Laptop CPU throttling for no apparent reason and it's giving me audio issues???

[MikePeabody]

so - in Post Scriptum, fairly CPU heavy milsim, my Gigabyte Aorus 15P XC gets audio issues, specifically a sort of crackling, popping noise that gets worse when loud sounds play. I have absolutely *no* clue why, and it doesn't even happen in the game Post Scriptum is based on, Squad. Or *any* other game or load. I saw some posts saying it's a thermal issue with this laptop - this doesn't happen in any other game, though. I've tried setting to 16bit CD quality sound with no enhancements or priority mode on my headphones, no fix and the same issue happens with speakers too. I've undervolted and lowered turbo multipliers to keep a much better 70-75 degrees (than the 90+ that it was hitting before), and I still get these problems.

And something else I've noticed - when the audio issues start, my CPU FID (MULTI in the log file attached, I believe) starts decreasing down to weird numbers. PROCHOT is 90 degrees but never got tripped, BD PROCHOT is enabled but my GPU isn't going above 75 degrees, I just have no clue what is going on. I've included screenshots of Throttlestop and its log, but I have no clue why this could be happening. Also, I noticed the crackling got more intense the lower the FID dropped below the set number. The "Limit Reasons" screen always has EDP OTHER in yellow under RING (what do they even mean?) even at idle but no other limits ever show up. In Event Viewer, I see some DistributedCOM errors before and just after noticing the audio issues starting, but nothing else above the "Information" category.

The first time I have recorded this issue happening is a day after flashing the BIOS so I could control the outrageous thermals (I am yet to repaste, going to order soon). I am unsure if going back to stock BIOS, even with a repaste, would control the temperatures enough. Also I have disabled the HPET through Device Manager and cmd, as apparently it was a fix for another user - obviously that hasn't worked for me, and when I tried re-enabling it, my laptop slowed down so incredibly hard I was barely able reenable it.

I will continue to test, but please if there is any solution anyone knows, please do advise.

yes there is a lot of idle time on the end of the log, the start of the log is during the audio issues. the laptop is always plugged in, if it matters.

 

[Ferd]

I am unsure if going back to stock BIOS, even with a repaste, would control the temperatures enough.

That’s something for you to try , usually people mod bios to bypass power limitations , and that generally results in more heat , not less . So it is possible that going back to stock bios will get you same or lower temps and a bit more throttling too...

I would guess that the new bios you flashed messes with on board audio filtering, or causes some circuit to generate frequencies that the manufacturer didn’t consider when designing the audio filters ...

 

[MikePeabody]

I'm still wondering why the CPU clocks would drop while at full load, despite not running into power or thermal limitations. And why it's specific to this one game. While I will probably end up flashing back to stock after a repaste, I am still curious.

 

[eidairaman1]

Ga didnt compensate for EMI, open a ticket with them.

 

[Ferd]

I'm still wondering why the CPU clocks would drop while at full load,

I see , that’s another problem ... you can RMA and save yourself some headache if still under warranty...

Otherwise check the throttlestop forum post there about your problem , @unclewebb might be able to help you more

 

[unclewebb]

my CPU FID (MULTI in the log file attached, I believe) starts decreasing down to weird numbers.

I do see the CPU multiplier drop from 32.00 to 26.00 at times. I do not see any reason why this is happening. I will assume that you were not adjusting anything in ThrottleStop while you were logging this data.

Are you using the Windows High Performance power plan? Try checking the Speed Shift EPP option on the main screen of ThrottleStop and set that to 0. You can edit where it shows 128 to the left of SST. In the TPL window, make sure Speed Shift is checked and that the Min and Max values are set appropriately. When logging data, do not select the More Data option. One data point every second is enough data to look at.

I've undervolted and lowered turbo multipliers to keep a much better 70-75 degrees (than the 90+ that it was hitting before)

For the last 13+ years, Intel has been setting the thermal throttling temperature to 100°C for about 99% of the CPUs that they have produced. I assume that Intel does this because they know their CPUs can run reliably at high temperatures. There is no need to reduce the PROCHOT (processor hot) temperature to 90°C and there is no need to slow your CPU down. It is well designed by Intel to look after itself.

thermals were awful

CPU temperatures over 90°C are normal for any 15" laptop that has an 8 core Intel CPU and a Nvidia GPU. Manufacturers are well aware of the heat monsters that they are creating.

The "Limit Reasons" screen always has EDP OTHER in yellow under RING

This sensor seems to be hyper sensitive on some CPUs. After you clear this in Limit Reasons, it is common for it to immediately go back to yellow. It does not seem to be the cause of any major throttling. In the FIVR window, try setting IccMax for both the core and the cache to the maximum value, 255.75. In the TPL window, set "Power Limit 4" to 0. These adjustments will sometimes help with EDP throttling.

A while ago I had a crackling audio issue after installing the Intel SATA AHCI driver on my desktop Z490 board. This driver is completely unrelated to the audio driver so it took a while to figure this out. The Intel SATA AHCI driver enabled the low power package C3 state. I used ThrottleStop to toggle package C3 on and off and the sound was crystal clear with package C3 disabled. Problem solved. Post a screenshot of the ThrottleStop C States window.

Hopefully something simple like that is behind your audio problems. Try using LatencyMon.
It can help you track down some misbehaving drivers.

