Laptop Power Issue: PL1 under CPU and GPU constantly red under load, PL2 under GPU flashing red while idle

[foustus33]

Hi, I saw there were a lot of people who encountered a similar issue but a lot of the technical advice didn't fully fix the problem for me unfortunately.

I've been using this my Asus laptop "republic of gamers" model GL503VD (i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz, 12GB RAM and GTX1050) for a long time now and despite all the problems it has encountered in the past, everything has been manageable and repairable until this throttling issue started persisting.

the original incident that probably lead to this issue happening in the first place was a small water spill on my laptop keyboard. It started mashing random inputs as well as the power button acting on its own. I had to physically disconnect the keyboard ribbon, and until I get a replacement I'm using an external keyboard.

I already reset bios to default and made sure it was up to date (latest update for my model is 2019 with version 310), set power options to high performance, as well as fully reset windows (reinstall windows locally/delete all files).

As the screenshots shown below, the cpu clock speeds just lock at 780 MHz whenever there is an ongoing task (this can be anything from opening a YouTube video, to file explorer, to launching a video game...) making the laptop unusable at times with how bad the stutters get; the whole screen freezes up including the mouse, with GPU-0 3D (intel hd-graphics 630) and even GPU-1 (GTX1050, although arguably less frequent spikes) spiking to 100% for every stutter and then going back to the initial percentage it should've been at for the task, as shown below in task manager. And just to be clear, I haven't noticed any spikes occurring with the CPU graph itself so far, as it's only happening with the intel-hd graphics GPU-0 3D and sometimes GPU-1 if the screen freezes are long enough.

The temps don't seem to be an issue either as they haven't gone over 60-65°C amidst all of these issues.

I didn't know if the WIFI spikes were contributing or maybe it was partially a network issue, so I disabled my internet and the throttling was still happening upon opening an mp4 file for example.) And as I mentioned earlier, the CPU clock speed seems to want to stay at 780 MHz. (I restarted the laptop in safe mode which showed a 2.80 GHz speed in task manager, but even then, the stutters were still occurring, so I figured this has to do with a more serious hardware issue.)

After some research online I downloaded ThrottleStop and disabled BD Prochot on all profiles. This (initially) freed up the clock speeds to very alternating values (it was going anywhere from 1400MHz to 3200MHz.) I also thought that I might as well undervolt the system before messing with the wattage, just to get it out of the way. (please let me know if this was a bad idea.)

This here is the main issue: After tweaking TPL settings I started noticing a trend: Whenever the laptop is idle, the clock speed goes up to about 1200MHz (I probably botched my settings and set a wrong combination between "set multiplier" which was at 11 by default and the turbo time limiter in TPL which I didn't touch at all,) everything is green in "Limits" except for PL2 under GPU which frequently flashes red.

But the moment I perform any task like opening google chrome, or file explorer, or even after taking these screenshots, the CPU clock speed reverts back to 780MHz and both PL1 (CPU and GPU) are red.
This here is when stutters usually start happening, where I noticed All PL's and EDP Other would start flashing red before the system stabilizes (which usually is completely up to chance.)

I'm hoping that there are more settings I can tweak to force my laptop to stay at a consistent clock speed (somewhere near its base clock speed at the very least.)
Is this laptop salvageable or is there nothing more I can do to make it work properly again? Let me know if you have any questions about my settings and I'll make sure to answer them. Any help would be much appreciated, thank you.

 

[unclewebb]

Your screenshot above that shows CPU Package power throttling when power consumption is only 5.7 Watts does not look good. Sad to say, ThrottleStop might not be able to solve this problem but here are some settings you can try.

On the main screen clear the Clock Mod box and clear the Set Multiplier box. Leave the BD PROCHOT box clear. Laptops with 7th Gen processors should be using Speed Shift Technology instead of the older Set Multiplier. Open the TPL window and check the Speed Shift box. Press Apply and it should show 8 and 38 for the appropriate Speed Shift Min and Max values. Enter those values into the Speed Shift Min and Max boxes.

While in the TPL window clear the Sync MMIO box and check the MMIO Lock box instead. Press OK when done.

When you undervolt most Intel CPUs, you have to adjust both the core and the cache to similar offset values. Try using an Offset of -100.6 mV for both the core and the cache. If this is not stable or if the TS Bench 960M test shows any errors, you will need to increase the cache offset voltage. Try -75 mV or -50 mV if there are any problems or blue screens at -100 mV.

