[SOLVED] XTU changed my i5-8250U's default 15W Turbo Boost power to 35W, Resulting in throttling every 2 mins. Please advice.

[souvik33]

My I5-8250U had a default Turbo boost Power max setting of 15W. Recently, I observed fps drops in games like Far Cry 4 and Project Cars. An engineer visited my home, and serviced my motherboard.
He also performed a complete diagnosis of all the hardware components and Surprisingly nothing came out. He declared the problem had been resolved. And after a day, it again started . This time, I was shocked to see the Turbo boost power values being changed to 35 W in Intel XTU. I reset my PC using the recovery drive and yet no medals. I even loaded the optimized defaults in the BIOS, still nothing. Fps drops from 35-40 to 19-22 in both games. My Gpu 940mx is not the cause, since the temps of the Gpu is stable at 80 degrees. The CPU, on the other hand, spikes up to 92 degrees during the throttle, and the clock goes up to 3.2 ghz, with relatively lower percentile usage of 14%. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
TIA and Warm Regards

 

[tennis2]

There is a CPU frequency limit imposed by power draw, AND there's a limit imposed by temperature.

Increasing the TDP limit should allow the CPU to maintain higher "steady state" base clocks for longer IF thermals allow.

Increasing the TDP should at the very least match what you had before (if you were limited by thermal @ 15W, you should hit the same thermal limits @ 30W). It's more likely that increasing the TDP should improve performance.

Have you dug into fan settings? Is the fan at least running similarly to how it did before?

Did the tech remove the CPU heatsink? Perhaps they borked the installation and the cooler isn't transferring heat optimally.

 

[souvik33]

So, if higher TDP is unlikely to cause throttling, then what are the other chances? And yes, each and every component was properly cleaned and serviced, including removing dust from the fans and all. He also replaced the thermal paste from both CPU and GPU.
This problem started only after: I unparked the Cores(now parked)
Increased the TDP
Now, I read somewhere that reinstalling the BIOS update after uninstalling it could fix it. But I don't know how.
During the Throttling, the CPU usage is pretty low like 15-19%, which under normal conditions is around 39-60%.
Any other possibilities, please tell me.
Regards

 

[tennis2]

3.2GHz on an i5-8250U for a sustained period of time is quite high. The max boost clock on that CPU is only 3.4GHz. The 8250U I've worked with settles out to approximately 2.2GHz after about (...can't remember exactly) 25 seconds. IIRC, that machine had a 25W TDP (which, up until now, I thought was the max configurable TDP)

Can you simply run Prime95 stress test and your monitoring tool (I like HWMonitor) for a few minutes to isolate the CPU performance exclusively?

When the CPU reaches 92C, is the fan running full tilt?

He also replaced the thermal paste from both CPU and GPU.

If too much thermal paste is applied, it could make temps worse than stock.

Have you tried simply uninstalling XTU? One would think that would revert all changes that software has made.

 

[souvik33]

3.2GHz on an i5-8250U for a sustained period of time is quite high. The max boost clock on that CPU is only 3.4GHz. The 8250U I've worked with settles out to approximately 2.2GHz after about (...can't remember exactly) 25 seconds. IIRC, that machine had a 25W TDP (which, up until now, I thought was the max configurable TDP)

Can you simply run Prime95 stress test and your monitoring tool (I like HWMonitor) for a few minutes to isolate the CPU performance exclusively?

When the CPU reaches 92C, is the fan running full tilt?


If too much thermal paste is applied, it could make temps worse than stock.

Have you tried simply uninstalling XTU? One would think that would revert all changes that software has made.

I did the test you suggested. The temperatures during the Torture test were well above 85 degrees all the time and with a max of 90 degrees, for all the 4 cores.. However, the clocks for all the cores with 100% utilization of the Processor were averaging around 1.9ghz throughout, which initially was above 2 Ghz. I really can't check the fans since I am untrained to and may lose my warranty. But, I am sure the fans are functional as they should be since the Techie checked them last week.
This probably leaves us with the last conclusion that Intel XTU has overwritten my BIOS with faulty values, resulting in such spiky temps. And yes, I also tried uninstalling XTU completely, yet the problem persists. If you know any method, using which I can reform the BIOS to its Factory state please tell me. And I can't access much of the settings in the BIOS since, its a locked one with ASUS engineer having a key to access it in totality.
Regards.

 

[tennis2]

HWMonitor will display the fan RPM for you. It's a laptop, if the CPU is at 90C, you should hear the fan pretty easily.

1.9GHz is normal steady state frequency. There was a BIOS update available for the Asus laptop I had that explicitly said "raises CPU frequency" or something of that nature.