CPU throttling under 80°C

[Blantche]

Hello,

I have lenovo legion y520 with the i7-7700HQ. When i run OCCT or other stress test my core clock drop from 3800MHz to 2700MHz (screenshot below).

That's happens before and after undervolting. I have high performance battery and mains supply.

I think that's can be a thermal throttling but it's not normal when CPU throttling with 75/80°C. In OCCT TjMax show 100°C (for example 40°C core and TjMax 60°C). ThrottleStop show me Prochot 92°C.

Thanks for any help!

 

[dark2099]

How old is the laptop? Might be that the cooler/fan has gotten dirty over time.

 

[Blantche]

2,5 year. Year ago i clean the laptop from dust and change thermal paste to grizzly kryonaut.

Why you think it's a problem with dirt when laptop throttling with low temperature like 77/80°C

 

[birdie]

Throttling is not just a function of T, it's also a function of power consumption. This CPU rated TDP is 45W and you're close to it.

It would be nice if you ran HWiNFO64 which could tell you the exact throttling reason.

 

[elghinnarisa]

I have a Y520 myself, figured I would run OCCT and see if mine behaves the same way.
Have you cleaned it? How warm is it at your place? its rather chilly here with ambient being around 19c. And I have for the most part neglected proper care of my Y520 for many years. It was at least 2 years since I last cleaned it.

I do not know how HwMonitor operates but in Hwinfo you can see performance limit reason.

After running OCCT for a while it has dropped down to 3-3.2GHz at about 80c, hwinfo lists limiting reasons currently as Max VR voltage, ICCMax, PL4 and package-level RALP PL1. It also hits Max Turbo Limit every now and then that flicks on and off.

For the sake of testing I put the fan on to 100% and it now jumps between 3200Mhz and 3400Mhz, with 3400Mhz being the all core turbo frequency.

At this point I would suspect the reason I do not get a steady 3400Mhz which is the all core turbo would be the short power max, turbo boost power max and turbo boost power time window settings you can normally poke at in BIOS (or Intel Extreme Tuning Utility in my case).

I open the Intel extreme tuning utility and take a look and it does indeed report it as "Current Limit Throtteling: yes", So I increased the turbo states allowed wattage (as the sliders are in IXTU) as well as core IccMax and it jumps right up to the proper 3400Mhz.

 

[Blantche]

As i said before laptop is clean

Do you want screenshot before stress test and after form HWinfo? What exacly do you want to see in screenshot? Sensor Status or System Summary?

"I open the Intel extreme tuning utility and take a look and it does indeed report it as "Current Limit Throtteling: yes", So I increased the turbo states allowed wattage (as the sliders are in IXTU) as well as core IccMax and it jumps right up to the proper 3400Mhz."
Can i make it in ThorrtleStop?

 

[elghinnarisa]

As i said before laptop is clean

Do you want screenshot before stress test and after form HWinfo? What exacly do you want to see in screenshot? Sensor Status or System Summary?

"I open the Intel extreme tuning utility and take a look and it does indeed report it as "Current Limit Throtteling: yes", So I increased the turbo states allowed wattage (as the sliders are in IXTU) as well as core IccMax and it jumps right up to the proper 3400Mhz."
Can i make it in ThorrtleStop?

The section named "Performance Limit Reasons" in HwInfo would be good to have those screenshots off, to see the reason that it is decreasing in frequency.

I have never used throttlestop myself so I can't anwser that one.
Mine does operate just fine starting out at 3400Mhz and then drops after a while for current limiting reasons, which is just fine for normal/stock behavior. However yours does drop in frequency quite a bit more than mine.

 

[Blantche]

I didnt see "Performance Limit Utilization" :/

What do you think about this solution?

Disable Power Limits using ThrottleStop - Brad's Hacks

Is your CPU reducing its speed under load even at low temperatures? Then you might need to disable power limits. Here's how.

bradshacks.com

Screen below (before and after stress test). As you see CPU drop clock after 10 second when i start stress test so it's impossible to overheating.

 

[John Naylor]

As a symthetic, OCCT stresses your system far more than any "real program" that you actually might use in a productive manner. Suggest using RoG Real Bench which uses a combo Real Applications to test your system. Using sytnthetics is like trying to see if your SUV can handle towing your SeaDoo 12 miles to the beach but towing a 12,000 lb trailer up over the roickies.

 

[Blantche]

Core clock drop even when i run Witcher 3 but give me a seccond. I will download RoG Real Bench

 

[EarthDog]

I open the Intel extreme tuning utility and take a look and it does indeed report it as "Current Limit Throtteling: yes", So I increased the turbo states allowed wattage (as the sliders are in IXTU) as well as core IccMax and it jumps right up to the proper 3400Mhz.

wattage and current arent the same things. You need to find a setting to raise the current limit. That said, it's a laptop so no idea if there is anything in there like that.

 

[Blantche]

Stress test before and after RoG Real Bench. After 1m clock are drop (temperature before drop 65/77°C)

 

[Caring1]

Use Throttlestop to undervolt if needed and possibly increase power limits.
Post plenty of screenshots of your settings.

 

[Blantche]

As u see i already undervolt my CPU. Core clock are dropped even before undervolt.

 

[birdie]

Stress test before and after RoG Real Bench. After 1m clock are drop (temperature before drop 65/77°C)

According to your last screenshots your CPU is hitting 3.8GHz on all cores which is exactly within its specs.

 

[Blantche]

But why he drop cores in low temperature?

