[SOLVED] CPU Power Throttling (PL1) far below TPL limits or TDP

[JayK___]

My CPU keeps getting pl1 throttling at seemingly normal operating conditions and I cannot diagnose or solve it. I have moved my TPL limits many times both up and down. I have disabled power limit control, I have unlimited the PL1 and it still throttles.

It will regularly throttle from operating powers (20-30 W depending on load) down to 7-8 W and lock clock at 0.8 MHz. This seems to be independent of load and temperatures and I cannot seem to figure it out. Attached are prethrottle conditions on throttle stop and throttling conditions. I also occasionally get PL2 throttles but not as hard locked and consistent as pl1
Throttling Pics

PC:

Dell G7
CPU i7 8750H

 

[TerryLaze]

Your laptop shows a minimum temp of 66-70 is this from a cold boot or was it already running for a while?
What is your ambient temp like?

It could be that the laptop is limited to ~80 degrees max to keep people from getting burned and that will limit the clocks it can reach.

 

[mdd1963]

The 'ThrottleStop' app shows turbo as 'disabled'...

The pic shown shows assorted core clock speeds of ~2200 MHz at the time of the screen shot, likely normal.

That it occasionally loafs at 800-900 MHz is normal if not under an intense load in 'Balanced' power plan.

Take a screen shot under load when you feel it is 'throttling'

 

[JayK___]

Your laptop shows a minimum temp of 66-70 is this from a cold boot or was it already running for a while?
What is your ambient temp like?

It could be that the laptop is limited to ~80 degrees max to keep people from getting burned and that will limit the clocks it can reach.

This was a little bit into running load but not yet throttled. My CPU is older and does tend to run on the hot side and I am also located in Portland and the ambient air is breaking 100°F. However this was present before. My pro hot order is set to 4, thermal throttle should not occur until 96°

 

[JayK___]

The 'ThrottleStop' app shows turbo as 'disabled'...

The pic shown shows assorted core clock speeds of ~2200 MHz at the time of the screen shot, likely normal.

That it occasionally loafs at 800-900 MHz is normal if not under an intense load in 'Balanced' power plan.

Take a screen shot under load when you feel it is 'throttling'

The first pic is while gaming not throttling, the second pic is less than a few minutes later.

 

[uWebb429]

@JayK___ As soon as I read your title, my first thought was Dell.

The problem you are having is a very common problem in many different Dell laptops. For no logical reason, severe power limit throttling can be triggered which forces the CPU down to the minimum multiplier which is 8 for an 8750H. Some CPUs have a minimum multiplier of 4 so those laptops get locked to 400 MHz instead of 800 MHz. The turbo power limit that is being set so low is managed internally by an embedded controller (EC) as far as I know. The power limit settings in the ThrottleStop TPL window are over ridden by the power limit programmed by the EC. Whichever power limit is set lowest is the one used to control your CPU.

Solution? None as far as I know. The last person that complained to Dell was told that this throttling was by design. Technically that is true but something is very wrong when you pay for a CPU capable of running at 4000 MHz and Dell decides that it is OK to lock it to 800 MHz instead.

If this never used to happen when your laptop was brand new then it is likely that a temperature sensor somewhere has failed. Not the CPU temperature sensor. There are other sensors like one that measures the temperature of the back side of your keyboard. When one of these hidden and undocumented sensors detects a high temperature, it limits the available CPU power which forces the CPU to slow down. Nice idea in theory but in practice, the excessive amount of throttling this causes is ridiculous. Dell laptops with 8th Gen Intel CPUs are the first ones to experiment with this new type of forced power limit throttling. Their 7th Gen laptops used multiple throttling methods that ThrottleStop could solve. There is no way to solve the new and improved method.

You can contact Dell but the people working for them on the front lines are not likely to fully understand this problem let alone admit to it and do anything about it. Do what you can to get this problem escalated to someone that fully understands it. A ThrottleStop log file makes this problem crystal clear. You can see the non stop PL power limit throttling messages in the log file and the reduced performance even when the CPU is nowhere near the 100°C Intel thermal throttling specification.

 

[JayK___]

@JayK___ As soon as I read your title, my first thought was Dell.

The problem you are having is a very common problem in many different Dell laptops. For no logical reason, severe power limit throttling can be triggered which forces the CPU down to the minimum multiplier which is 8 for an 8750H. Some CPUs have a minimum multiplier of 4 so those laptops get locked to 400 MHz instead of 800 MHz. The turbo power limit that is being set so low is managed internally by an embedded controller (EC) as far as I know. The power limit settings in the ThrottleStop TPL window are over ridden by the power limit programmed by the EC. Whichever power limit is set lowest is the one used to control your CPU.

Solution? None as far as I know. The last person that complained to Dell was told that this throttling was by design. Technically that is true but something is very wrong when you pay for a CPU capable of running at 4000 MHz and Dell decides that it is OK to lock it to 800 MHz instead.

If this never used to happen when your laptop was brand new then it is likely that a temperature sensor somewhere has failed. Not the CPU temperature sensor. There are other sensors like one that measures the temperature of the back side of your keyboard. When one of these hidden and undocumented sensors detects a high temperature, it limits the available CPU power which forces the CPU to slow down. Nice idea in theory but in practice, the excessive amount of throttling this causes is ridiculous. Dell laptops with 8th Gen Intel CPUs are the first ones to experiment with this new type of forced power limit throttling. Their 7th Gen laptops used multiple throttling methods that ThrottleStop could solve. There is no way to solve the new and improved method.

