New HP 17-by2000 Laptop PC stuck at 17% CPU and 0.39 GHz

[MehWhateverYeah]

Product Descripton: HP 17-by2000 Product Number: 7EF25AV.  Laptop won't clock past 0.39 GHz.  CPU is i7-10510U (1.8 GHz up to 4.9 GHz per HP Marketing, though Intel rates it slower at base TDP).  AMD Radeon 530 Graphics (4 GB).  16 GB DDR4-2666 SDRAM (2x8GB).  Windows 10 Home Plus.

Technical Problem: Laptop won't clock past 0.39 GHz straight out of the box.  Ran the setup; Laptop won't clock past 0.39 GHz.  Updated OS; Laptop won't clock past 0.39 GHz.   Ran some of the diagnostics that the HP Virtual Agent suggested, but computer is so slow that HP Virtual Agent times out and I can't get through the HP Virtual Agent sequence.  Let Windows Repair completely replace the OS; Laptop won't clock past 0.39 GHz.  Ran CPU-Z and laptop benchmarks at about 5% of what it should benchmark at. 

Support Problem: Cannot contact anyone at HP support to get an RMA.  Computer is so slow that running all the diagnostics took 12 hours, and so I don't want to go through it three more times for HP Tier 1 Support, HP Tier 2 Support, HP Tier 3 Support.  That would be 36 more hours on top of the 12 hours I already put in it.  

Advice Requested:  Is there any way to get an RMA and return address to ship this lemon back without spending more hours on it? 

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

https://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-phone-assist.html

Covers most of the planet.

[MehWhateverYeah]

I wish that were true.  All that link gives is a link to their coronavirus information page.  There is no way to get an RMA or talk or text-chat with a human.  The original question remains.  How do I get an RMA?

[MehWhateverYeah · Accepted solution]

Well, I finally got through.  They seem to have updated the chatbot, because this time I was able to coax a phone number out of the chatbot.  That lead to two separate conversations with so-called technical support, each of which were unable to understand why I was concerned that my CPU was throttling at 0.39 GHz.  Anyway, they each had me run storage system diagnostic,and declared my computer perfectly okay.  I was given a number to call for an RMA solely because I'd had the computer less than 30 days, and because I declared that I was going to dispute the charge via my credit card company.  I now have an RMA.  Case closed. 

My recommendation is that tech support be given training on a benchmark to test performance.  I use CPU-Z, which is a de facto industry standard, but HP could do a simple benchmark and put their label on it.  When a computer benchmarks at less than 5% of what it should, something is wrong.  Perhaps there is nothing in HP Tech Service's toolkit to test that;  what is certain is that HP Tech Support didn't understand the concept.