Laptop CPU downclocking

[Lurmey]

Hi, I've been having an issue recently with my Envy, the cause of which is eluding me. The CPU appears to be downclocking under heavy loads such as playing a game. I used task manager and HWMonitor to gather some information for you.

The specific game I was playing just before typing this is Subnautica. While playing, I had a relatively stable fps at ~25 but every now and then the fps drops down to ~5 for upwards of 5 seconds. Using task manager I saw that the CPU downclocks from 60-80% usage down to 20% and HWMonitor was reporting a clock speed decrease to ~500MHz from over 2GHz.

Sounds like it's overheating, right? Well, the lag spikes never coincided with any increased temperature readings. The CPU was running at an average of 70c with a minimum of 65c and maximum of 75c. That's hot, but is it hot enough to trigger a safety switch and cause the CPU to downclock?

Nothing else is having any issues, the RAM was at about 6/8gb used, the GPU was running at a stable 65c under 100% load and never dropped below 100% unless I quit to the main menu. The HDD was hardly being used at all and the WiFi usage is irrelevant.

The laptop was cleaned recently, has plenty airflow underneath and the room isn't particularly hot either. The only programs running were Subnautica, Steam (required to run the game) and the Twitch app which I use for communication. No background virus scan or update or anything was happening to my knowledge.

It doesn't just happen with Subnautica either, so it's not an issue with the game. The same issue also happens while playing Starbound, Golf With Your Friends, Viscera Cleanup Detail and more. It's probably not an engine-specific problem, though GWYF and Subnautica both use Unity so perhaps that is an option. I'll see if it happens with any non-Unity games to deny that.

Any ideas? Is 75c just too hot and it is actually overheating despite the downclocking not obviously lining up with any temperature change?

[EddyK]

Hi Lurmey,

It may be a different component such as the battery which may be overheating. 

You can also make sure that your system's power plan is geared towards performance. 

Assuming you're running the latest verison of Windows 10, search Edit Power Plan > Change advanced power settings > Processor Power Management.

You could crank up minimum processor state. Make sure system cooling policy is on active. 

You might also want to make sure that your laptop is plugged in and that "plugged in" settings are for performance. Laptops seem to really downclock when the PSU is not present.

Hopefully you'll find a solution,

kem579

[Lurmey]

Hi Kem579,

Good point, I hadn't thought of other components like the battery but I do always have my laptop plugged in and set to the High-Performance power plan while playing games. In this plan, the minimum processor state while plugged in is 100% already and the cooling policy is always active. Please, could you explain what the minimum processor state means? What happens when the CPU usage drops below that percentage or is that not what it is referring to?

Thanks for your help thus far

Lurmey

[EddyK]

Hi Lurmey,

The minimum processor state is basically how fast/hard the processor should work at a minimum - even at idle. This is to preserve battery life. Now normally, it would be on 5% but yours is on 100% which means that the processor is working at its full capability 24/7 as long as the PSU is plugged in. I believe it's because you're on high performance.

Now I'm not sure why these issues occur when your minimium processor state is at 100%. Try tweaking the numbers and seeing what works best for you. Also what is the maximum processor state currently for your power plan? Try changing the min and max to 99%. I'm seeing people post on forums stating that they're seeing performance bumps after changing these numbers up a bit.

Regards,

kem579