[SOLVED] Low FPS on laptop ?

[AugustWilliam15]

I have a dell xps 15 9500 with a NVIDIA 1650 ti. About a month ago my frames suddenly just dropped. I would be getting around 20-40 frames on Apex Legends on medium settings, 50 frames on F1 2020 low settings, 45 frames on Forza Horizon 4 on normal settings, and around 120 frames on CSGO medium settings. I am also connected to an external monitor, and yes, my laptop is closed.

This has happened before and I ended up switching out my whole motherboard. (This was in late July this year). I haven't dropped my laptop or damaged it in any way. I have already tried to contact NVIDIA and DELL and what they did didn't make a single difference. I checked all my drivers, and bios and they are all the latest and I don't know what to do. So, I thought i'll take a shot at it here...

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

Which CPU is in your laptop. There are a couple of different model XPS 15 9500. Is it the I7 10750h?

There's a good chance your CPU is thermal throttling. What temps are you hitting when the frames drop?

Do you have you laptop flat on a desk? Not raised up? Consider a cooling pad, to raise the rear of your laptop, and increase cool airflow to keep CPU cool.

 

[AugustWilliam15]

Hey there,

Which CPU is in your laptop. There are a couple of different model XPS 15 9500. Is it the I7 10750h?

There's a good chance your CPU is thermal throttling. What temps are you hitting when the frames drop?

Do you have you laptop flat on a desk? Not raised up? Consider a cooling pad, to raise the rear of your laptop, and increase cool airflow to keep CPU cool.

Sorry for such a late reply. It has the i7-570h. I have it on a laptop stand, so the whole backside is exposed.

 

[geofelt]

I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
This would apply in spades to a ultra light laptop such as the XPS 15
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. it means you have throttled.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself
until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

 

[AugustWilliam15]

It might actually be thermal throttling. When downloading HWiNFO though this popped up: Sensor Warning

I clicked continue and then I found these temps on the cpu section: CPU temps

I am connected to the power, my laptop in connected to a monitor (the laptop screen is off), and the tabs which are open are Discord, Onenote and 2 windows of google.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

It is definitely throttling. Have you tried undervolting with Intel XTU/Throttlestop? This might help.

You can also consider changing thermal paste. This can also help greatly.

Similarly to what @geofelt mentioned, you can limit the Turbo speeds with Throttlestop, so that the clockspeeds don't get too high, and hence temps will be lower.