# Intel i7-1165G7 throttles to 400Mhz, bug or a feature? (Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 9)



## prkl (Apr 23, 2021)

I bought a new laptop and quickly noticed that it throttles to 400Mhz under heavy load.
I've tried different kinds of performance tuning options, battery savings etc.
And many options in ThrottleStop. It seems to only happen when the laptop is connected to AC.
With battery power it doesn't happen, but with battery the PKG Power max is only 20W or so.
Is my laptop defective or is this normal with Tiger Lake?


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## unclewebb (Apr 23, 2021)

prkl said:


> Is my laptop defective or is this normal with Tiger Lake?


This is a poorly engineered and defective laptop problem. I call this, defective by design. Tiger Lake is a great little CPU. Much better IPC compared to other Intel CPUs. The engineers at Lenovo need to go back to school.

The log file you posted clearly shows what is happening.

Problem #1. The heatsink and fan are not adequate. When the CPU is allowed to run at full power, the  heatsink and fan cannot keep the CPU at a reasonable temperature so it constantly thermal throttles. After that happens for a while then we proceed to,

Problem #2. The computer does not know what to do so it drops the turbo power limit internally to a ridiculously low number. Somewhere around 5 Watts. This lasts for about 10 seconds at a time. This forces the CPU down to its minimum speed, 400 MHz. In 2005, that was a horrible CPU speed. In 2021, it is a shameful speed.

Try checking the FIVR Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits box. This can fix this severe power limit throttling on some computers. This trick used to work great on some of Lenovo's disasters. Not sure if they have moved on to some other throttling method.

In the TPL window, check the TDP Level Control option and press Apply. Your cooling system cannot handle 35 Watts so do not set your turbo power limits to 64W. Set your power limits to what your cooling system can handle. You need to keep the CPU from constantly thermal throttling. You do not want the log file to show constant TEMP messages. Maybe 25W or 30W for PL1 and 30W or 35W for PL2. If you can prevent the CPU from thermal throttling, this should prevent the CPU from getting locked to 400 MHz.

Let me know what you figure out. The goal is to sacrifice peak performance so you have more consistent performance with the CPU never needing to lock itself to 400 MHz. Always remember that it is not Intel that dreamed up this throttling. This is a feature compliments of Lenovo. Dell does some shady stuff like this too.


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## prkl (Apr 23, 2021)

I did some tests with the settings you suggested:

Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits:
Throttled to 400Mhz
ThrottleStop and TS Bench froze several times, so badly that Windows complained about them not responding and the log file is missing entries. For example around the timestamp 19:47:00

TDP Level Control:
Throttled to 400Mhz
Kept hitting the TEMP limit.

TDP Level Control & PL1 25W PL2 30W:
Throttled to 400Mhz
Didn't hit the TEMP limit.

TDP Level Control & PL1 15W PL2 20W:
Didn't throttle to 400Mhz
Didn't hit the TEMP limit.
At first the frequency stayed at 2750Mhz at 20W, then it temporarily dipped to 1650Mhz. And in the end it stabilized to 2350Mhz at 15W.



> Tiger Lake is a great little CPU. Much better IPC compared to other Intel CPUs.


Yeah, I've been waiting for few years for Intel to release significantly better microarchitecture and decided to pull the trigger with Tiger Lake.


> Your cooling system cannot handle 35 Watts so do not set your turbo power limits to 64W.


I forgot the mention in the first message, that all the settings were the defaults, so I didn't set it to 64W.
HWINFO lists PL1 as 15W for 256sec and PL2 as 64W for 2.44ms


> The goal is to sacrifice peak performance so you have more consistent performance with the CPU never needing to lock itself to 400 MHz.


I actually found ThrottleStop when I was searching for a way to disable Turbo Boost. I was hoping that if I disabled Turbo Boost the CPU would be running at the base frequency happily and then it wouldn't have the need to throttle to 400Mhz.

So it looks like my laptop's cooling capacity is between 15W and 20W. Maybe I should do a longer test with PL1 15W to see if it's really stable.
Intel's previous UP3-processors were 15W? So maybe Lenovo has optimized the cooling for 15W. But in any case they've failed when the CPU throttles to 400Mhz with completely default settings.

