CPU Power Limit Throttling Despite No Hardware/Software Changes

[DarkPaladin]

Hey everyone

My laptop has been working perfectly since the last time I posted here. However, I decided to do a fresh reinstall of Windows the other day using the Creation Tool and everything went smoothly. I allowed windows to update the system with the latest drivers, and any software or drivers that were missing, I downloaded from the PCSpecialist Download page (mainly just Creative Sound Blaster).

However, the past few days I've noticed my framerates are unable to sustain the usual consistent 144+FPS in certain games. In games such as Overwatch and Apex Legends, I was able to achieve the usual 144+FPS until the last couple of days, where it'll drop to 80s-120s at times. I was curious what the problem was and decided to check out Intel XTU and stress test my CPU.

After 58 seconds of performing a CPU stress test, I noticed my laptop was "Power Limit Throttling" despite no changes to my core + cache. During the stress test, my CPU never reaches higher than 74 degrees either. Additionally, my CPU is still receiving excellent overall thermal performance and very rarely goes higher than 80 degrees during gaming (GPU also has excellent thermal performance).

Other solutions include:
Checking Clevo Control Centre and double checking my laptop is set to performance mode
Putting my battery to "prefer maximum performance" during both gameplay and the stress tests
Resetting my XTU values to default then replicating the values again just in case

I was wondering if any of you guys could possibly help me out here as I'm pretty stumped for possible solutions.

System Specs:

Chassis & Display	Octane Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor i7-8700k (3.7GHz) 12MB Cache
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card	NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Storage Drive	2TB SEAGATE 7mm SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st M.2 SSD Drive	250GB WD Black™ SN750 M.2 NVMe SSD (up to 3100MB/s R | 1600MB/s W)

 

[Bhuna50]

Have you checked the clevo website for updated drivers / chipsets as the ones in your PCS downloads section could be out of date now?

 

[NoddyPirate]

Intels advice on Power Limit Throttling for what it's worth.

I would count the Windows clean install as a software change personally. Do you remember what version of windows you had previously and if it was fully up to date? What was it that prompted you to do the clean re-install?

I would consider a Power Limit to possibly be related to the power delivery to the CPU rather than the CPU's thermal performance itself, so I'm not too surprised that it could throttle even though the temperatures are OK.....

 

[DarkPaladin]

Have you checked the clevo website for updated drivers / chipsets as the ones in your PCS downloads section could be out of date now?

I just went to the Clevo website now and found the latest chipset drivers for my specific chassiz/CPU. Unfortunately the problem occurred
again where after 50ish seconds of stress testing, my CPU began to power limit throttle. The stress test in XTU prior to this issue would always last the full time period without having any throttles on the available categories (thermal, power, and current).

Intels advice on Power Limit Throttling for what it's worth.

I would count the Windows clean install as a software change personally. Do you remember what version of windows you had previously and if it was fully up to date? What was it that prompted you to do the clean re-install?

I would consider a Power Limit to possibly be related to the power delivery to the CPU rather than the CPU's thermal performance itself, so I'm not too surprised that it could throttle even though the temperatures are OK.....

The Windows version was fully up to date prior to the reinstall.

I noticed some applications began to have some bugs/glitches and since I was wanting to clear up space, I reinstalled Windows. Those applications are thankfully working fine now. In regards to the reinstall, I went through the same process as I always do:
- Media Creation Tool
- Reinstall via USB
- Allow Windows to search for the latest drivers
- Install drivers manually that weren't detect by Windows

The last few times I've reinstalled Windows, I had no problems at all. My laptop was performing fine after the latest reinstall for a couple of days until I suddenly noticed the framerates across the board had dropped due to the CPU suddenly having power limit throttles. Again, I made no changes to the hardware or software when the framerates suddenly began to drop, and my overall system performance (thermals are fantastic and the GPU is performing well under stress test) is great.

 

[ubuysa]

I just went to the Clevo website now and found the latest chipset drivers for my specific chassiz/CPU. Unfortunately the problem occurred
again where after 50ish seconds of stress testing, my CPU began to power limit throttle. The stress test in XTU prior to this issue would always last the full time period without having any throttles on the available categories (thermal, power, and current).



The Windows version was fully up to date prior to the reinstall.

I noticed some applications began to have some bugs/glitches and since I was wanting to clear up space, I reinstalled Windows. Those applications are thankfully working fine now. In regards to the reinstall, I went through the same process as I always do:
- Media Creation Tool
- Reinstall via USB
- Allow Windows to search for the latest drivers
- Install drivers manually that weren't detect by Windows

The last few times I've reinstalled Windows, I had no problems at all. My laptop was performing fine after the latest reinstall for a couple of days until I suddenly noticed the framerates across the board had dropped due to the CPU suddenly having power limit throttles. Again, I made no changes to the hardware or software when the framerates suddenly began to drop, and my overall system performance (thermals are fantastic and the GPU is performing well under stress test) is great.

Did you delete all existing UEFI partitions when you did the reinstall?

 

[DarkPaladin]

Did you delete all existing UEFI partitions when you did the reinstall?

I formatted all the drives, then reinstalled Windows using the Creation Tool via USB to the NVMe SSD. I did the same last time and had no issues.

 

[NoddyPirate]

How much is the CPU actually throttling? Does it just hit a plateau or does it pull back some frequency when the Power Limit triggers?

 

[SpyderTracks]

I formatted all the drives, then reinstalled Windows using the Creatin Tool via USB to the NVMe SSD. I did the same last time and had no issues.