Set IccMax for both the core and the cache to the max which is 255.75 for your CPU.

With these new settings, check the Log File box on the main screen and try to play a game for 15 minutes. When you are done testing, attach a log file to your next post. This file should be in the ThrottleStop / Logs folder.

a small water spill on my laptop

Water spills are not good. Something might have shorted out and the motherboard could be permanently damaged. Post some data and I will see if there is anything else you can try.

 

[foustus33]

Your screenshot above that shows CPU Package power throttling when power consumption is only 5.7 Watts does not look good. Sad to say, ThrottleStop might not be able to solve this problem but here are some settings you can try.

On the main screen clear the Clock Mod box and clear the Set Multiplier box. Leave the BD PROCHOT box clear. Laptops with 7th Gen processors should be using Speed Shift Technology instead of the older Set Multiplier. Open the TPL window and check the Speed Shift box. Press Apply and it should show 8 and 38 for the appropriate Speed Shift Min and Max values. Enter those values into the Speed Shift Min and Max boxes.

While in the TPL window clear the Sync MMIO box and check the MMIO Lock box instead. Press OK when done.

When you undervolt most Intel CPUs, you have to adjust both the core and the cache to similar offset values. Try using an Offset of -100.6 mV for both the core and the cache. If this is not stable or if the TS Bench 960M test shows any errors, you will need to increase the cache offset voltage. Try -75 mV or -50 mV if there are any problems or blue screens at -100 mV.

Set IccMax for both the core and the cache to the max which is 255.75 for your CPU.

With these new settings, check the Log File box on the main screen and try to play a game for 15 minutes. When you are done testing, attach a log file to your next post. This file should be in the ThrottleStop / Logs folder.


Water spills are not good. Something might have shorted out and the motherboard could be permanently damaged. Post some data and I will see if there is anything else you can try.

Thank you for the help. Before I read your reply I tried these whacky settings that seemed to brute force the clock speeds and maintained them at ~2790MHz, but of course they didn't fix these glaring power issues.

So I tweaked my settings like you said and now it looks like limits are at least more green than the constant red showing 800MHz cpu clock speed when the laptop is idle but everything just flashes red every now and then with clock speed spikes reaching 2400MHz.

Moving the mouse around maintains a clock speed of anywhere around 2300MHz to 2600MHz and then upon leaving the cursor sit still, the clock speed plummets back to 800. That is definitely not normal haha. I tried taking screenshots of an all green limit tab but it proved harder than it seemed as it only stays green for a couple of frames before things starts flashing red on all 3 columns. (I added idle laptop logs in the attachments hopefully that demonstrates it.)

I turned on the logs and launched Dark Souls 3 for about 10-12 minutes, and the game was unplayable due to the major 3-4-second stutters. Towards the end of the session I lowered my resolution to 1600x900 (both in-game and in display settings) and that seemed to smoothen the gameplay and lowered the duration of these stutters, the framerate seemed a lot lower than usual.

I've also undervolted the CPU core and CPU cache to -100.6 and maxxed out IccMax, but I've meaning to ask if undervolting the Intel GPU could be worth a try since its spikes are causing the stutters.

 

[foustus33]

Also to quickly follow up on my previous message, with these new settings my stutters are essentially gone which is a really good thing for my workflow, so thank you so much for that.

The remaining issues are still the low power PKG numbers, the concerningly alternating clock speeds shown on Throttlestop (shoots up from 800MHz idle to its base clock speed at ~2.79GHz under load and anywhere in-between depending on the task,) and lastly I'm getting half the frames I'm used to in games, if not a third of the usual performance.

For example I'm used to 1080p60fps on Rocket League (not a very graphically demanding game by any means) and around 1080p90fps uncapped on medium to high settings, and now even at 720p on the lowest graphical settings, I'm only getting 30-40 frames. Dedicated GPU shows 98% on task manager at 60-65°C.

In my previous message, I sent log files of me testing a game for 15 minutes (of course with the settings you recommended me to try) and idle logs (didn't move my mouse for a few seconds.)

If you have any more tweaks I could try, it would be hugely appreciated, just having these stutters gone is already a massive improvement, so again thanks a lot for that.