Stop AMD cpu from underclocking

[fzksbalint]

I've got a notebook with AMD A8-8100, and it underclocks the cpu to about 1.2-1.4 ghz when gaming. It seems like it does it because it's enough, but still annoying, because when the game would need the cpu, it needs about a second or two to get back to higher speeds, so basically it makes even the lightest games unplayable. Is there any way to disable this? Also, I checked the temperatures, and everything is around 70°C, and the thermal margin for the cpu and the gpu is 90-100 °C. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[chrisbphoenix]

Usually, chips only underclock when they're running too hot.
You're monitoring the temperature, but if it's underclocking, the temps will be brought back into reasonable values so it might be misleading.

Cleaning out the exhaust vents with some compressed air might help.

Also, if you're not plugged into wall power, most laptops throttle back performance by default to conserve power. Switching to a high-performance power plan should make an immediate improvement if that's the case.

You'll have to forgive me, I can't seem to find the A8-8100 anywhere. Could you double check your CPU model?
I don't know what speeds it's supposed to be running.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Ecky]

I doubt this is from heat. Your CPU has a limited power budget, and when you game, the GPU takes some of the CPU's power budget, causing it to downclock. There's nothing you can do about it, this is just the nature of running a very power inefficient CPU with a large integrated GPU in a limited TDP.

 

[chrisbphoenix]

I doubt this is from heat. Your CPU has a limited power budget, and when you game, the GPU takes some of the CPU's power budget, causing it to downclock. There's nothing you can do about it, this is just the nature of running a very power inefficient CPU with a large integrated GPU in a limited TDP.

You definitely have a point there. But I thought they could manage at least their stock speed under duress.
I have an A10-4600m and it seems to run at its stock speed under load.
Is this platform specific? Or the nature of its design?

 

[fzksbalint]

sorry, 7100, and the thing, that makes me think it's just as energy saving thing, is that, if I stress the cpu, and run the same game, it can stay on higher clock speeds. also, I'm more than 20°C under the thermal margin, so it can't be throttling, because to start throttling, it needs to go over the thermal margin first, which is it didn't . It only seem to be an amd energy saving thing, but I changed everything I could find to high performance, and 100%.

 

[Dragos Manea]

Open power options in windows and at power plan select high performance instead of balanced. It will force your cpu to stay at max frequency.

 

[Crixilian]

It seems normal, I have A10-7400P, when stressing all cores the frequency could only reach 2GHz even at 65 C
it may something like power saving feature on amd mobile cpu

 

[fzksbalint]

It seems like it is. Everything is in high performance, and the minimum and maximum cpu speed is set to 100%, but it seems like the amd drivers overwrite this for some reason. Also, my base clock speed is 1.8 Ghz, not to talk about turbo boost, which would be 3,1, but I guess I'll never see that. Also, in the AMD control centers I set everything I could find to performance.

 

[Ecky]

Yep, you're TDP limited. If this CPU had its TDP limits lifted it could clock higher, but the rest of the laptop isn't designed for that. You'd cook your battery and hard drives, so they cap it at 35w total, which means you can't max out the CPU and GPU at the same time.

Another way to look at it, though, is that in a laptop that's thin and light enough that you can only have a 35w CPU, you have both a CPU and GPU that can independently draw almost all of that, rather than a weak 17w CPU and 17w GPU.

 

[fzksbalint]

Yep, you're TDP limited. If this CPU had its TDP limits lifted it could clock higher, but the rest of the laptop isn't designed for that. You'd cook your battery and hard drives, so they cap it at 35w total, which means you can't max out the CPU and GPU at the same time.

Another way to look at it, though, is that in a laptop that's thin and light enough that you can only have a 35w CPU, you have both a CPU and GPU that can independently draw almost all of that, rather than a weak 17w CPU and 17w GPU.

Yes, but as I wrote it if I keep the cpu clock high with a stress test the gpu keeps working as well as with the cpu speed down. Also, the cpu speed can go back up, but it needs time, and that's my problem with the whole situation

 

[Dragos Manea]

You can give a try to Clock Blocker. http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/clockblocker-download.html. Right click on system try icon and default block option.

 

[Ecky]

What do your GPU clocks do when the CPU clocks stay high? Chances are, it's the one underclocking.

 

[fzksbalint]

You can give a try to Clock Blocker. http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/clockblocker-download.html. Right click on system try icon and default block option.

Thank you, but Clockblocker doesn't seem to effect performance in any ways :/

 

[fzksbalint]

What do your GPU clocks do when the CPU clocks stay high? Chances are, it's the one underclocking.

Stays the same speed. Also, I just tried out, if I disable the dedicated gpu, the cpu speed is as low as with the gpu.