Can you take a screenshot of the drive paritions on the c drive?

 

[DarkPaladin]

How much is the CPU actually throttling? Does it just hit a plateau or does it pull back some frequency when the Power Limit triggers?

I added a stress test (roughly 2-3 minutes) to show what happens when the CPU begins to power limit throttle.

 

[DarkPaladin]

Can you take a screenshot of the drive paritions on the c drive?

Not sure if this is the exact screenshot you wanted

 

[NoddyPirate]

I added a stress test (roughly 2-3 minutes) to show what happens when the CPU begins to power limit throttle.

That indicates the Package TDP at 5W - I assume that is the power draw when you took the screenshot after the test, but it still seems very low for your CPU even at idle.

Can you see what the package TDP or Package Power peaks at during the test?

 

[DarkPaladin]

That indicates the Package TDP at 5W - I assume that is the power draw when you took the screenshot after the test, but it still seems very low for your CPU even at idle.

Can you see what the package TDP peaks at during the test?

The package peaks at around 75TDP before throttling down to the 60s.

Not sure if it's worth mentioning, but I bumped up the Turbo Boost from 65W to 75W and had no throttling after the 5 minute stress test. I'd rather not resort to increasing the power consumption for an issue that never used to happen at those settings though.

 

[NoddyPirate]

The package peaks at around 75TDP before throttling down to the 60s.

Not sure if it's worth mentioning, but I bumped up the Turbo Boost from 65W to 75W and had no throttling after the 5 minute stress test. I'd rather not resort to increasing the power consumption for an issue that never used to happen at those settings though.

I wouldn’t be worried about increasing power if your temperatures are OK. The 8700K is a desktop CPU rated at 95 W TDP - I don’t have any idea what it’s rating would be in a laptop however.

8700K

Are you sure the TDP settings were identical before your Windows Update?

 

[DarkPaladin]

I wouldn’t be worried about increasing power if your temperatures are OK. The 8700K is a desktop CPU rated at 95 W TDP - I don’t have any idea what it’s rating would be in a laptop however.

8700K

Are you sure the TDP settings were identical before your Windows Update?

Definitely. These were screenshots from when I first received my laptop back in 2019:

https://imgur.com/J8ntZKs

https://imgur.com/vnkHKfM

The below screenshots are from today:


The only difference from those screenshots is that I decreased the undervolt from the default -100 to -0.70 shortly after receiving my laptop.

 

[NoddyPirate]

Definitely. These were screenshots from when I first received my laptop back in 2019:

https://imgur.com/J8ntZKs

https://imgur.com/vnkHKfM

The below screenshots are from today:


The only difference from those screenshots is that I decreased the undervolt from the default -100 to -0.70 shortly after receiving my laptop.

Decreasing the undervolt would increase the power draw but of course that doesn't explain why you are only having issues now if you did that a year or two ago. Have you tried returning the undervolt to what it was originally out of interest?

(All your setting look identical in your post abive - bar the undervolt of course....)

 

[NoddyPirate]

The only other thing that seems to possibly work is setting your Turbo Boost Short Power Max to the same value as Turbo Boost Power Max - so both at 65W. Might be worth a try just to see the difference?

If your TDP is peaking at 75W anyway it doesn't sound like changing it would impact performance in any meaningful way.

 

[DarkPaladin]

The only other thing that seems to possibly work is setting your Turbo Boost Short Power Max to the same value as Turbo Boost Power Max - so both at 65W. Might be worth a try just to see the difference?

If your TDP is peaking at 75W anyway it doesn't sound like changing it would impact performance in any meaningful way.

Just wanted to give a quick update.

Since increasing PL1 from 65 to 75W, I've had zero instances of power limit throttling. I've monitored the temperatures as well and I haven't seen any noticeable increase aside from maybe 1-2 degrees under maximum load for intensive games such as Cyberpunk (under maximum performance battery plan).

Hopefully anyone else with a similar issue tries a similar fix to what I did (incrementally increasing PL1 while monitoring the temperatures for a good trade-off).

 

[NoddyPirate]

Just wanted to give a quick update.

Since increasing PL1 from 65 to 75W, I've had zero instances of power limit throttling. I've monitored the temperatures as well and I haven't seen any noticeable increase aside from maybe 1-2 degrees under maximum load for intensive games such as Cyberpunk (under maximum performance battery plan).

Hopefully anyone else with a similar issue tries a similar fix to what I did (incrementally increasing PL1 while monitoring the temperatures for a good trade-off).

Good stuff. As mentioned above as long as the temperatures are OK I wouldn't be worried about increasing power - particularly as your boosts were reaching 75W in the first place anyway.

Thanks for the update and hopefully it behaves from here on for you.

 

[DarkPaladin]

Good stuff. As mentioned above as long as the temperatures are OK I wouldn't be worried about increasing power - particularly as your boosts were reaching 75W in the first place anyway.

Thanks for the update and hopefully it behaves from here on for you.

I apologise for updating an older thread, but I noticed the other day that when I conducted another stress test, I was suddenly getting Power Limit Throttling again under the new settings (despite conducting multiple stress tests at 75W with no issues when I initially wondered what was going on). I'm baffled at this point as to why it's happening since I'm not experiencing any thermal throttling/current limit throttling. Could it be the battery? HWInfo64 says it has 12.3% wear but I doubt that would be enough to PL throttle.