[SOLVED] CPU consuming too much wattage at idle !

[mohitakundi]

I have an MSI GL63 laptop with an i5 9300h cpu and GTX 1660ti graphics. The battery life has been ok till a few days ago where it gave me around 3-4 hours when watching a movie.
Suddenly a few days ago, battery life became terrible ! Less than 2 hours.
After some checking, I realised my cpu is constantly drawing 12-15 watts on idle !
With just 3% cpu usage and 800mhz. I remember my cpu used to idle at 2-3 watts. I have no idea what the hell just happened. I tried restarting, uninstalled and reinstalled msi dragon center, tried everything. Nothing makes a difference !
Would be great if anyone could help me out

 

[rgd1101]

malware scan the laptop?

 

[DeauteratedDog]

For sure a malware scan, but it is probably something benign that is using just enough CPU to keep it in a higher-power state.

Try rebooting, and don't start anything except task manager, give it a couple of hours, then check the total cpu time value - the accumulated time will stand out more than the % time.

 

[mohitakundi]

Did a malware scan sometime ago, nothing.
Here's a screenshot of Intel XTU

 

[mohitakundi]

Also, there is this eco mode in msi dragon center that sets power limits to around 10 watts. The laptop was still usable and it used to hover around 1.4-1.8ghz. Now it's completely unusable in that mode since it's constantly running above 10W and clock speed throttles to 800mhz.

CPU time history doesnt tell much either, it's just Edge, movies &tv , etc

 

[DeauteratedDog]

I've had this happen to me a couple of times, I don't usually notice because of battery life, but when I pick up the laptop, I'll notice it is warmer than usual.

Once it was some soft phone thing, once it was something to do with my headphones.

I found it by killing programs until it went away - for instance, right now, I have processes for all the stuff I know I'm running (browsers, outlook, putty, excel), plus about 5 or 6 processes that have to do with gotomeeting (used it this morning), 5 or 6 that have to do with webex (also used this morning), a bunch of headphone stuff, etc, etc, hundreds of things running in the background. Most do something vaguely useful, but not really critical.

Shutdown everything you can, then start killing stuff - start with non-system type stuff that you recognize. Eventually, you will kill something that drops the CPU utilization (or crashes the system )

 

[mohitakundi]

Okay, I have no idea what is happening, I just wanted to game for a bit and opened msi afterburner. Suddenly, idle wattage dropped to 1W. For some reason, opening afterburner, solved the issue. But I have no idea why this is the case because afterburner deals with the GPU, it shouldn't have anything to do with the CPU...

 

[The_Prophecy]

The fact that Afterburner is installed and running on your computer means it deals with the CPU. Everything that runs on the system has to. Now as far as what it might have been doing in the background that would cause it to use more of the CPU than it would as an active application that you have literally in front of your eyes, I'm a bit stumped.

 

[mohitakundi]

That's the wierd part, afterburner does not run until and unless I launch it, so it wasn't running in the background.
Though I did apply a GPU undervolt, so maybe that did something to un-mess the cpu ?

 

[The_Prophecy]

It wouldn't interact with the CPU like that... only in the sense that because you started the application, it had to be loaded and processed by the CPU like all applications. And as far as it not running in the background, are you absolutely sure about that? If memory serves, Afterburner installs a service that runs in the background for I think some OSD component? It's been awhile since I've used it myself so it may have since been removed.

Either way, the point I'm trying to make here is that it not being in front of your face on your desktop, has no real bearing on whether it or at least some component of it is actually running. If that were the case, malware and viruses would be SUPER easy to detect, and probably even easier to remove.

 

[mohitakundi]

It wouldn't interact with the CPU like that... only in the sense that because you started the application, it had to be loaded and processed by the CPU like all applications. And as far as it not running in the background, are you absolutely sure about that? If memory serves, Afterburner installs a service that runs in the background for I think some OSD component? It's been awhile since I've used it myself so it may have since been removed.

Either way, the point I'm trying to make here is that it not being in front of your face on your desktop, has no real bearing on whether it or at least some component of it is actually running. If that were the case, malware and viruses would be SUPER easy to detect, and probably even easier to remove.

