# Undervolt for Acer Nitro 5 an515-55 53e5 with an i5-10300h



## Midnight (Jul 28, 2022)

Hello, and thank you for taking your time to read this. I appreciate all the effort you've gone into already for this type of cpu already.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any info for this laptop online. It has an i5 10300H, and a 3050 mobile, making it a little bit unique in the pairing (I don't think the 10300H will bottleneck it too much though.)

I've already gotten past the bios lock on the undervolting with some command lines and registry tweaks a walkthrough had me do. I've scoured for hours looking for the scraps of knowledge littered everywhere for an inkling on how to get this thing working correctly, and what each of these settings do.

I really just would like someone to check my settings and log files and tell me if I'm missing something important. I keep throttling down to around 3.7 Ghz after not that long. I guess I don't know how the Power Level settings are working. Also, for some reason my SSD seems to get pretty hot when pushing the CPU.

I have thought that I've had stable settings and had crashes, in fact I pushed it to -85mw and it crashed when playing 4k YouTube and using multiple tabs, while writing this lol. I lowered it to -75mw

Not only that but I'm having issues with PL1 and EDP Other in heat limiting. I'll include screenshots and a log. I'm using Cinebench R23 to bench, multi-core.


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## unclewebb (Jul 28, 2022)

Midnight said:


> I don't know how the Power Level settings are working











						Product Specifications
					

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					ark.intel.com
				




The 10300H has a 45W TDP rating. Some laptops use an embedded controller (EC) to enforce this power limit during any long term test. Acer laptops have this undesirable feature. Your log file shows that the 45W PL1 power limit is being enforced. The MSR power limit that ThrottleStop lets you set is being ignored. The lower limit always wins control of the CPU. You can try checking the MMIO Lock box but it is likely that this is not going to change anything. The 45W EC PL1 power limit will still be in effect.

The PP0 Power Limit should not be checked and the PP0 turbo time limit should be set to the minimum, 0.0010 seconds.

The Speed Shift Max value for your CPU is 45. Setting this to 64 does not accomplish anything. 

Check the Options window to see if the PROCHOT Offset value is locked. If you see a lock icon near this setting, leave it alone. If it is not locked, you can lower the Offset value if you want to raise the thermal throttling temperature. Intel default is 0 for this Offset setting. Acer tends to lock this setting. 

-70 mV is the typical stable undervolt for these CPUs. If you ever see a BSOD, the CPU needs more voltage.

Many laptops look good from a distance but are poorly designed internally. Consumers are more interested in looks than function. Your laptop likely has inadequate cooling which is a common problem. That is why your SSD gets excessively hot when pushing the CPU. 

Use ThrottleStop 9.5

Beyond that, there is not much else you can do.


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## Midnight (Jul 28, 2022)

Thanks for your response.

I do have a question regarding the limit to 45w. Why is the max wattage shown on the main interface showing 66.6 watts?

Also, is there any way to update ThrottleStop without having to re-tweak anything or is it just going to have to be a clean reinstall?

Lastly, my PROCHOT Offset value is not checked, but for some reason set to 8. There is a locking option above, which is not checked either. Is that considered a "leave it alone" scenario?

Thanks again, really - I'm sure you go over this with dozens, if not hundreds of others a week or month.

Edit - As you haven't seemed to read it yet, I'll add this question; is setting PL2 to 200 redundant? Or should I be setting _*that*_ to 66.6w?


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## unclewebb (Jul 29, 2022)

45W is the long term limit. The CPU can go beyond 45W for a short period of time but long term, it will be forced to slow down so it does not exceed 45W.



Midnight said:


> Is setting PL2 to 200 redundant?


Setting PL2 to 200W  or 2000W will not make any difference. These are power limits. They are only used when the CPU tries to go higher than these limits. Kind of like a game of limbo. Whether the bar is 6 feet high or 60 feet high is the same.

PROCHOT Offset is not locked so it can be adjusted. The BIOS has set this to 8 to keep your CPU extra safe. Lowering this to 2 or 3 will give you a little more headroom before thermal throttling begins. It is safe to do this based on the Intel spec for your CPU. 

To update ThrottleStop just copy the new ThrottleStop.exe into your present ThrottleStop folder.


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## Midnight (Jul 29, 2022)

> *Check the Options window to see if the PROCHOT Offset value is locked. If you see a lock icon near this setting, leave it alone. If it is not locked, you can lower the Offset value if you want to raise the thermal throttling temperature. Intel default is 0 for this Offset setting. Acer tends to lock this setting.*


Am I locking this after doing so?