Thank you.


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## unclewebb (Apr 23, 2021)

@prkl - When running at 30W, the temperatures are in the 90°C to 95°C range. Perhaps it is the average temperature over a period of time that triggers the CPU to go into 5W mode.

Your computer might be using the Intel DPTF driver. Have a look in the Device Manager. Do some Google searching to learn how to remove this driver and block it from being reinstalled. This has helped fix similar power limit throttling problems that many Dell laptops have.

Your ThrottleStop screenshot shows that the main PL1 and PL2 power limits are both set to 64W. If you did not change those values then ThrottleStop would have read those default values from the CPU. The BIOS must have set the main turbo power limits up to those values. If you want to find out for sure, you would need to exit ThrottleStop, delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file and then shut down your computer. When you start back up and run ThrottleStop, it will create a new ThrottleStop.INI configuration file with values that it has read from the CPU.

I am not sure what power limits HWiNFO reports. There are actually multiple sets of turbo power limits. The CPU compares all of the various power limit requests and uses the lowest requested value. If one of these limits is set to 5W, that wins the lowest power award and is the value used for throttling.

Some Intel CPUs support TDP Level 2. Try entering that into ThrottleStop and press Apply. It might not make any difference.

Is the Lenovo power management software you are using set to maximum performance? Some of the cool and quiet settings will lock the CPU to a low power limit.


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## Wicaebeth (Apr 26, 2021)

Hi I have the same problem temp 40C and my cpu go to 400 or 800 any fix ? Asus Zenbook UX435EA

After disable DPTF it seems to be fixed after running a R15 test. I will do some more test and comeback to you.

So after testing disable DPTF doesn't see to have fixed my probs :/


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## unclewebb (Apr 26, 2021)

Wicaebeth said:


> disable DPTF


You have to disable the DPTF driver, completely delete it from your computer and block Windows 10 from reinstalling it. Did you do that?


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## Wicaebeth (Apr 26, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> You have to disable the DPTF driver, completely delete it from your computer and block Windows 10 from reinstalling it. Did you do that?


I have found a reg to add, idk.


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## thealgo (Apr 26, 2021)

I had similar issues on my dell inspiron 7306 (with i7 1165g7) - though not as bad as your severe throttling.

They put a powerful chip into a chassis that cripples it basically.   (Even though the system has modes such as performance mode, ultra performance etc - this is not a help.  Basically without any tweaking, the device in even the highest performance mode, only maintains 28w for a minute or so, then in a couple of minutes stays at 15w on load (never going any higher, unless the device is idle for some time) - At this stage at even 15w load, temps are in the high 70's - mid 80's.   If using the DPTF and the batch script to change pl1/pl2, the device can maintain 23w but at 100c+ temps - not acceptable at all.

I thankfully resolved the issues entirely by doing the following


Completely remove DPTF and prevent windows from reinstalling it.  This is done by turning off net access.  claiming ownership of the driverstore folder, keeping track of the 2 or so dptf folders (keep the name somewhere).  then to remove the drivers (including intel dynamic tuning) and then recreate the dptf folders and disable access for anything to go in there


If your laptop has a metal back, then you are in luck. Thankfully the dell 7306 does.  I removed the heatsink, cleaned it, and reapplied arctic mx4 paste.  I then placed thermal pads all across the heatpipe and then made sure when the lid was put back on, that there was firm contact between heat pipe/thermal pad/and back of laptop.

There is a batch file with msr-cmd and RW-everything in the gpd win discord.   This works on tigerlake and allows you to change pl1/pl2 values as well.  (These pl1/pl2 changes are reflected in hwinfo) - I did previously try quickcpu and throttlestop but the pl1 values did not stick on this dell 7306. 

Only possible problem (not occured yet) is that there may be a possibility this extra heat accumulation on the back plate may make some other components hotter such as the vrm's? though thankfully the battery is way below the part of the lid that gets the heat.

