# Throttlestop is giving me "GPU POWER" for limit reasons



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

Sup Guys! Fresh to the forum - and already got a big question! I had a lot of trouble lately with my Y50-70 laptop. The core problem was : In video games , no matter how heavy they are , i get those massive fps lacks, like the screen freezes and the sound is looping for 2 seconds. so i decided to look for a solution. I already managed to overclock my CPU and it works fine. Also the Temperatures are absolutely okey.  But i keep getting these spikes.  I have wonderfull fps in most games but suddenly ...bam! Freez. heres a list of the thoughts running through my head : Throttling, heat? , gpu power?,  

I heard that the lenovo y50-70 series runs into trouble when it comes to good timed throttling but it just annoys me right now.  the GPU we talk about is a gtx 960m

Ill upload a few files .

sorry for the long post heres a potatoe  ----->   \(*-*)/

Edit: Forgot to say that : sometimes while running at full power the GPU LIMIT  is showed as red and doesnt leave that state for a long while.


----------



## Vayra86 (Dec 18, 2016)

You need to check your in-game temps, the throttlestop screenshot shows idle.

Open GPU-Z, have the tab with sensor data open and run Valley benchmark or something like that. Post GPU-Z screen with sensor data.

I'll just hazard a random guess. You have throttling / major temperature issues going on and your CPU OC is detrimental to performance of your GPU.

As is the case in every 'gaming' laptop ever..


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

gonna do that gimme a sec 

There we go, temperature even did go up to 90 , oh my!   the fans are clear and new thermalpaste is applied.


----------



## Vayra86 (Dec 18, 2016)

mturba971 said:


> There we go, temperature even did go up to 90 , oh my!   the fans are clear and new thermalpaste is applied.



Yep, I would back down that CPU overclock a bit. Having no throttling is *much* more effective than constantly running into temperature limits. It is better to have a headroom of 1-3 C below throttle point overall, because as you point out, it's a clean laptop with fresh paste. The temperatures won't be getting better over time, but worse, and throttling behaviour will intensify.

I'm not entirely sure how your cooling system looks, but most laptops use a heatpipe that runs from the CPU across to the GPU and cooling intake fan is usually somewhere in between or around the CPU die, with the exhaust radial fan on your GPU. This means that higher CPU temps will transfer through the heatpipe to your GPU and impact cooling the GPU. Therefore a cooler CPU = more breathing room for GPU. You've got a fast CPU for that 960M, and I think you could even clock it all the way down to 2.6-3 Ghz and not bottleneck anything. The final performance in graphics heavy games will improve.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

Oh!  I see , could undervolting my CPU help with temperatures?


----------



## Vayra86 (Dec 18, 2016)

Absolutely. Lower volts = lower temps or less noise whichever you prefer.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

well so how i do that? 

Edit: Even when im at desktop and doing literally nothing throttlestop shows me thats something wrong with the GPU power.  while doing nothing the temperature of cpu is 44 degrees. GPU is at 38 degrees.

im happily waiting for you guys replies


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 18, 2016)

Sitting at the desktop, the GTX960M is disabled, so the sensor data doesn't work properly.  So don't worry about that.

Also, when the GPU is under load, it is normal for the PerfCapReason to be VRel and VOp.

I'd leave both GPU-Z and throttlestop open and play some games until the problem happens.  Then exit the game and take a look.  Post a screenshot of the two after the problem has happened.  That might give us a better idea of what is really throttling and why.  Also, if there are any variations on the PerfCapReason graph in GPU-Z, if the graphs changes from blue and orange to some other color, mouse over those variations at let use know what it says the reason is.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

Hey newtekie1 ! thanks for participating.  I see your point but still how do i get rid of throttling because of GPU power.  i mostly play games that are not that graphic intensive but still i get those problems!  I really should point out that im a total noob when it comes to this stuff.  

I hope i dont annoy anyone of you guys! 

highly appreciate.


----------



## P4-630 (Dec 18, 2016)

Also your power brick might not be good enough for overclocking CPU/GPU adventures....


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 18, 2016)

mturba971 said:


> Hey newtekie1 ! thanks for participating.  I see your point but still how do i get rid of throttling because of GPU power.  i mostly play games that are not that graphic intensive but still i get those problems!  I really should point out that im a total noob when it comes to this stuff.
> 
> I hope i dont annoy anyone of you guys!
> 
> highly appreciate.