> *You can try checking the MMIO Lock box but it is likely that this is not going to change anything. The 45W EC PL1 power limit will still be in effect.*


I've done that in the screenshot but indeed it does not change anything.


> PROCHOT Offset is not locked so it can be adjusted. The BIOS has set this to 8 to keep your CPU extra safe. Lowering this to 2 or 3 will give you a little more headroom before thermal throttling begins. It is safe to do this based on the Intel spec for your CPU.


I'm assuming that means 1 or 0 could be a bad idea?

Thanks for helping me understand and optimize my CPU- it never hurts to try and lower the power draw and heat output, even if the CPU is giving me all I really need at the moment- obviously heat is the number one thing that kills laptops.

Oh, you think an SSD with a heatsink might improve anything in the department, or is it just low quality? I got this thing for like $750 USD in May and the biggest "bottleneck" is the 256GB of storage. Maybe it's just a "budget SSD", or it being at full capacity is maybe heating it up.

Lastly, what is this about? 



That's all I could ever need or want to know. Thanks in advance.


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## unclewebb (Jul 29, 2022)

Midnight said:


> 1 or 0 could be a bad idea?


The Intel default is 0. Laptop manufacturers whined to Intel that letting the CPU go as high as 100°C in a laptop was too much. Intel threw them a bone and created PROCHOT Offset which allows manufacturers to lower the throttling temperature. Some manufacturers set their laptops to shut down at 100°C. Intel does not recommend that they do this. The Intel recommended shut down temperature is not until approximately 125°C. If your laptop has a premature shut down temperature of only 100°C then you will need to leave PROCHOT Offset at 4 or 5 to prevent the CPU from ever reaching 100°C and shutting down. 

Once you find a PROCHOT Offset value that you like, I would recommend using the Lock PROCHOT Offset option. That way ThrottleStop will not have to constantly check if this setting has been changed. Once locked, you need to reboot to unlock it and you also need to clear the Lock box so it does not get locked again. 



Midnight said:


> it does not change anything


I am not surprised. 

In a budget laptop, I would also not be surprised if the SSD runs hot. They might be using some older technology. Hard to say without knowing the exact model number. I do not have enough recent SSD experience so you will need to ask elsewhere if your SSD temperatures are normal for a laptop.



Midnight said:


> Lastly, what is this about?


Can you be more specific? The Sleep Defaults will set the cache ratio and voltages to default values just before the CPU enters sleep mode. This can help prevent some laptops from freezing during a sleep resume cycle. As soon as your computer resumes and ThrottleStop resumes, it resets everything to your requested cache and voltage settings. No need to use these options unless you have a specific problem that you are trying to solve.


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## Midnight (Jul 29, 2022)

> _Can you be more specific?_


You've answered half of the question technically. I'm also a little curious why there seems to be an option to tweak what _seems_ to be my RAM clock, but then I realized there is no "tweaking" it, lol.



> Some manufacturers set their laptops to shut down at 100°C.


I believe Acer is doing this after some quick googling.

If I set the PROCHOT Offset to just 1, will it successfully throttle down at 99°C and "save" it from shutting down, or is there a chance it'll spike over to 100°C and my laptop shuts down?

Essentially my question is "*how reliable is the offset?*"

Thanks again, really, you're a champ for running this software/forum for this many years, helping plebs like me understand.


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## unclewebb (Jul 29, 2022)

Midnight said:


> how reliable is the offset?


The offset works as intended. If the throttling temperature is set to 99C, it is still possible and likely that the CPU will briefly go beyond 99C. How much it might go over depends on the laptop cooling. Only you can do some testing to find out what offset value will work reliably for you.



Midnight said:


> Thanks again


You are welcome. It is always fun helping users get all this stuff figured out.


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## Trevormcooper (Aug 1, 2022)

I will say I had a lot better success with double the core undervolt
I5 10300h
Im sitting at -200 core and -80 cache rock solid through every torture test, I did limit to 4.0 ghz


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## ivanosky (Aug 2, 2022)

Midnight said:


> Essentially my question is "*how reliable is the offset?*"


The PROCHOT Offset is not exactly a hard limit, the CPU temps might go over it so you should set it to a higher value than 1. I have my i7 11800H PROCHOT Offset set to 10, and it repeatedly goes over 90C when gaming, sometimes higher than 95C. I would suggest an Offset of at least 5 to make it less likely to hit 100C degrees.


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