# Throttling, PL2 and EDP Other, FPS Drops



## rokupin (Aug 6, 2021)

Hello everyone, please bear with me as I'm pretty much new with all of this. I've spent days checking forums and testing everything and I'm sorry in advance for the possible wall of text plus the possible lack of knowledge and experience I may have in both replying and trying possible solutions. I'm also in a much farther location so I might usually answer around the times I post this.

*ISSUE*
I'm currently having a problem like all the other people are regarding playing for a few seconds (specifically Witcher 3) and then throttling occurring. The cpu speed will clock down to 0.78ghz. I used throttlestop then and unchecked BD Prochot. This fixed the cpu fan speed but this unfortunately still doesn't fix the game from dropping to 6-10 fps. I tried playing League after, no drops but high temps to the point of thermal throttling. I also observed that I get a blinking red PL2 under CORE and eventually GPU along with an occasional red POWER and HOT. I recently followed similar threads regarding this and tried different levels of watts and now the only thing that showed up was EDP other on all GPU and CPU and RING. At one point before, I installed XTU ran a stress test and found constant Power Limit Throttling. I uninstalled it after. I tested and I have low cinebench scores with it constantly thermal throttling. I tried different wattages while doing it (70, 90), (60,45). It's usually the same. 2.2k. I also experimented with TS Bench and the core cache putting them the same and different and found the usual stable -125mv ones to be having the best time (around 17 seconds which I assume might also be a bad time for 120m.) There were 3 occurrences of throttling with the third throttle making me open my laptop and clean the fan. The throttles from before I just updated everything and the second one I just restarted. Now it's usually capped at 0.78ghz only in cold boot/unchecking bd prochot could it be removed. There's also some weird POWER STATUS changed that showed up in the logs during the Witcher 3 which I assumed is when it started to throttle. Everything started in July and now I'm a chrome and netflix man. 

Throttles only when streaming

*Laptop Specs*
Lenovo L340-15IRH
i7-9750h
Intel UHD Graphics 630
16gb RAM
GTX 1650
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*Usage*
Acquired late 2019. 22 months. usually plugged in and being undervolted via throttlestop. Used heavily for games, streaming in discord, art applications. I just followed the guides in yt which I recently found in these forums to be bonkers. Not sure if that's also why I'm currently experiencing this issue. Temp recently is 40-50C cold boot, 50-60. normal load (discord, chrome, etc.) 60- high 70s watching youtube and constant 80-90 slowly creeping up to high 90's when streaming an app in discord// playing a game with kind of demanding graphics (league & witcher)
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*Things I've tried*
1. Driver updates for both intel and NVIDIA. (Uninstall, Reinstall, Clean Installation, and DDU)
2. BIOS FLASH (Returned to BIOS before and back)
3. Changed and resetted power plans (High performance, cooling state policy to passive and active, minimum processor state etc.) BOTH with NVIDIA Control panel and the normal powerplan
4. Cleaned fan and reconnected. Removed a bit of dust when opening laptop. Made someone remove and clean the heatsink and apply the thermal paste since I was scared of destroying the laptop.
5. Disconnecting and reconnecting adapter. Also tried to play/make it throttle. Same thing happens for both charging and not charging.
6. Holding power button for 45 seconds since built in battery for a power drain.
7. Disabled and re-enabled DPTF
8. Reverting back quality update and feature update of Windows
9. Removing Power management engine and reinstalling.
10. Removing Lenovo vantage and also removing conservative mode.
11. During the repair it also lagged eventually even when the battery was removed it was still displaying "POWER" in red.
---
*Files I've Attached*
1. Power txt -forgot what thread it was but it was power related. It might help
2. Throttle Limit pic-The limits triggered after playing league for 20-ish minutes. I needed to quit the game because I was scared it might go over 100c.
3. Throttle Log- Log both playing League until it throttled and playing witcher (with bd prochot unchecked) until it also throttled. PC was restarted before playing Witcher. I separated the first test and the second test with a huge space.
1st part League, 2nd part Witcher fresh from restart.
4. Cinebench pic - score after doing the test (just started launching witcher for another test after cinebench test happened. I didn't have any other program besides cinebench)
5. Task manager pic - Screenshot taken of another test I didn't get to record but seconds after playing the fps dropping witcher 3
6&7. TPL and FVR pic - Settings
8. Throttle Log 2 - It didn't throttle but temps also go high like this when I'm streaming in discord. It goes higher and higher same with League but I recorded this for a shorter time but eventually it'll reach 95-99C
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*Extra stuff you don't really need to read*
I'd first say thank you in advance for those who'll drop by and help me diagnose this. If ever this is in the wrong forum I'm sorry. 
Pandemic is still bad in our country and currently quarantine in our region so I'm trying to troubleshoot and remove certain factors as much as possible since funds and restrictions here.
Just hoping to find possible new leads for this so that I know if I'd rather just invest and get a whole other laptop/desktop pc if the fix might cost me a huge fraction of it.  (If ever I'd ask for advice for great laptops etc. I'll just make a new thread on another forum section.)
---
EDIT: Might try to re-apply thermal paste and check heatsink myself tomorrow, if ever anyone wants me to test something before I open my laptop I'll note it and check this thread in the morning.


