Question Laptop Power Throttling followed by Coil Whine even when disabled ?

[michaelreus]

Recently I've encountered an issue with my laptop: annoying coil whine just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and a day or two after that an insane power throttling started happening. Absolutely positive that the issue is not connected to audio speakers and is not thermal throttling. The only reason I know, or at least suspect, that this is power throttling because of really low voltage consumption, especially when heavy loaded (launching a game sometimes just makes the noise louder and also makes CPU frequency go lower, reaching values like 0.8-1.0 MHz) and because of appearing red warning in ThrottleStop where it says BD PRO (it seems like it disappeared after unchecking BD Prochot in ThrottleStop) and POWER, which still persists.

Patterns that repeat all the time:
- coil whine sound happens even after turning off the laptop completely, only disappearing after disconnecting the power supply;
- noise always appears right after 1-2 seconds after connecting the laptop to the charger;
- the higher the power consumption spike is the quiter the sound (I call it spikes because they're completely random, one second it's 20 W the other one it's 100 W unrelated to the load of the machine);
- the higher the CPU frequency the louder the noise, especially when there are spikes of CPU utilization according to Task Manager CPU tab (this part doesn't happen all the time but most of it);
- ThrottleStop Limit Reason always show PL1 and PL2 red warnings;
- usually the sound is linked to Turbo Boost (as soon as it turns on the louder the noise)
- as soon as laptop turns on, Turbo Boost is immediately activated and CPU is working on 3.0-3.2 MHz while idle (ThrottleStop screenshot shows 84C temperature peak which happened during startup);
- the noise gets substantially quieter after long laptop usage; by the time of me writing this post the noise already is minimal, even yellow PL1 and PL2 warning don't appear during ThrottleStop stress test, but usually do;
- before the issue both laptop and power supply made this whine sound all the time but extremely quiet;
- the only link I can think of from my actions to this issue is that the CPU fan was replaced and thermal paste was changed a while ago with a period of 2-3 weeks of everything working fine and no coil whine;
I've tried changing a lot of ThrottleStop options based on the guides from people with similar problems, and all I managed to fix was BD PRO red warning, red POWER still appears from time to time under load and changing Turbo limits doesn't do a thing.

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/F6tHT2jwPHg
- link to the video of the sound
ThrottleStop screenshots:

https://imgur.com/fc4CT0T

View: https://imgur.com/fc4CT0T

https://imgur.com/wJFHqwN

View: https://imgur.com/wJFHqwN

 

[uWebb429]

@michaelreus
In the TPL window check the MMIO Lock box.

https://imgur.com/bgtKn2J

View: https://imgur.com/bgtKn2J

Also check the Speed Shift box in the TPL window. Set Speed Shift Min to 8 and set Speed Shift Max to 35.

Do not check either of the Clamp boxes.

In the FIVR window set IccMax for both the core and the cache to the maximum, 255.75. This limit is not necessary. Setting this sky high tells the CPU to ignore this limit.

Turn on the Log File option and go play a game or do something for 15 minutes. When finished testing, exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize your log file. Copy and paste the log file data to www.pastebin.com and post a link here so I can see how your computer is running. The log should be in the ThrottleStop / Logs folder.

You can also try undervolting your CPU. I would recommend setting the core and the cache to a negative offset undervolt of -50 mV. Do all of the other changes first to see where you stand before doing any undervolting.

Toggle the C1E box on the main screen on and off. Sometimes adjusting what C states the CPU uses can get rid of some coil whine.

On the main ThrottleStop screen check the Speed Shift EPP box and where it says 128, click on that number to edit it. Set EPP to 84. This allows the CPU to slow down when lightly loaded. An EPP setting of 0 requests full speed from the CPU regardless of load.

What thermal paste was used?. Some pastes when applied direct die to mobile CPUs are lucky if they last 2 weeks before they start to fail.

Look in the Options window for the PROCHOT Offset setting. If you do not see a lock icon near this setting, change PROCHOT Offset to 5 or less. The manufacturer of your laptop has set the thermal throttling temperature way too conservatively. The Intel default for PROCHOT Offset is zero, not 12 like your laptop is set to.

 

[michaelreus]

@michaelreus
In the TPL window check the MMIO Lock box.

https://imgur.com/bgtKn2J

View: https://imgur.com/bgtKn2J

Also check the Speed Shift box in the TPL window. Set Speed Shift Min to 8 and set Speed Shift Max to 35.

Do not check either of the Clamp boxes.

In the FIVR window set IccMax for both the core and the cache to the maximum, 255.75. This limit is not necessary. Setting this sky high tells the CPU to ignore this limit.

Turn on the Log File option and go play a game or do something for 15 minutes. When finished testing, exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize your log file. Copy and paste the log file data to www.pastebin.com and post a link here so I can see how your computer is running. The log should be in the ThrottleStop / Logs folder.

You can also try undervolting your CPU. I would recommend setting the core and the cache to a negative offset undervolt of -50 mV. Do all of the other changes first to see where you stand before doing any undervolting.

Toggle the C1E box on the main screen on and off. Sometimes adjusting what C states the CPU uses can get rid of some coil whine.

On the main ThrottleStop screen check the Speed Shift EPP box and where it says 128, click on that number to edit it. Set EPP to 84. This allows the CPU to slow down when lightly loaded. An EPP setting of 0 requests full speed from the CPU regardless of load.

What thermal paste was used?. Some pastes when applied direct die to mobile CPUs are lucky if they last 2 weeks before they start to fail.

Look in the Options window for the PROCHOT Offset setting. If you do not see a lock icon near this setting, change PROCHOT Offset to 5 or less. The manufacturer of your laptop has set the thermal throttling temperature way too conservatively. The Intel default for PROCHOT Offset is zero, not 12 like your laptop is set to.

Thank you for you reply. Some pieces of advice you listed here were really helpful. I can't say exactly after what settings option change results appeared so I'll give credit to all of them.
After applying all of the settings (except undervolt because it wasn't really needed) POWER blinking sign no longer appears, and red PL1 and PL2 limits with according loud scratchy noise is no more there (but there are some exclusions, but, at least now, they're not as frequent as they used to be). Max voltage increased to 45-ish values, before it was like 20W max. But still, noise is there, though not as loud, and at this point I'm thinking I'm not getting rid of it entirely. But at least now it's not as loud during high load, and the system doesn't throttle when idle with 0.8-1.2 MHz.

The only thing I'm wondering now why frequency is sort of stuck at 2.6 MHz during high load with no option to set multiplier in ThrottleStop. If I'm not mistaken, before during heavy load it was something like 2.7-2.8 (processor base speed is 2.6 MHz). If it's locked by some option you described could you specify which option could it be?
Talking about thermal paste, it was an MX4, which I already used on this system before, though now you got me thinking that it could be an issue, so I must say it was sort of old, like "more than 3 years lying on the shelf" type of old.

https://pastebin.com/FRDTHi5W - ThrottleStop log file (nothing interesting here, like I said no power throttling took place, voltage is pretty normal)