You can contact Dell but the people working for them on the front lines are not likely to fully understand this problem let alone admit to it and do anything about it. Do what you can to get this problem escalated to someone that fully understands it. A ThrottleStop log file makes this problem crystal clear. You can see the non stop PL power limit throttling messages in the log file and the reduced performance even when the CPU is nowhere near the 100°C Intel thermal throttling specification.

I fully believe that it is a Dell shortcoming as this is not the only battle I have had to fight with this laptop. I did notice in the log file that prior to any power throttle it will turbo for almost exactly 3 minutes. Which is not any multiple of TPL I have. Even moreso, I am getting PL throttles with turbo disabled.

 

[Rawan14]

My CPU keeps getting pl1 throttling at seemingly normal operating conditions and I cannot diagnose or solve it. I have moved my TPL limits many times both up and down. I have disabled power limit control, I have unlimited the PL1 and it still throttles.

It will regularly throttle from operating powers (20-30 W depending on load) down to 7-8 W and lock clock at 0.8 MHz. This seems to be independent of load and temperatures and I cannot seem to figure it out. Attached are prethrottle conditions on throttle stop and throttling conditions. I also occasionally get PL2 throttles but not as hard locked and consistent as pl1
Throttling Pics

PC:

Dell G7
CPU i7 8750H

I have a very similar problem with my 7th gen Dell laptop and i kinda made it a little bit better with ThrottleStop but it's still not as good as when it was new.

 

[uWebb429]

7th gen Dell laptop

Most CPU throttling problems in the 7th Gen Dell laptops can be completely solved by using ThrottleStop.

Post some screenshots of how you have ThrottleStop setup and include a log file that shows any throttling problems that you are still having.

Many of these Dell laptops have 3 or 4 unique throttling problems that all overlap each other. If you only fix one problem, other throttling problems will jump out to bite you in the back side. Show me some more info and I will show you how to get ahead of these throttling issues.

 

[Rawan14]

Most CPU throttling problems in the 7th Gen Dell laptops can be completely solved by using ThrottleStop.

Post some screenshots of how you have ThrottleStop setup and include a log file that shows any throttling problems that you are still having.

Many of these Dell laptops have 3 or 4 unique throttling problems that all overlap each other. If you only fix one problem, other throttling problems will jump out to bite you in the back side. Show me some more info and I will show you how to get ahead of these throttling issues.

the throttling now is very little but here are the settings and the log file

https://imgur.com/a/jueMQXe

View: https://imgur.com/a/jueMQXe

i've labeled the photos in Imgur
I also ran a benchmark in a game, R6S to be exact, and included the logfile screenshots and results of the benchmark from the game itself.


Edit**
I've noticed a very weird behavior from the GPU and here is the screenshot

https://imgur.com/a/ckW0I9W

View: https://imgur.com/a/ckW0I9W

and every now and then about 1 minute to 1 1/2 minutes the laptop stutters even under normal load (like watching a youtube video on 1080p), i'm not very good at dealing with these types of problems so any help would be very appreciated.

 

[uWebb429]

Your Dell computer is using severe Clock Modulation throttling. To solve this problem you need to check the Clock Mod option on the main screen of ThrottleStop and set this to 100.0%. Make sure it does not say Monitoring in the title bar so ThrottleStop can actively work on this problem.

When your computer is completely idle with nothing open, no web browsers, just ThrottleStop. What does ThrottleStop report for C0%? A reading of 1.0% or less is normal. If you are way beyond that, find out what is running in the background on your computer and get rid of anything you do not need. Look in the Task Manager Details tab for some clue.

Once you get the C0% back to normal, watch ThrottleStop to see if the GPU is going idle for only two seconds at a time. If nothing else is accessing the GPU, it should be able to go into a low power state. Some users have reported that a recent Nvidia driver update is preventing some GPUs from going into an idle state.

When posting log files, copy and paste the data to www.pastebin.com and post a link to the data. That makes it much easier to see and scroll through the data.

 

[Rawan14]

Your Dell computer is using severe Clock Modulation throttling. To solve this problem you need to check the Clock Mod option on the main screen of ThrottleStop and set this to 100.0%. Make sure it does not say Monitoring in the title bar so ThrottleStop can actively work on this problem.

When your computer is completely idle with nothing open, no web browsers, just ThrottleStop. What does ThrottleStop report for C0%? A reading of 1.0% or less is normal. If you are way beyond that, find out what is running in the background on your computer and get rid of anything you do not need. Look in the Task Manager Details tab for some clue.

Once you get the C0% back to normal, watch ThrottleStop to see if the GPU is going idle for only two seconds at a time. If nothing else is accessing the GPU, it should be able to go into a low power state. Some users have reported that a recent Nvidia driver update is preventing some GPUs from going into an idle state.

When posting log files, copy and paste the data to www.pastebin.com and post a link to the data. That makes it much easier to see and scroll through the data.

The C0% never went below 2% and i checked taskmanager left and righ looking for extra programs to end.
however, the GPU was at idle the whole time unlike before.

https://pastebin.com/b4dAnVPm and here is the log

 

[uWebb429]

How is your computer running? Is it any better? It looks like it was running OK.

 

[Rawan14]

How is your computer running? Is it any better? It looks like it was running OK.

it is way better thank you so much for the help i appreciate it.