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## unclewebb (Aug 7, 2021)

rokupin said:


> eventually it'll reach 95-99C


You are not ever going to get maximum or consistent performance when the CPU is running that hot. 



rokupin said:


> help me diagnose this


You have already diagnosed the problem. Your computer is running too hot.

Either the heatsink and fan are not adequate or the person that replaced the thermal paste did not do a great job. I am not sure what thermal paste he used. Some popular pastes are terrible when used in a laptop. Thermal pastes can start to pump out in as little as a week and your CPU temperatures will go up and up.  The 9750H is a power hungry CPU. When a manufacturer installs a 9750H in a thin and light laptop, the cooling system has to be well engineered. They rarely are.  

Watch some YouTube videos. Learn how to do this maintenance procedure yourself. You might have to do this multiple times with different pastes before you find a combination that works. Until you improve your cooling, you are going to have problems. The 9750H has a 45W TDP. One of your screenshots shows 35W and you are already up to 93°C. Your cooling is not adequate to run your CPU at its rated power. Fix the cooling or you will have to reduce both power limits to 35W to try and control the heat. This will reduce performance.


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## rokupin (Aug 7, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> You are not ever going to get maximum or consistent performance when the CPU is running that hot.
> 
> 
> You have already diagnosed the problem. Your computer is running too hot.
> ...


Thanks for the fast reply. Actually just reopened my laptop a few hours to find out that the paste job felt like there was a murder scene in the cpu/gpu. Did the tutorials and repasted it, along with cross screwing 2 or 3 few times to get an even mush for both gpu and cpu. I also consulted my friends who build pc's if my paste job was good enough.

The "technician" (which did a bad job) gave me the extra deepcool z3 which I used. It became a bit cooler after the repasting.
Stupid question but I just wanted to ask and make sure if the problem definitely isn't in the motherboard/built in battery or if there's a test or something to watch out for to detect issues for that?

Come to think of it guess it didn't overheat before because my laptop created cracks on the wooden table I had in my previous place compared to this one which is on a thick plastic table.
This laptop is notorious after all for it's really bad cooling system.

Ill be checking and buying several pastes and buying a cooling pad/laptop stand. I'll be updating this after I get everything set up asap and also if ever other people come by and have cooling issues.
Here's two pics of the pasting the technician did as a sign of thank you/comedic/horror relief.


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## unclewebb (Aug 7, 2021)

Looks like someone was squeezing out thermal paste like it was a tube of toothpaste. 

Here is an example where the thermal paste gets pumped out until there is nothing left on the CPU or GPU dies.












rokupin said:


> the problem definitely isn't in the motherboard


The entire problem is poor design. Manufacturers keep reducing the amount of metal in their heatsinks until they reach the barely adequate stage. Then the software engineers add in lots of throttling schemes to try to cover up the mess that the hardware engineers created. The 9750H is too much CPU for most thin and light laptops. They all have similar overheating problems.


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## rokupin (Aug 8, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> Looks like someone was squeezing out thermal paste like it was a tube of toothpaste.
> 
> Here is an example where the thermal paste gets pumped out until there is nothing left on the CPU or GPU dies.
> 
> ...


Becoming more careful in researching and trying slowly learning about these things. According to a few threads in this site, I ordered TFX which was apparently good for laptops. I was almost going to order Kryonaut till I saw that there was a lot of pump out. 

I really appreciate what you guys do here and thank you for helping. It really was sheer stupidity that I didn't notice where I was using my laptop which had a difference along with putting more voltages on it which would also lead to more heat. Currently, max temps are at 89c which I'd honestly accept already. I'll be trying thermal pastes if it could be lowered by a bit along with the laptop stand I'll be ordering to replace the two rolls of packaging tapes im currently using.


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## rokupin (Aug 25, 2021)

*UPDATE:*
A week ago after putting on thermal paste, my temps were still high, both undervolted and not. I was wondering why since my fan is still working. As a hail mary, I consulted Lenovo about it and reformatted my pc even if I was confident that it wasn't a software issue. After two whole days and 7 calls, they agreed to send onsite support, bringing a new heatsink and fan. Apparently the fan port had a bent pin which didn't help in sensing the temperatures correctly. Technician said its a motherboard problem and considered user damage but tried to straighten the pin which made the fan work again. He also still replaced the heatsink and the fan for good measure and I told him to remove a bit of thermal paste that was pre-applied from the heatsink and mix a bit of my TFX into it.

Currently, my laptop is running consistently 50-60c under load and spikes to around low 70's under demanding games such as Witcher and World War Z.

*Tl;dr*: broken port in motherboard. Fixed port and all is good. 

Advice from someone who kind of screwed up like me:
Just do a bit of diagnosis and then go instantly to your support center if it's still not fixed. (Their processes are long and bad, but if you have warranty please use it.)
Thermal paste and Laptop stand also helps a lot.


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