 

[Caring1]

You have BD Prochot checked, this can downclock the CPU even when it is not at the point of throttling, you could uncheck that and use as normal with risks involved of course.
Also you have the Intel GPU undervolted but not the iGPU Unslice, which must be undervolted the same value.
Post a screenshot of the TPL tab.

 

[Blantche]

I do same undervolting to iGPU Unslice, thanks

BD Prochot what risks this can make to me? Do you think is worth?

Screenshot below

 

[unclewebb]

The first problem I see is that your computer is not enabling Speed Shift Technology. Laptops with 6th and 7th Gen CPUs support this feature but many did not enable this in the BIOS like they should have. In ThrottleStop you have Speed Shift EPP checked on the main screen but Speed Shift is not yet enabled so this is doing nothing. Open the TPL window and check Speed Shift and push Apply. The Range box will then tell you appropriate values for the Speed Shift Min and Max. For the 7700HQ, typical values are 1 and 38.

On the main screen set Speed Shift EPP to 80. Click on this number to edit it. A setting of 128 can limit maximum performance. 80 is a better balanced profile. A setting of 0 is for max CPU speed even when idle.

Download a more practical test like Cinebench R20. Tests like Prime95 or OCCT are a little overwhelming for laptops.

When running the test, open up the ThrottleStop Limit Reasons window. It will show you why your CPU is throttling. Lenovo used a few different methods to randomly disable Intel Turbo Boost. This is not BD PROCHOT related so for now you can leave that checked.

Post a screenshot of ThrottleStop while your computer is running CInebench R20 with Limit Reasons open. This will tell me what I need to know; accurate CPU speed, temperatures and any throttling.

In ThrottleStop you can increase the Core IccMax current limit in the FIVR window. Best to set it to its maximum value, 255.75 so it does not interfere with performance.

Edit - Also post a screenshot of the Options window. The Intel default thermal throttling temperature (PROCHOT) is 100°C. It looks like Lenovo is low balling that down to 92°C. If the PROCHOT Offset feature does not have a Lock icon above it, I would change PROCHOT Offset from 8 to 2 or 3. Limiting the maximum temperature can limit maximum performance. Intel default for this offset value is 0 so your CPU will still be within spec no matter how you adjust this.

 

[Blantche]

I turn on the "Limits" in ThrottleStop and then run Cinebench R20. After this i see nothing in this window but my clocks drop :/ I tried even "TS Bench" but still nothing.

The "Core IccMax" can infuence badly to my laptop?

EDIT: I restarted laptop and turn the bench again and this happen (screen below)

 

[unclewebb]

but my clocks drop

ThrottleStop does not show that your clocks have dropped. The maximum speed for a 7700HQ when 4 cores are active is 3400 MHz.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core%20i7%20i7-7700HQ.html

If you are seeing your CPU speed drop as reported by ThrottleStop, post a picture of that. Do not cover up ThrottleStop.

If your CPU is throttling, increasing IccMax might help to prevent that. I do not know if it will be bad for your laptop. Only performance is important to me.

Some throttling flags turning yellow when booting up or restarting is normal. Look at your CPU multipliers. They are all at 34.00 in your screenshots. That is the maximum. You cannot get more performance than that from this CPU when it is fully loaded and all 4 cores are active.

 

[Blantche]

After all these steps my core clocks don't drop. Thanks!

Why when my clocks drop i have 706 points in Cinebench R15 and now when they work stability I still have 706 points?

Is there anything I can do to improve my laptop's stability?

Do I to worry about laptop? Checking the temperature sometimes etc.?

 

[unclewebb]

Cinebench R15

Time to upgrade. Use Cinebench R20 instead.

https://www.maxon.net/en-us/products/cinebench-r20-overview/

laptop's stability

When is your laptop not stable? You are using a -90 mV undervolt for your CPU core and CPU cache. Did you do any stability testing of those values? How did you decide that those numbers are correct for your CPU? Did you watch a YouTube video and copy some numbers that worked well for a different CPU?

When adjusting voltages you need to do full load testing as well as partial load testing. Using the TS Bench test and selecting 1 or 2 Threads is a good partial load test. One or two threads of Prime95 is another good partial load test. Too many people only do full load testing. Then they have stability problems when their CPU is only partially loaded because they never did any testing of that.

Cinebench R20 is a good full load test. It takes longer to complete compared to Cinebench R15 and is also a more strenuous test compared to R15. The R20 test uses the AVX instructions so it will need more power and will create more heat. You might see some throttling in this test. Watch Limit Reasons.

Do I to worry about laptop?

Once you set your voltages correctly and properly test them, you will not have to worry at all.

Checking the temperature sometimes etc.?

It is a good idea to check your temperatures once in a while. If your idle temperature is 50°C one week and next week they are 80°C, then you will know that you have a problem. That is why I turn on the CPU temperature icon in ThrottleStop so I can keep an eye on things. I also turn on the power icon in the system tray. Sudden changes are a good sign that something is running in the background. If something has changed, I want to know what it is.

 

[Blantche]

When is your laptop not stable?

I mean before changes when clock are drop

I start with -50 and after this I make stress test cpu and gpu in same time. If it stable i change it to -60 and again reapet stress test. I already test -90 with some games and stress tests for couple hour.

If it will get crash i need to change only Offset Voltage to bigger (from -90 to -80) in CPU Core/Cache? No need to change Speed Shift EPP?

 

[Ripcord]

this could be anything, a weak PSU could also be the cause,