CPU throttling making clock stays below half the base clock!

[afhlmd]

Ladies and gentleman,

I've been experiencing a very sad situation with my laptop regarding cpu throttle and I would be very grateful if I could get some help from one of you experts.

Whenever i fire up a game or stress test and turn on throttlestop i get those red and yellow throttle lights "PL1", "PL2", "Thermal" and "EDP Other" both in the core column and gpu. Things blink so much around here that it seems like Christmas . Although those lights represent abnormal behavior i would not bother about this throttling if there was not a significant loss in performance, but unfortunately that is not the case. The real situation here is that when throttling happens my clock goes way beyond the base clock it should have, stabilizing at about 1,2 ghz! That loss in performance makes my Fps go down from 60/50 to 40/30...

My gear is a Dell g3 i7-9750h with a gtx 1660 ti with max-q and 16gb for RAM, so I should have a base clock of about 2,6 GHz and that fact makes this impact on clock unacceptable! I tried undervolting the cpu but i believe this feature has been locked by Intel or Dell as i try to move the handles on the program but nothing happens. After acknowledging that I started a personal quest on the internet to figure out what´s going on and if there was something i could do to make it better. I stumbled across a "Bob of all trades" tutorial on YouTube that advised to turn off the "BD PROCHOT" and turn on "Speed Shift - EPP" setting the SST to zero. That caused an improvement on my frame rates but i´m still experiencing a lot of throttling and clock now is better than the 1,2 Ghz mentioned before but still below the 2,6 GHz as you´ll see in the log attached to this message.

That said, I would ask of you masters of overheating issues if there´s something I can do to improve my gear´s performance in order for me to exploit all the potential of the system I paid for.

PS.: Amazing work you guys are making here. @unclewebb amazing job you did on the Throttlestop program. Also reading your posts it´s like a class on computers, learned so much from them in the past week.
Thanks so much to all you guys/girls in the community. If I did something wrong please forgive me, I´m totally knew in this forum world.

 

[unclewebb]

Your Dell laptop is rotten to the core. The Cinebench score is half of what a properly functioning 9750H should score in this benchmark.

Your ThrottleStop screenshot and log file show exactly what is going on. Severe power Limit throttling. The 9750H has a 45W TDP rating. Unless it is on fire, which it is not, it should be able to run at up to 45W. What Dell is doing is that they are reducing the long term turbo power limit down to approximately 10W. You paid for a computer with a 45W CPU and Dell thinks it is OK to only let you use 10W of those 45W. Disgusting.

There are 3 sets of turbo power limits that are duplicated. I am assuming that the power limits in the ThrottleStop TPL window are set appropriately. Post a screenshot of that. There is an option in the FIVR window called Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits. You definitely need to check that box. Unfortunately, the third set of turbo power limits cannot be accessed by ThrottleStop or Intel XTU or any other freely available software. It is controlled internally by the EC. Dell uses the EC to send low power limits to the CPU. This castrates laptop performance.

The log file shows that Intel Turbo Boost is initially disabled so the CPU is left running at the 26 multiplier which is already below spec. When that is not enough throttling, then PL1 starts showing up in the log file. The Power Limit quickly starts to drop. 15W, 14W, 13W, 12W, 11W and finally bottoms out somewhere around 10W. Great. Even a low dollar netbook computer allows the CPU to run with more power than that.

For the record, this is not the first time I have seen this exact same throttling scheme with a high performance CPU being limited to 10W. It is not some random chance. It is done deliberately by Dell and to the best of my knowledge, only by Dell.

Contact Dell. Raise holy hell with them. These secret throttling schemes that they are using is worthy of a massive class action lawsuit. Good luck getting a satisfactory response from Dell. Probably best to dump your good looking laptop on EBay for whatever you can get for it and move on.

 

[afhlmd]

Duuude! I can´t thank you enough for this attention! Sorry for not answering your post before I was in a preparation meeting in Teams.

Yeah you´re totally right! I´ll rain hell on their customer support tomorrow!
Regarding the turbo boost disabled that could be my doing cause I was so desperate with the performance that I accepted sacrificing my turbo for a steady 2.6 GHz which didn´t happen. Actually if that worked out i wouldn´t bother trying to fix it cause I think the machine must, at least, give me the base clock 90% to 95% of the time. In the US this config must be an entrance laptop but here in Brazil it´s a very expensive machine so I can´t let go of it to easy.

I´ll call customer support tomorrow as I said and as soon as the case show some development I´ll post it here.

