HP ProBook 450 G9 periodically stutters (every 27–30 seconds) when playing 3D games.

[randy971]

When I try to play a game such as Hollow Knight or Black Mesa, there is a stutter that occurs every 27–30 seconds. Things I checked:

• Thermal throttling: My laptop is not throttling. I’ve always been careful with temperatures and use a taskbar widget to monitor them.

• Power settings: I made sure the laptop is running in the Performance power profile when playing games.

• BIOS/firmware updates: I updated my BIOS to the latest available version. I didn’t want to update it since everything was working fine, but it was force-installed the next day when I turned on my PC.

• RAM: I have 32 GB of RAM.

• I’m now using Fedora. I thought this stutter was an issue on the Windows OS side, but it wasn’t, since it still persisted after switching to Linux. (This is how I came to the conclusion that this is not an OS-level issue.)

Before the last BIOS/firmware update, everything was working as intended. There were zero stutters, and I was happy.

I think this issue is caused at the BIOS/firmware level. Based on my research, the EC (Embedded Controller) firmware may be causing GPU stalls. Since this is part of HP’s firmware, I tried downgrading the BIOS, but it does not allow the firmware to be downgraded, at least from my last attempt.

I honestly don’t know what to do at this point. I just wish I could play a game on the laptop I bought with my hard-earned money, without stutters every 30 seconds. That’s all.

I really, really hope someone can help me find another solution.

Thank you