[SOLVED] CPU running below 1GHz in games

[buzzboy635]

Hello all, I have been having a problem with my Dell Inspiron Gaming laptop (7577) recently. While gaming the game will run normally for a few minutes until it starts to lag very badly (frame drops to 20s, teens and sometimes single digits). This poor performance continues for about 20 seconds until it suddenly returns to normal (60fps). It runs normally for a few minutes until it does it again and repeats. According to task manager the CPU load will drop from 90% to about 30% and the frequency will drop from 3.1 GHz to less than 1 GHz for the duration of the lag. Then it returns to high load and high frequency after it is done lagging and then repeats. At first I thought it was thermal or power throttling but according to intel XTU it is not doing any kind of throttling and the temps are hovering around 70, nowhere near the 100 degrees required to thermal throttle. I ran hardware diagnostics through dell support assist and it said everything is normal. Also there is not some program that pops up in task manager when the lag starts, only the cpu load and speed drop for no apparent reason. I went to system settings and nvidia control panel and all the settings are on high performance, not balanced or battery saver. I tried disabling intel turbo boost and speed step in the BIOS and it runs at the base 2.5 GHz but then still drops to less than 1GHz while gaming. I have also tried a different power adaptor which I know works and it didn't fix the problem, nor does running on battery. I am now at a loss as to what is causing this problem. It occurs only while gaming and does this on multiple games. It has the i5-7300HQ and Nvidia GTX 1050ti with a 512GB SSD. Because of this issue running demanding games on the "gaming" laptop is almost impossible. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

for what seem to be odd problems like this i would usually suggest a full malware scan.
even if you're not seeing applications or processes in Task Manager there are many that can evade simple detection.
causing your CPU to downclock like this is not what i usually see in malware infections but it could just be a jerk spreading malignant software for evil kicks.

this or just wiping the drive and freshly installing Windows would be my first action(s).
if it's an OEM install with activation tied to the laptop, you may need to contact Dell support for a copy and a new registration.