It isn't really throttling because of GPU Power.  What is really happening is that GPU Boost is setting the maximum clock speed based on what it thinks the maximum stable clock speed the GPU can handle at the current voltage.  That is what VRel and VOp mean.  Throttlestop interprets this as throttling due to power, but it isn't true throttling as most think of it so it is marked in yellow, if the box turns red then that is true throttling AFAIK.  Basically, nVidia GPUs are always "throttling", because GPU Boost is always monitoring and adjusting as it see necessary.  Most of the time it is adjusting to the maximum possible, but that is still "throttling" it is just throttling up, instead of down like most people thing about throttling.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

so theres really not much i can do about it?


----------



## newtekie1 (Dec 18, 2016)

mturba971 said:


> so theres really not much i can do about it?



There might be something you can do about the lag spikes, if they are caused by some other reasons.  But there is nothing you can do about the VRel and VOp throttling, as that is 100% normal behavior.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

been trying to find another solution but nope. 

Edit : I found something intresting, everytime i mouse over an Desktop icon throttlestop shows the yellow/red Gpu power.  its pretty accurate doing that.  Just as soon as the cursor hits the icon and it flashes up  ( you know what i mean) .


----------



## DeathtoGnomes (Dec 18, 2016)

Better cooling solution is always desired for laptops, but hardly ever happens short of a couple fans underneath it.


----------



## unclewebb (Dec 18, 2016)

The ThrottleStop GPU Power that lights up in red is telling you that there is a problem with the Intel GPU.  This has nothing to do with the Nvidia GPU.  Here is Intel's explanation.



> *Graphics Power Limiting Status (R0)*
> When set, frequency is reduced below the operating system request due to domain-level power limiting.



Can you post a screenshot of the ThrottleStop Turbo Power Limits (TPL) window?  There are a few adjustments in there that might be able to help with this problem.  Intel CPUs have a shared package power limit that includes all of the CPU cores as well as the Intel GPU.  If this shared limit is not set correctly, the Intel GPU can end up starved for power and will start throttling.  When everything is OK, this should not be lighting up in red.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 18, 2016)

@unclewebb   wow.  its an honor to me that you answered on my thread.  i was about to go to sleep but there you go!


----------



## unclewebb (Dec 18, 2016)

I do not see anything obvious in that window.  Most settings are locked by the bios.  You could try checking off the Intel Power Balance option and then set Intel CPU to 0 and Intel GPU to 31.  Hit OK and see if that makes any difference.  There are a few other hidden locations that are not shown in this window which can cause problems.

Have you tried installing the latest Intel GPU driver?


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

Hello again! Sorry for the late reply, ive been to work!  Im just now updating the drivers of the Intel GPU. I'll also try to do the things you mentioned on the TPL Window. After all that is done ill give it a shot and inform you guys about the results. 

As always thanks for stickin with me beeing a noob! 

best regards


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

Did everything as advised. no changing at all 

remember what i said about moving the cursor over some desktop icons? I can make it stay on GPU POWER  constantly red if wiggling the cursor over a few in a row.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

Important update i guess: If i use the touchpad instead of the mouse , throttlestop is not showing the red GPU POWER at all.  if i start using mouse furiously it gets red again.   it just went to yellow GPU POWER very little few times when i used touchpad. ???? I have no clue whats going on, maybe the mouse driver is fkin up?

Sorry for spamming the last 3 posts, ill start edit posts from now on if noone replied so far -

News : I figured that its not the mouse itself. Its not the USB port itself .  I tried other mouse and other usb port still getting same thing. I feel like theres something in the bush i dont quite understand.

Appearently hovering the mouse around the browser and clicking things does not trigger Throttlestop to show me GPU POWER

moving the mouse reeeeeeeeaaally slowly, im talking ridicoulusly slowly , is not triggering the GPU POWER


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

Appearently GPU-Z Is like....ticking...  all values go down to 0  every couple of seconds, this screenshot was made while just having firefox opened.


yet again : excuse me for spamming please.

Running applications like : Vanilla WoW , Valley Benchmark  i figured that i get those like little frame skips without actual loss in FPS on the counter. however if the frameskip is long enough like 2 seconds or more the fps will then go to 0 and immediatly hit the framerate im used too. I also get these little skips when im for example : writing texts , i write 3 letters and the 4. one is coming 0,75 seconds later. this is not happening all of the time but i assume its somehow connected to the :" GPU POWER " thingy i get.

- going into "ALT+TAB" mode  ( you know where you switch to diffrent windows or apps)  triggers the GPU POWER (Red) Mode CONSTANTLY -

 while having the alt+tab screen throttlestop will tell me that GPU is 'throttling' ( ye i know we talked about that ) like hell.   TDP Throttling while light up and it gives me the RED GPU POWER



Question in my mind right now is :  Could it be somehow desktop related? I remember Aero was a bad thing back at the day with WIN 7.... guess im lucky using win10?


figured out that : hovering over desktop icons is not whats triggering it ,  its moving the mouse at certain speed. happens to Touchpad too now.

figured out that : Fast mouse movement  also increases CPU Heat and usage by 5%

also ive seen that : I  get P2 and EDP Current messages from Throttlestop from time to time. dunno what that means. but none of them have been red yet. only occur rarely. dunno what triggers it.


