Ideal settings for i7-1165g7 to avoid high temperatures?

[Randromdea]

DISCLAIMER: I'm aware undervolting is not an option on this processor.

So, I've recently tried using my Acer Swift 3 with an 1165g7 clocked at 2.80 GHz to do some light gaming. And when I say light, I mean VERY light. I've played a bit of Stardew Valley and Minecraft, both with most graphics settings turned to LOW or OFF entirely. I even installed some mods to reduce graphical intensity. Yet my laptop likes to run in the high 80s to mid 90s consistently, with the fans going almost non-stop.

My laptop mostly sits on an Ikea stand and my room never gets warmer than 25C so it's not like airflow or ambient temperature is the problem, and I sprayed air in my vents to get them cleaned up, so there's nothing blocking the fans. I tried turning my power settings (through Windows) to both "Best Performance" and to "Best Battery Efficiency" to see if that made a difference, but it didn't seem like it did.

At this point, I'm hoping that there's some magic CPU setting that would let me play Minecraft without my laptop burning up.

According to HWInfo, my CPU sits at around 50C when idling, and as I mentioned before, around 90C under gaming. Under medium load (10-15 tabs in Edge, video streaming, etc.) I get around 70C. Are there any settings that I could fiddle around with to maybe keep my CPU from heating up as much as it does?

If it helps, I've attached a few screenshots from ThrottleStop. I'm running on Windows 11 Education (essentially the same as Pro), with virtualization turned on if that makes a difference.

 

[unclewebb]

with virtualization turned on

ThrottleStop needs to directly access registers within the CPU. When Windows 11 - Virtualization Based Security is enabled, I am not sure what parts of ThrottleStop will continue to work correctly. Items in the Turbo Power Limits window appear to be working correctly. To lower heat output, try reducing the turbo power limits.

Previous generation laptops with Intel's low power U series processors had 15W TDP ratings. The heatsinks were usually designed with this number in mind. The 10th Gen 1065G7 also had a 15W TDP rating with a range of 12W when in TDP-down mode up to 25W when in TDP-up mode. For the 11th Gen 1165G7, Intel removed the 15W TDP value from their documentation. Now they list 12W for TDP-down and 28W for TDP-up. These new CPUs are almost exactly the same as previous CPUs but Intel provided manufacturers with more flexibility in setting power limits. They all decided to go sky high and so the arms race began. The cooling system in your laptop does not have a hope of dealing with a 64W CPU for 28 seconds but this is what the default power limits have been set to.

There is nothing wrong with high power limits as long as the cooling systems are designed for this increased level of power consumption. Very few thin and ight laptops can handle these increased power levels without turning into little ovens. Engineers added a high speed fan that screams to try and solve this problem. Great.

In the Turbo Power Limits window, check the MMIO Lock box. Clear the Disable Controls check box. Change PL1 to approximately 15W and set PL2 to approximately 25W. If your cooling system cannot handle 25W for 28 seconds without the CPU overheating, reduce the turbo time limit to about 8 seconds. Check both Clamp options so these reduced limits are enforced. This might help a little bit. You can adjust these three values infinitely however you like to try and make your laptop run the way you want it to run. Lowering the turbo power limits is going to reduce performance. These settings let you decide how much performance you want vs how much heat you want your Easy Bake oven to put out.

Kind of sad that these incredibly powerful little CPUs have to be neutered because the cooling systems are so poorly engineered. This is a common problem throughout the laptop industry.

 

[Randromdea]

Well, I did what you said, and the difference is night and day. I don't really see the point of stress testing a notebook so I booted up Minecraft and right off the bat I could notice temperatures were lower and my fans didn't ramp up. I then turned the game's graphics up all the way and I was still getting the same framerate (I have it capped to 60) and temperatures didn't pass 70.

I also just realized when I noticed the overheating I was only running a single display, but right now I had two displays running at 1080p, so yeah I'm very happy with these changes.

That said, I do have a few questions about this whole thing. Since I lowered the TDP of my CPU, wouldn't this be considered undervolting? Also, do these settings remain over restarts and software updates? I'd assume the .ini file stores the configuration but I'd like to be sure. And lastly, are there any other settings I should be able to change if I turn off virtualization based security? I use WSL once in a while but I'm willing to find alternatives if performance gains are drastic enough.

