# Learn Throttlestop with the Dell XPS 15 7590



## mannotserious (Oct 22, 2021)

Hi everyone, I've been attempting to learn Throttlestop 9.4 after repasting my 9750H CPU.
I'm making progress, yet results are inconsistent. Sometimes blinking red THERMAL and EDP OTHER, sometimes no red limiters at all.
I was hoping someone could shed some light as to how I could improve on these settings.
Thanks so much!

-mannotserious


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## unclewebb (Oct 22, 2021)

When you have a 16°C difference in peak temperatures between two cores that are sitting beside each other, that is a sign that your thermal paste job might not have been great. What thermal paste did you use and how did you apply it?

There are situations when the paste job is great but the heatsink does not sit flat on the cores. It takes some people a few tries before they get good results. 

Your ThrottleStop settings look OK. You will never be able to get maximum performance out of this CPU unless the cooling is better. Some Dell laptops use marginal heatsinks and fans. They are good enough for the 45W TDP rating. When you try to go beyond 45W, the heatsink might not be capable of that. Thermal throttling could be unavoidable even if your thermal paste job is perfect.


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## mannotserious (Oct 25, 2021)

Thanks for the response Uncle. 
Turns out I had used too much paste on the CPU and GPU, and the MOSFET pads I used were too thick. I repasted and swapped the thermal pads out for thin ones. I've kept the same Throttlestop settings but added a GPU undervolt. Things look far better now. Following a 5-pass Cinebench R23 test, I didn't even get yellow limit warnings and the deviation between core temps didn't exceed 7°C. I got a score of 6099 pts. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Uncle.

For others with the same set up:
- Thin thermal paste on GPU and CPU, using spread technique.
- 0.5mm thermal pads on each MOSFET.
- 3x 1.5mm thermal pads stacked on the VRM.
- Dell Power Settings: Thermal Mangement set to Ultra Performance
- Throttlestop Intel GPU and iGPU Unslice undervolt: -49.8


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