----------



## Vayra86 (Dec 19, 2016)

mturba971 said:


> Appearently GPU-Z Is like....ticking...  all values go down to 0  every couple of seconds, this screenshot was made while just having firefox opened.
> 
> 
> yet again : excuse me for spamming please.
> ...



More I read of this the more I'm thinking CPU temperature problems.

GPU Power just means about the same as 'VRel' in that you've hit the power limit of the card and to clock higher you'd need more voltage. Don't go there, your laptop runs hot as it is. The main reason it's hot, is because CPU is passing 80 C ingame.

Last but not least, keep in mind that 'throttling' is a behaviour you'd actually *want* to a certain degree. The alternative (no throttling at high temps) would be fire coming out of your machine.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

Vayra86 said:


> More I read of this the more I'm thinking CPU temperature problems.
> 
> GPU Power just means about the same as 'VRel' in that you've hit the power limit of the card and to clock higher you'd need more voltage. Don't go there, your laptop runs hot as it is. The main reason it's hot, is because CPU is passing 80 C ingame.
> 
> Last but not least, keep in mind that 'throttling' is a behaviour you'd actually *want* to a certain degree. The alternative (no throttling at high temps) would be fire coming out of your machine.


I see your point about the temperature but for instance if im playing WoW even in very crowded situations the Temperature does not pass the 75 C.  and 75C is not really a temperature you have to worry bout right? 75C is the absolute maximum thats happening when playing wow.


also i dont get why throttlestop is telling me that its TDP Throttling while im having a 35C on cpu and 31C on GPU sitting on desktop just moving coursor.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

could it be that my system is simply bored by running only WoW? I figured that my GPU is running in utilization mode - is there a way to change it? shouldnt it be doing it itself when heavy loads come in? ill add a picture while running WoW


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 19, 2016)

woa! theres something new on the graph. its the power limit telling me stuff, right? i experienced a framespike when this happened i guess


----------



## unclewebb (Dec 20, 2016)

> *Graphics Power Limiting Status (R0)*
> When set, frequency is reduced below the operating system request due to domain-level power limiting.



This has nothing to do with throttling because you reached the TDP level.  TDP throttling in Limit Reasons is reported as either PL1 or PL2 which means you have reached the long or short term TDP power limit.  Intel typically sets the long term PL1 limit to the rated TDP of the processor and manufacturers generally set the short term PL2 limit to a value either 20% or 25% higher than the TDP limit.

GPU Power lighting up seems like it is a notification that a power saving feature has kicked in.  The operating system is probably requesting full speed and the Intel GPU is replying, that is not necessary.  The user is only moving his mouse around which is not a heavy work load so I can manage that without having to go up to full speed.  I just don't see GPU Power lighting up when idle is a big deal.  When gaming, the Nvidia GPU will be active so once again, anything that the Intel GPU is reporting should be irrelevant.  

Nvidia mobile GPUs are designed to sleep when you are sitting at the desktop.  The Nvidia GPU will only become active if you force it to become active or if you start playing a game.  This should automatically wake the Nvidia GPU up so you can get maximum performance.  It is also possible to add a right mouse menu option so you can right click on any .exe file and force that program to use the Nvidia GPU instead of the built in Intel GPU.  You can also do the opposite and use this trick to force a game that would normally run on your Nvidia GPU to instead run on the built in Intel GPU.  This can be useful when running on battery power because leaving the Nvidia GPU dormant will reduce power consumption.

When you start GPU-Z, it wakes up your Nvidia GPU so it can monitor its temperature and clock speed.  When it is finished sampling, the Nvidia GPU goes back to sleep since it has nothing to do.  By default, about every 5 seconds, GPU-Z will wake up the Nvidia GPU and sample it again.  Some other monitoring software might keep the Nvidia GPU active continuously.  ThrottleStop does the opposite and tries to let the Nvidia GPU remain sleeping when it is not being used.  When ThrottleStop reports GPU --°C, that's what it means.  No temperature data was obtained due to Nvidia GPU having a nap.






ThrottleStop Limit Reasons can report lots of different stuff but not all of what it reports is a sign that something bad is happening.


----------



## mturba971 (Dec 26, 2016)

i found a workaround by putting more stress to CPU & GPU . #closethread


----------

