I7-8750H + GTX 1050ti Laptop drops performance periodically

[9T9]

I have an Asus GL503GE laptop with an I7-8750H CPU and a GTX 1050ti GPU, 16GB of RAM.

Over the last few months i started getting sudden frame rate drops in games that last from a few seconds to 1 minute.
I have tried many things to fix this, reinstalling GPU drivers, trying older GPU drivers, downgrading the BIOS version of my laptop, running malware scans for viruses, but nothing helped.

Now I am trying to undervolt my CPU as I read that this could help, but the issue has not gone away, even though I have tweaked the settings in ThrottleStop. I have undervolted my core and cache by 125mV and capped my turbo clock speeds to 3.4GHz

I noticed that in the Limits menu I get red warnings for PL1 and yellow warnings for PL2 for CORE and GPU, and EDP OTHER yellow warning for RING. This made me think that there could be an issue with supplying power to my CPU.

I download HWMonitor to check the utilization, temps and voltage of my components and during gaming I noticed that the CPU does not stay at around 1V, instead it stays below that most of the time. Also I can see that the package power usually is around 12-16 watts, which sounds low to me. Utilization and temps seem fine, but there are a lot of fluctuations for the clock speeds. In the screenshot I captured it at 3GHz, but it was constantly varying between 2 and 3Ghz, with some drops to around 1.4Ghz.

For the GPU, I managed to capture two values - one when the game was running normally, and one when the game was dropping frames. When normal, the clock speed was around 1.5Ghz with above 85% utilization and no overheating. The voltage was around 0.9V as well.
When dropping frames however, the clock speed would drop to 0.24GHz and the voltage would go down to 0.75V, but the utilization would spike to 100%. No change in temps.

After all the things which I have tried, the only possible thing I think that could be causing this is the laptop power adapter not supplying enough power. Could this be the case or is there something I have missed?

 

[unclewebb]

Why are the turbo power limits set to only 24 Watts? Your settings are causing power limit throttling and reduced performance. Try setting PL1 and PL2 to 60. Check the MMIO Lock box which is in the Turbo Power Limits section above these settings.

Set the turbo ratios back to their default values; 41, 41, 40, 40, 39, 39. If your computer runs too hot, fix the cooling problem. Clean out your laptop and try using Honeywell PTM 7950.

the clock speed would drop to 0.24GHz

HWMonitor does not accurately track the CPU speed or voltage when a CPU is thermal throttling or power limit throttling. Do not use it.

Check the Log File box on the main screen of ThrottleStop. Run a log file for 15 minutes while you are playing a game. That will record some accurate data that shows how your computer is running. Attach a log file to your next post.

Some laptops have power limit throttling problems that cannot be easily solved. A log file will show what other adjustments need to be tried next.

 

[9T9]

@unclewebb I tried setting the PL1 and PL2 to 60 and checking the MMIO, but same results.
I am posting the log file. I can see a lot of "POWER STATUS CHANGE" messages. Could this be because of the power adapter issue I thought about?

 

[unclewebb]

power adapter issue

Your laptop is enforcing a 15W PL1 power limit. That is why it is running so poorly. ThrottleStop cannot be used to fix this kind of power limit throttling problem.

I do not know when this throttling problem first started to happen. It could be caused by an issue with either the power adapter or the battery. You can try replacing parts and see if that makes any difference. Are you using an original Asus battery and does it still hold a charge? You might get less power limit throttling if the battery ever reaches a fully charged state.

There might not be enough power left over to run the CPU and GPU at their full rated speed when the battery is in the process of being charged. If the battery is defective, it might not ever be able to signal that it is fully charged.

 

[9T9]

I am still using the original battery, which has degraded a bit, as seen in the screenshot of my battery report. The power adapter's outlet cable was replaced a few months ago when I sent in this laptop for a CPU replacement (it was fried out) and when I got the laptop back they said that they replaced the cable because it was not making a good connection, and it does not look like the original cable which I had before.

Now that I think about it, the performance problems really started to happen after this repair and adapter cable replacement. I will buy a new charger and see if there is any improvement.

 

[9T9]

Just got my new charger and I no longer have performance issues. Everything is running properly.