Resplendence Software - LatencyMon: suitability checker for real-time audio and other tasks

LatencyMon: suitability checker for real-time audio and other tasks

www.resplendence.com

 

[MikePeabody]

Yes, I was not changing the Turbo Ratio Limits while that odd downclocking was happening. Today I will test again, with Speed Shift - EPP ticked and set to zero (do I have to also tick it in the TPL -> Miscellaneous box as well?), Power Limit 4 set to zero and Turbo Ratio Limits set to their stock, worryingly hot values. Here is a screenshot of the new settings including the "C States" window before starting. In FIVR, I changed IccMax for CPU Core and CPU Cache to 255.75, and EDP Other under RING continues to go yellow even at idle. It doesn't go red which is... good I guess, but still wondering why it would post a warning. I'm running LatencyMon now, and I'll run it while testing the game to see if that reveals anything.

Edit: forgot to attach the images lmao so here's the ThrottleStop and also 15 minutes of LatencyMon testing at idle and watching YouTube through Chrome. No audio crackles in YouTube regular playing, but if I go into Volume Mixer and repeatedly click on System Sounds, sometimes a crackle can be heard at the start of the sound, much more often if I rapidly click instead of waiting for the sound to mostly play out before clicking again. I had pagefile at 48GB on my C drive because of a super memory heavy HBS Battletech mod I've been playing, but I'll try disabling the pagefile as it was a recommendation on Resplendence's site.

Before I even managed to load into a server in Post Scriptum, PROCHOT has triggered at least once and I saw CPU FID drop back down to 26.00, even if only for a second. But I don't think it's PROCHOT because it was happening even at 70 degrees. No audio issues yet, though.

After about an hour of in game time, I look at LatencyMon. It's goin crazy, but for DirectX and ACPI drivers, which is weird. But... no audio issues yet.

 

[unclewebb]

The C States window shows your CPU using the package C3 state. That was the cause of my audio issues. Try setting the Package C State Request value to C2 which should block package C3 and higher. You can also try setting the Request value to C1 which will block all of the package C states.

When your computer is idle at the desktop, what does ThrottleStop report for C0% and what does it show for C state percentages? It looks like you have a lot of stuff running in the background. My cores spend 99% of their time in the low power C7 state when my computer is idle. Have a look in the Task Manager. Use the Details tab, not the Processes tab.

Are you using a mechanical hard drive, an SSD or both?

 

[MikePeabody]

(with only one tab of Chrome open to type this message) the C0% in the main window generally hovers from 1 to 3, sometimes 4 or 5, and rarely jumps to 10 or so. The C7% is generally 65-70, but rarely drops to anywhere from 35 to 55 for a moment. I had to turn off More Data to get a good screenshot, else C0% would jump to like 11% in the brief moment Snip & Sketch takes. There have been no audio issues since I opened the thread, even with high temperatures from full turbo multipliers, but that doesn't give me confidence that this issue is dead and buried.

As for background processes, the list is quite long, and I don't know if you want me to list them or screenshot them or something. I have things like iCUE, Discord, Steam, Nahimic Companion and Battlenet in the system tray. Even sorting Task Manager Details by CPU, sometimes one or two (usually Windows background processes) will be 01 instead of 00. The CPU usage % in the Performance tab is steady at 5% to 7%, except when some process like Discord, Chrome or the Search Indexer decides it needs an extra 10% for a second.

I am using two M.2 SSDs in the usual one for Windows, other for games and programs configuration. no RAID or anything. The Windows drive is the one that came with the laptop, the ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB, and the second is the Samsung 970 Evo 1TB I installed. One of the other supposed fixes I found for this audio issue was uninstalling the 2nd SSD - but that's kind of not a good solution, so I'm not gonna try that.

 

[MikePeabody]

Update: had the issue very slightly today in Post Scriptum, and also noticed it in Warframe so it's not only Post Scriptum that does this. In the Limit Reasons panel of Throttlestop I see GPU EDP other is yellow. Here is the log for today, just at the end is playing Warframe with the issue, I still don't know what is causing this. Also I tried uninstalling the NVIDIA HDMI HD audio driver as apparently that causes latency issues and I don't use HDMI much less its audio - obviously didn't fix it. When the issue happens, it's not only crackly but the pitch gets shifted.

Also included is a screenshot of LatencyMon during the issue in Warframe - this ACPI driver is nuts and I have no idea if it can be safely removed or anything.

Alright, new development - ACPI stops generating insane amounts of DPC and ISR if I set all the turbo multipliers to the same value. I saw this thread mentioning that turbo boost was an issue, but turbo is needed for performance - set all turbo multipliers to the same value, the system doesn't have to fuck around with turbo boost, and the ACPI driver can shut up. Except the DirectX and NVIDIA windows kernel drivers are still giving a ton of DPC count. I dunno what to do about this.

Tried reinstalling audio drivers using the ones provided from Gigabyte's website - no dice. I'm going to flash the bios back to stock and see how that goes.

After flashing stock BIOS back in, spamming Volume Mixer still produces popping sounds.

 

[MikePeabody]

Issue was never resolved, I'm submitting it for an RMA

 

[Ferd]

Issue was never resolved, I'm submitting it for an RMA

Good luck !
Let us know how the new unit performs .

 

[eidairaman1]

Always wiyhin the Warranty period RMA

 

[GAWIX]

Issue was never resolved, I'm submitting it for an RMA

hi, what happened in the end? i've bough an aorus 15p kd, and it also has an audio quality issue when i'm on jack port.

 

[eidairaman1]

hi, what happened in the end? i've bough an aorus 15p kd, and it also has an audio quality issue when i'm on jack port.

User has been gone for 10 months, looks like not coming back.

 

[GAWIX]

User has been gone for 10 months, looks like not coming back.

oof rip, i think i fixed my issue tho, i updated drivers and disabled the "windows audio enhancement" cuz audio troubleshooter told me to. And now it's fine i think (i hope it's not just me not being able to see if the audio is still crackling cuz i'm used to it now...
)