The end result is now a laptop that can sustain 25w no problem for hours (i tested it on full load cpu and igpu for 2 hours and temperatures stayed between 77-82c with fans on, but not too loud.   It can probably to 28w with fans on maximum, but 25w is fine for now


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## Wicaebeth (Apr 26, 2021)

So after disable DPTF with the REG and the Driver and "block Windows 10 to reinstall it ?" It seems to be right now  But now the CPU don't go below 1.0GHZ on desktop this use the battery life right ?


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## thealgo (Apr 26, 2021)

Follow this to disable DPTF (Warning : Do at your own risk)

__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/7byhjq

Then do your required thermal mods to the device (if you are comfortable with it)

No guarantee of the above DPTF removal working  It depends on the laptop.  Furthermore on battery there can also be a hard limit on max PL1.  This applies to my dell 7306 too.  (But on power via charger, its unrestricted now)


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## Wicaebeth (Apr 29, 2021)

So, yes Disabling intel DPTF seems to be good, now my processor is not getting throttle, but do you think i need to replace this laptop or wait for a patch ? My laptop is the UX425EA he his new..


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## extremecarver (Apr 30, 2021)

what happens if you simply set a lower prochoot?
Actually before seeing this screenshot I would have guessed Prochoot is set to 100 degrees. That seems to cause big problems. It's possible to set but if any core hits 101 at least on my lg gram the laptop will hibernate. 

So the actual maximum that you can set is 97 on my laptop, because if it increases fast - it will overshoot. Usually only 1 or 2 degrees, but sometimes 3. Maybe very rare even 4. So decrease Prochoot to 90 or 85 and see if it also happens or if then you have a reasonable throttling. 

Actually strangely on my lg gram increasing prochoot by 8 degrees, only increased performance on benchmark by 3% - even though the delta was like 10% with room temperature at 20. Also note my lg gram will run much faster (6-8%) at room temperature 20 vs 26. Room temperature 20 and Prochoot 90 is getting much faster benalwachmark results on Cinebench vs room temperature 26 and Prochoot 97.  Even though the reason for throttling is always Prochoot temperature reached. The lg gram however slowly reduces speed, maybe that is also why it overshoots. Lg set Prochoot to 90 degrees.


Tiger lake U seems to be too powerful for many many ultrabooks right now. Most cannot cool much more than 20-25 watts.

Oh and can some people say what package power they get in idle with 1165g7 and if someone has also 1135g7. 
My 1165g7 usually idles around 1w package power. That is way too high. Sometimes it goes to 0.5w - but that is only like every 3-4 days or so. Then I also get sometimes black screen timeouts. But my laptop seems defective. If I enable self panel refresh I get constant black screen flashing. I would be interested what idle package power other people get on tiger lake. 

In general on my laptop tiger lake is a disaster when it comes to power use. It is very efficient at high power, and okay overall for idle. But while surfing the web it uses 2-3 watts more than my I8250U - both with same settings (except of course undervolt). Also for video tiger lake is great. But don't even think of typing or moving your mouse, changing windows or so on - it will instantly increase to 5-6 watts package power and then of course battery life is a mess. My i8250U could do those tasks at 2-3 watt package power and idle consistent at 0.5 watt. 
Both with kinda same resolution. 2560x1600 for tiger lake, vs 1560x1440 for the I5-8250U. Actually reducing resolution in windows to 1280x800 nearly halves package power for me. So tiger lake sucks at higher resolution. Note self panel refresh is deactivated to to a hardware failure - so this may be partly responsible.


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## extremecarver (May 12, 2021)

I got rid of all PL1 and EDP other throttling increasing PP0 limit from 105 to 360. Removing Intel DPTF driver was good until first reboot, then it induced crazy bad throttling at 10w or so after 30 seconds...



This reduces any throttling to be thermal on my LG gram 16. Note I´m playing around with PL2 values from 31 to 34 - that is due to the bad cooling efficiency somewhere between 15-16w on singlecore (can not hit that on the i5, could hit it on the i7) to 24w or so mainly CPU all core up to 31-32 for CPU/GPU heavy all core load. If your laptop has better cooling add higher PL2 limit.