Thank you very much for the support @unclewebb I can´t think of anyway to thank you, sorry. Maybe if you need some help on Excel spreadsheets I can be there for you. Send me a message if you need it!

Your Dell laptop is rotten to the core. The Cinebench score is half of what a properly functioning 9750H should score in this benchmark.

Your ThrottleStop screenshot and log file show exactly what is going on. Severe power Limit throttling. The 9750H has a 45W TDP rating. Unless it is on fire, which it is not, it should be able to run at up to 45W. What Dell is doing is that they are reducing the long term turbo power limit down to approximately 10W. You paid for a computer with a 45W CPU and Dell thinks it is OK to only let you use 10W of those 45W. Disgusting.

There are 3 sets of turbo power limits that are duplicated. I am assuming that the power limits in the ThrottleStop TPL window are set appropriately. Post a screenshot of that. There is an option in the FIVR window called Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits. You definitely need to check that box. Unfortunately, the third set of turbo power limits cannot be accessed by ThrottleStop or Intel XTU or any other freely available software. It is controlled internally by the EC. Dell uses the EC to send low power limits to the CPU. This castrates laptop performance.

The log file shows that Intel Turbo Boost is initially disabled so the CPU is left running at the 26 multiplier which is already below spec. When that is not enough throttling, then PL1 starts showing up in the log file. The Power Limit quickly starts to drop. 15W, 14W, 13W, 12W, 11W and finally bottoms out somewhere around 10W. Great. Even a low dollar netbook computer allows the CPU to run with more power than that.

For the record, this is not the first time I have seen this exact same throttling scheme with a high performance CPU being limited to 10W. It is not some random chance. It is done deliberately by Dell and to the best of my knowledge, only by Dell.

Contact Dell. Raise holy hell with them. These secret throttling schemes that they are using is worthy of a massive class action lawsuit. Good luck getting a satisfactory response from Dell. Probably best to dump your good looking laptop on EBay for whatever you can get for it and move on.

TPL window

FIVR window

 

[unclewebb]

Try checking the Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits box in the FIVR window, just below the monitoring table. That is your only hope. I am pretty sure with this new throttling method that Dell is using, this will not help but it is all that you can try. Your other power limits are fine. Set Speed Shift Max back to the default setting of 45.

Speed Shift Min can be set to 1 or 8.

I am as curious as anyone to hear what Dell has to say about this feature that they created. Let them know that no other laptops besides Dell do this. The standard line of reinstall Windows is not going to solve a problem for long that is at the hardware level.

 

[afhlmd]

I've checked the disable and lock power limit feature as you told and I sensed good improvement on performance although I keep getting the throttling lights as before. The solution I found for the throttling was disabling the turbo boost which granted me a steady clock of 2,6 ghz and that gave me a stable Fps on the games I play that ran easily on 60 Fps high/ultra settings on a wide screen monitor. I can live with that.

As an experience sometimes I enable turbo boost but as i do that the Christmas lights take over the limits window again. Nevertheless I don't see such an improvement on performance so i guess I´ll keep Turbo Boost disabled.

Regarding Dell Customer Support:

I called Dell´s Customer Support and explained them my issues. They made a bunch of tests, reconfiguration and I made them see my terrible drop on clock (I undid all the tunning I´ve made in Throttlestop before calling them. I´m attaching a printscren of Watchdogs runnig on 1,1 GHz due to the throttling problem). After a lot of consultation with various levels of technicians the response they gave me was:

IT´S AN EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR OF THE PROCESSOR RUNNING BELOW BASE CLOCK WHEN IN TURBO MODE DUE TO THERMAL ISSUES. YOUR EQUIPMENT IS FUNCTIONING AS IT SHOULD

After that I just gave up because it won´t make any good discussing with an employee that see this condition as something acceptable. So.. long story short I´m never buying Dell again.

@unclewebb I´d like to thank you again for all the support and attention you gave me. If it weren´t for you I´d be thinking i was with a worthless equipment and your orientations and directions enabled me to run everything i wanted the way i wanted. Can´t thank you enough! If there´s some kind of vote selection here at the forum for best support or something like that you can count on my vote my friend!

