if they would just unhoark the ACPI code that (secretly) cripples the system so easily, it would save incalculable frustration (and resentment) among Dell’s users.
3. I’ve been relentlessly trying to work with Dell to get this fixed. No dice so far. I’m currently working with a Team Lead at Dell’s Round Rock, TX “Resolution Expert Center” (REC). I had to go through 2 of their staff before I even got someone who understood the problem (they weren’t very “expert”). Before that, I probably talked to about 15 various tech support folks before they would even escalate to the REC.

Nailing this thing down and trying to get it fixed has been an epic journey so far. It’s fascinating to me how far Dell has fallen (that’s part of why I’m so interested in following up on this). I used to be a huge Dell fan back in the day when they kicked butt. These days they’ve lost their way. They continue to lose market share (they’ve given up their #2 spot in worldwide PC sales to Acer recently, having already given up the #1 spot to HP). Meanwhile they’re selling corporate-class desktop-replacement “performance” laptops that will deliberately and secretly cripple themselves into utter uselessness at warmish room temperatures. And they can’t/won’t fix the problem even months after it’s pointed out to them in excruciating clinical detail. No wonder they’re losing their core business. Instead they idly ponder selling mobile phones in China. Sheesh.

Here's a couple snippets from recent communication with my contact at Dell:

“I'd like draw your attention to how Dell portrays this system in its
printed catalog: "pure business performance designed for the most
demanding applications" (p. 27, October 2009, key code 65051).
I'm not sure whether the same verbiage was used back when I bought the
system last year, but it was clear that this was not a "budget" model - it
was the new, top-of-the-line dockable executive desktop replacement system
with a price tag of about $2000 including the dock. I still hold the
conviction that a "performance" system "designed for the most demanding
applications" should not ever cripple its own processing power within its
specified operating environment (and in particular should not do so
secretly). But can we at least get to the point where it throttles the
same way docked as it does undocked and sitting on a table?”

“In my last two positions in IT management, going back to 1995, Dell was
pretty much all I would buy and I was a big fan. I always gave my bosses
dockable Dell laptops. But if I was an IT manager and found out that my
boss's $2000 executive performance laptop slowed to a crawl when he tried
to work from his porch at home, and I went through the long hours of
tracking this well-hidden problem down only to discover that Dell was
doing this on purpose and, effectively, in secret, you can be damn sure I
would never make the mistake of buying a Dell laptop again and I would
look with a wary sideways glance at any other Dell system as well.
Honestly.”