I stress tested this for 30 minutes and it would only thermal throttle without spiking, without removing intel dptf. I´m not sure changing the power balance improves performance in any way. default is 9/13...
If I increase PP0 Turbo time limit it will reset after reboot. I tried doubling it - not sure what the PP0 turbo time limit actually does on tiger lake in my notebook.
Leaving PL2 at 60w is just not a good solution on the lg gram with limited cooling. It will run very fast for 1-2 seconds and then thermal throttle starting at 30w. If I reduce it to 34 it can run for 15 seconds at 34 or so actually increasing real performance. So I think best compromise for PL2 is to set it so high - that your notebook can run for 10-30 seconds or so before thermal throttling.

Actually it would be great if the Turbo Power Limits could be set independently per profile. I have 4 scenarios with my notebook in general. Full power on AC (PL2 at 34w) . AC but notebook on my lap (would reduce PL2 / PL1 to say 15w), Battery full power (PL2 at 31w as any higher anyhow does not bring much more), need to get long runtime on battery - PL2 / PL1 set to 12W (keep the notebook running in most efficient power range).

In general working with notebook on my lap I only charge if battery is low or in winter... It really increases the heat so I prefer to run it in battery mode as much as possible and only charge while sleeping at night..

Default for PP0 Current limit was 105. Setting it to 45 because I believed this is very short power window wattage made the notebook throttle badly (even copying files it will throttle). Actually decreasing PP0 to 45 would maybe be a good solution for battery life that is faster for short spikes than reducing PL1/PL2 but I still feel throttling lower is better if I really need the battery life.


Oh yeah on a related note. That i7 is a nightmare vs i5. If you can get the 1145G7 if you have reduced cooling or favour battery life over max speed. The i7 in the lg gram runs about 5-8% faster on single core load . However it needs 20-30% more wattage at single core full speed. On multicore due to less heat the i5 effectively runs 10% faster. The biggest difference is PC Mark 10. The i7 gets 9% higher score than the i5. However it needs 25% more energy (measured with batteryinfoview total consumption). For the same CPU speed the i7 needs much more power than the i5, because of the L3 cache and the 96 execution units. Only get the i7 if your laptop has very good cooling AND you don´t care much about battery life. The 1145G7 would be the best solution for most, as it has 4400mhz single core turbo vs 4200 of the 1135g7. i3 clearly would be much much slower - not sure if its more effecient than the i5. I guess for light load the i3 would be best. Has less cache and less cores. However of course due to that it will be worse for medium load or high load.. I would not recommend the i3 to anyone that does more than surfing and watching video. For that the i3 should be good enough - it´s mainly about the hardware decoding and maybe a good solution if you´re on a budget. The main reason for me to upgrade notebooks was often painful watching video. Tiger lake in this regard is great - as it´s the first CPU to hardware decode AV1. Due to that and only that I think for many people in the long run it will be better than Macbook M1. If AV1 gets widespread use and M1 has to software decode people gonna cry about battery life and performance. For everything else if compatible of course M1 is way better than tiger lake.
If you can wait, wait for Alder lake 1 year or so. I´m pretty sure battery life will be way better.

Actually the i7 is always a bad solution. If you really need more power, then get a notebook with i9 H. That will be substantially faster - but likely also need substantially more energy. Interesting for battery life could be the i3-1124G4 - that´s actually a 4Core too, but I don¨t know if the video decoding is supporting AV1 or not. Could be only a bit slower than i5, but more battery efficient and cheaper.  And yeah I do believe best wait another year if battery life and heat is important. If you need outright multi core performance get a Ryzen 5600U/5800U/5900U instead. Maybe in that way also i9H is not good, if you need that speed then Ryzen 5800/5900U is the answer because it´s way more energy efficient at high loads. the i9H will need monster cooling for a laptop to work well. I´m not convinced AMD got the idle power and power needed to watch video down to Intel levels however.  Intel CPU needs lots of power, but the ecosystem around it is super efficient. So far AMD notebooks could not compete there but no reviews of 5600U/5800U on ultrabooks in higher price category yet...


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