Thanks!

EDIT:
I fiddled around with the settings a bit more and it seems a PL1 of under 20W is about what my cooling system can handle. I've been able to set PL2 to 45W and haven't really noticed a huge difference. I'll leave it them at 15 and 45 respectively. Even if 45W is a bit much I'm not concerned about momentary spikes in temperature as long as I don't push 70C for extended periods of time.

I'm always looking for more ways to get performance so let me know if you think there's something else that could work. Thanks for the help!

 

[unclewebb]

the difference is night and day

That is good to hear. Being able to use ThrottleStop to run your laptop the way you want it to run is always a good thing.

undervolting

Undervolting is when you lower the voltage of your CPU. Intel has removed this feature from their 11th Gen G7 series. It is impossible to undervolt these processors now. Adjusting the turbo power limits puts a limit on the maximum power your CPU can consume. It reduces the CPU speed and performance but for some games, this is barely noticed. The difference in temperatures is easy to notice so it is a good trade off.

Having the virtualization security features enabled seems to mostly limit voltage control in the FIVR window. Your CPU does not support voltage control whether VBS is on or off so disabling VBS might not make a significant difference. It is easy enough to do some testing. Disable VBS including core isolation memory integrity, reboot and see if it improves anything.

How to Disable Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) in Windows 11 to Improve Gaming

Getting frame drops while playing games in Windows 11? VBS might be the reason and here's how you can disable VBS in Windows 11.

beebom.com

Easy enough to turn VBS back on if you like the increased security it provides or if you need to use WSL2. Some users have reported that they need to delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file after disabling VBS.

do these settings remain

The power limits that ThrottleStop sets are only going to be applied if you run ThrottleStop. If you reboot and do not run ThrottleStop then your power limits will be at their sky high default values. Any Windows updates should not change anything. ThrottleStop is applying these settings directly to the CPU. It does not make any changes to the Windows registry.

 

[Randromdea]

Ah I see. Given that ThrottleStop requires admin privileges, I guess using Task Scheduler to automate launch on startup is the easiest way to get TDP to be set most of the time? As for VBS, I'll leave it on since my use cases don't really need a lot more power than I'm getting right now.

 

[unclewebb]

Here is a Task Scheduler Guide so you can add ThrottleStop to your Windows startup sequence. This works well.

Effective clock speed

Hi, I have a problem with my CPU (8700K), which is that my effective core clock speeds decrease after a while. I have an all core OC set to 4.7GHz and initially when starting the PC, the effective core clocks are 4.7GHz as well when CPU is under load. These are later (like 10 mins later after...

www.techpowerup.com

ThrottleStop does not consume a lot of CPU or memory resources so leaving it running, minimized to the system tray, is not a bad idea. ThrottleStop will keep the turbo power limits at the values that you want and it will automatically send these values to the CPU when you resume from sleep or hibernate.

 

[bjoyful]

Well, I did what you said, and the difference is night and day. I don't really see the point of stress testing a notebook so I booted up Minecraft and right off the bat I could notice temperatures were lower and my fans didn't ramp up. I then turned the game's graphics up all the way and I was still getting the same framerate (I have it capped to 60) and temperatures didn't pass 70.

I also just realized when I noticed the overheating I was only running a single display, but right now I had two displays running at 1080p, so yeah I'm very happy with these changes.

That said, I do have a few questions about this whole thing. Since I lowered the TDP of my CPU, wouldn't this be considered undervolting? Also, do these settings remain over restarts and software updates? I'd assume the .ini file stores the configuration but I'd like to be sure. And lastly, are there any other settings I should be able to change if I turn off virtualization based security? I use WSL once in a while but I'm willing to find alternatives if performance gains are drastic enough.

Thanks!

EDIT:
I fiddled around with the settings a bit more and it seems a PL1 of under 20W is about what my cooling system can handle. I've been able to set PL2 to 45W and haven't really noticed a huge difference. I'll leave it them at 15 and 45 respectively. Even if 45W is a bit much I'm not concerned about momentary spikes in temperature as long as I don't push 70C for extended periods of time.

I'm always looking for more ways to get performance so let me know if you think there's something else that could work. Thanks for the help!

Can you post screenshots of your current ThrottleStop settings? How are your idle temps? Any noticeable increase in fan noise?