RX 580 GPU is power throttling in performance mode - OMEN by HP - 17-an012dx

[DarkerSavant]

I discovered I was having massive drops in frames every few seconds and discovered the GPU was power throttling. I can see its power dropping with Adrenaline performance monitoring. I updated drivers for windows, bios, firmware, GPU, reinstalled both optional and recommended drivers again with no improvement. Ran the HP software update assistant and no new updates found. I even rolled back to drivers on the support page for HP to see if an older driver resolved the issue. It did not. The only thing that stops the throttling is changing windows power management from performance to battery saver which then throttles the GPU to 600mhz clock speed from where it is supposed to be 1200 which makes playing most games stuttering and unplayable.

I then wondered if it was thermally throttling and repasted the GPU and CPU which resulted in the CPU lowering nearly 20c degrees average across all cores and the GPU lowered about 5C degrees under the stress test. Unfortunately, this wasn't the issue as it was still throttling and wasn't coming anywhere near the previous temps. It previously was maxing at 72C and now it rarely reaches 68C or 69C under stress before throttling starting to throttle again. 

There seems to be no option in  Adrenaline's performance tab to tune that is shown on AMD's website. I cannot adjust voltages or clock speeds to compensate. I cannot find a single means to adjust or fix this seemingly random and detrimental issue to the performance of the system in any task. Even other programs like MSI Afterburner are disabled and I can only see the preset power curves and am unable to change or set new ones.

Please if anyone can give me some insight into what else I can check! Thank you.

[Photoray002]

Hello @DarkerSavant 

Not sure I can help, but Ill offer something to look into...

Does this happen when only using battery power or if you are plugged in to the AC adapter also?

Did this just start happening or has it been this way for a long time?

If on battery only, HP doesn't recommend gaming on battery, it will not perform the same as the system is trying to conserve power. Can you set the power limit in Adrenaline to maximum power (Performance>Tuning>Power Tuning>Power Limit)? Then also remember to set MS Power settings back to Performance Mode, then test. Usually on a laptop this will help some, but not as good as using plugged in.

If this happens with the AC adapter plugged in, look at the power brick and see if its rated at 230W or something else.

[DarkerSavant]

Thank you for your reply. It is plugged in and hasn't been used unplugged. I've tried it unplugged and plugged in on performance and battery saver modes with no change in results that were described before. It jumps between 33w and 85w on performance mode and tanks on battery saver mode. The power supply is 230w.

I don't know when it started as I haven't done much gaming on it. I used it mostly for when my father was in the hospital to watch movies and very light gaming on games like Final Fantasy Mobius. I only noticed because I recently got a Valve Index and thought perhaps the laptop can support it for my son to play when I am on the main computer. The latency was up and down and after troubleshooting found out it was because the GPU was throttling over and over.

As for the tuning, I believe I previously mentioned there are no options for Tuning in the AMD software. I can only change settings like Chill etc which has no effect on the performance. 

[Photoray002]

Im sorry, your post was so condensed I guess I misunderstood about the Tuning section.

My guess is its not getting enough power which leads to the power supply which I have seen happen more than anything else in this situation. I don't suppose you have access to another power adapter. Of which case I don't know what else it could be unless something on the motherboard has went south. Sometimes the power board can fail.

I assume you have tried also updating the drivers from AMD's website directly in which case Adrenaline would be up to date?

If you have not, its OK to do so. Sorry I'm having a hard time following everything you've stated.

Have you ran the UEFI Diagnostics to check all the hardware? Rapidly tapping F2 at power-on will access the tools before windows runs. Unless you have wiped the drive and reinstalled windows, it should be there.

Run the Extensive tests for everything and do it with the AC plugged in as you have been. See if any errors are found.

HP How to use Diagnostics

If you have done all of the above, I'm not sure what else I can offer.  😔

[DarkerSavant]

I ran the  UEFI Diagnostics and it passed the quick and long test. I ran all the individual tests too just in case even though I think they are part of the short and long. Passed all of them.

I decided to try and run a more precise test to find out where and exactly when the throttle problem starts. I picked a lower end game and started upping graphics settings slowly watching the temp and power. It was stable at about 65 or 66C with no throttling. Eventually, as I increased settings and reached about 68C+ it started throttling the clock speeds again. So it seems to me that even though I already have done everything I can to cool the GPU it still throttles. So I started looking into the fan settings to try and find adjustments for it. I couldn't find any and not even readout on the GPU fan's RPM anywhere. Is that normal for an HP Omen to not display a GPU ran RPM? I can find a CPU fan RPM though.