 

[OneMoar]

Technically intel specifies the tdp can be configured from 10-45w
@unclewebb have you looked into setting the uefi variables from a uefishell to see if dell 'forgot' to lock the tdp config bits

 

[unclewebb]

the tdp can be configured from 10-45w

Product Specifications

quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

The 9750H is a 45W CPU with a configurable TDP-down mode of 35W. If Dell was using 35W mode and they clearly stated in their sales literature that they were using this, that would almost be reasonable. Setting a 10W power limit on a 45W CPU is not reasonable. Dell is not using the configurable TDP feature. They are using an embedded controller to force feed a 10W power limit to the CPU. The UEFI variables do not allow you to access this controller. No one yet has found a way to get around this type of throttling.

IT´S AN EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR

It is only an expected behaviour when you buy a Dell laptop. No other manufacturer installs a 45W 9750H into a laptop and then proceeds to use an extreme throttling algorithm so the CPU cannot exceed 10W.

Imagine if there was a problem like this in the car industry. Let's say that you buy a car and you are charged extra for a performance engine option. First time you hit a hill, power is reduced to a fraction of what you paid for. Some guy in a Lada comes by you on the hill like you are standing still. This would be all over the news and a car company would be forced to fix the problem or be forced out of business. In the laptop industry, Dell has been getting away with this dishonest sales practice since the Core 2 Duo days. Where are the consumer protection agencies? Why are review sites hesitant to expose what is going on?

After that I just gave up...

Sad situation. Dell takes zero responsibility for these problems. Best to sell it and move on. It is a very expensive lesson to learn.

I´m never buying Dell again.

I came to the same conclusion. I used to only buy Dell laptops. When a Dell rep told me that I need to keep these throttling problems under my hat, that was the end for me. Never again.

 

[OneMoar]

Product Specifications

quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

The 9750H is a 45W CPU with a configurable TDP-down mode of 35W. If Dell was using 35W mode and they clearly stated in their sales literature that they were using this, that would almost be reasonable. Setting a 10W power limit on a 45W CPU is not reasonable. Dell is not using the configurable TDP feature. They are using an embedded controller to force feed a 10W power limit to the CPU. The UEFI variables do not allow you to access this controller. No one yet has found a way to get around this type of throttling.


It is only an expected behaviour when you buy a Dell laptop. No other manufacturer installs a 45W 9750H into a laptop and then proceeds to use an extreme throttling algorithm so the CPU cannot exceed 10W.

Imagine if there was a problem like this in the car industry. Let's say that you buy a car and you are charged extra for a performance engine option. First time you hit a hill, power is reduced to a fraction of what you paid for. Some guy in a Lada comes by you on the hill like you are standing still. This would be all over the news and a car company would be forced to fix the problem or be forced out of business. In the laptop industry, Dell has been getting away with this dishonest sales practice since the Core 2 Duo days. Where are the consumer protection agencies? Why are review sites hesitant to expose what is going on?


Sad situation. Dell takes zero responsibility for these problems. Best to sell it and move on. It is a very expensive lesson to learn.


I came to the same conclusion. I used to only buy Dell laptops. When a Dell rep told me that I need to keep these throttling problems under my hat, that was the end for me. Never again.

I wonder what dumping the ec firmware with a programmer might reveal

the only way to get more tdp headroom is to disable hyperthreading and hope whatever logic at play is smart enough to allow you more room
that or crack the thing open and see if there is a easy to jump shunt-resistor

 

[xBruce88x]

this is gonna sound random but how's the power brick doing? is it the dell supplied or a replacement? Ive seen similar issues when the wrong power brick is used... even if its a dell if one parameter is off the bios will think its not genuine and throttle the cpu thinking the system isn't getting enough power. used to get a lot of ultrabooks come in that way where they were stuck on 800mhz all the time. swapped power adapters and problem gone!

 

[afhlmd]

this is gonna sound random but how's the power brick doing? is it the dell supplied or a replacement? Ive seen similar issues when the wrong power brick is used... even if its a dell if one parameter is off the bios will think its not genuine and throttle the cpu thinking the system isn't getting enough power. used to get a lot of ultrabooks come in that way where they were stuck on 800mhz all the time. swapped power adapters and problem gone!

I guess it´s not that, I´m using the original power brick and the computer is only one year old. My friend has the same notebook and he achieves better numbers on both cinebench or thottlestop´s test bench. He advised me to reinstall windows from zero and not download Dell´s stuff from the support assist software. I´ll try to do that this weekend and if I get some good results I´ll post it here.

Thank you all for the attention!

 

[AOne]

Just borrow the power brick and the battery from your friend to exclude these two as culprits. You're so lucky to have a friend with these.