I'm 99% sure it wasn't running in the background. I disabled it from startup and removed all it's triggers from task scheduler. I had xtu running with the CPU drawing 12W at idle. I opened msi afterburner and applied a GPU undervolt (using the voltage/frequency curve) and immediately, the CPU wattage dropped to 1W-2W . Eco mode is also working perfectly now, no power limit issues. Some weird software conflict for sure, i'll need to investigate further. Thanks for the help though !

Yes, the OSD component is Rivatuner statistics.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Ok good, you did actually check. I've dealt with far too many who think they understand that but don't really know how to properly interpret or verify what they are seeing (or not seeing). Not personal or anything (certainly not intended that way anyway) but that's where the assumption comes from. Thanks for confirming those steps as well.

I definitely agree though... the timing with that immediate CPU power draw drop does seem very strange. As CPU clocks and power settings are usually dealt with in the BIOS directly instead of from within Windows, I can really only speculate as to why this happened. Some OEM's do bundle applications for making those kinds of adjustments to the CPU from within Windows, but in my experience they always require a reboot of the system to take effect.

 

[mohitakundi]

Ok good, you did actually check. I've dealt with far too many who think they understand that but don't really know how to properly interpret or verify what they are seeing (or not seeing). Not personal or anything (certainly not intended that way anyway) but that's where the assumption comes from. Thanks for confirming those steps as well.

I definitely agree though... the timing with that immediate CPU power draw drop does seem very strange. As CPU clocks and power settings are usually dealt with in the BIOS directly instead of from within Windows, I can really only speculate as to why this happened. Some OEM's do bundle applications for making those kinds of adjustments to the CPU from within Windows, but in my experience they always require a reboot of the system to take effect.

I can understand where you're coming from, it's cool !
Normally, I don't like to deal with so many OEM apps, but Dragon center lets me limit the battery charge to 60 or 80% which is quite helpful...
The ONLY theory I can come up with, is that Dragon center had messed some things up. Now, It interacts with both CPU(Power Limits) and GPU at the same time. Like ECO sets CPU at ~7W and GPU at lower boost clocks. COMFORT sets the CPU at 35W and GPU full 80W, SPORT sets CPU at 45W and so on...

So, When I applied the undervolt via afterburner, I ended up changing some frequencies with the curves and that caused Dragon Center to update it's values for both the GPU and CPU...

Not sure how much sense it makes but then weird software issues in windows are not exactly new...

 

[mohitakundi]

Ok good, you did actually check. I've dealt with far too many who think they understand that but don't really know how to properly interpret or verify what they are seeing (or not seeing). Not personal or anything (certainly not intended that way anyway) but that's where the assumption comes from. Thanks for confirming those steps as well.

I definitely agree though... the timing with that immediate CPU power draw drop does seem very strange. As CPU clocks and power settings are usually dealt with in the BIOS directly instead of from within Windows, I can really only speculate as to why this happened. Some OEM's do bundle applications for making those kinds of adjustments to the CPU from within Windows, but in my experience they always require a reboot of the system to take effect.

Okay, I finally found the cause, but need help solving it !
Please Watch this video i have uploaded : Dragon Center Issue
As you can see, the cpu goes to low power state only if dragon center is active and in my face and being interacted with. The moment I don't, it slips back to power sucky mode.
ALSO, this does not happen when plugged in, so I assume, that this is happening due to windows suspending it. Any advice on how to mitigate this ??

 

[The_Prophecy]

Good catch! I wonder what would happen if you remove Dragon Center? Also, is the BIOS on the laptop up to date as well?

 

[mohitakundi]

Good catch! I wonder what would happen if you remove Dragon Center? Also, is the BIOS on the laptop up to date as well?

BIOS is up to date,

Problem solved for now, turns out it was a bad windows update that I got on the 14th this month. Did a system restore and It's now working fine. Hopefully MS doesn't send out another update to make my life more difficult😅. They always manage to break something.