Laptop CPU Temperatures and Throttling

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Crispy01

Member
Hi,

I bought a laptop from here about a year ago, and from the get-go I have had thermal issues with it, to the point where it is underperforming compared to a laptop I bought 5 years ago, which was dated even for then.
I was hoping someone could have a look and let me know whether the temps its running at are normal and expected for this type of laptop, or if it seems theres something off.
Specs at bottom of post (I know, its not a very good build or choice of components from me, I am aware now)

My issue is that, even after undervolting the CPU by about -70Mv offset (lowest it goes before issues), it is still idling around 60-70c. If I try to, say, play a game, it will immediately bounce off the thermal limit and start throttling, usually to 3GHz for about 30 minutes, then dropping further to about 2GHz. lower than the base clock speed. This does noticeably impact the games, dropping the FPS to well below 60fps, even after lowering graphics and resolution. These drops align with the throttling, so it doesn't seem to be related to the very slow RAM.
I have returned it to PCS for tests/repairs a couple times already where they repasted it (unrelated reasons), but the temp didn't really change.

Does this sound normal for the specs, or is there potentially some issue?

Chassis & Display
Ionico Series: 17.3" Matte QHD 165Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1440)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 11800H (2.3GHz, 4.6GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB INTEL® 670p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 3500MB/sR | 2500MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
256GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Have you serviced it since you’ve had it? Ie repasting?

And did you clean install windows as advised when you bought it?

Laptop CPU Thermal throttling issue

Hi, I bought a laptop from here a few weeks back (specs below), however I have been having some issues with it. Specifically, the CPU is reaching 90+ degrees almost immediately after launching almost any program, and subsequently throttling itself pretty hard. It never stays close to the top...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk
 
C

Crispy01

Member
SpyderTracks said:
Have you serviced it since you’ve had it? Ie repasting?

And did you clean install windows as advised when you bought it?

Laptop CPU Thermal throttling issue

Hi, I bought a laptop from here a few weeks back (specs below), however I have been having some issues with it. Specifically, the CPU is reaching 90+ degrees almost immediately after launching almost any program, and subsequently throttling itself pretty hard. It never stays close to the top...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk
Click to expand...
Yep. Cleaned, reinstalled, multiple times. It was returned via RMA multiple times and PCS also reinstalled multiple times, cleaned and repasted etc...
Done all that, but also these temp issues were an issue from the moment I got this laptop, and nothing I have tried so far have helped much in lowering the temps. I gave up for the past 8 months, but someone reopened this wound for me, so I want to see whether this is normal and I was wasting my time or not.
 
D

DarkPaladin

Enthusiast
Just a few questions (I assume you've already done some of this):
  • Which thermal paste have you used? Some thermal pastes which are excellent in desktops are known to have issues in laptops (Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut has pump out issues at 80c, which laptop CPU's easily exceed)
  • Is your GPU also having throttle issues?
  • When repasting the CPU (and presumably GPU if the heatsink is shared) are you screwing them in the correct order? This is important to ensure mounting pressure is even across the components
  • What setting is your battery plan (e.g. balanced, high performance)?
  • Do you use a laptop cooling pad? If not, I would recommend looking into the IETS GT500. It's a little pricey but it does reduce temperatures and comes with a dust filter: https://www.amazon.co.uk/IETS-Powerful-Turbo-Fan-Infinitely-13-17-3inch/dp/B09FJBYQ7Y
  • When idle, I would suggest opening Task Manager to see if there is anything running in the background that would cause your CPU to spike
  • Try turning your fans on to 100% when gaming. I believe the key combination is Fn + 1 for most PCSpecialist laptops.
My personal guess is that (if the GPU is idling at a good temperature) the mounting on the heatsink isn't making proper contact. It would also be worth downloading Intel XTU. You don't need to alter any settings with this software either, it's purely to check for throttling indicators.

I often run this after cleaning up + repasting my laptop to ensure throttling issues aren't happening. If for example your laptop shows thermal throttling outside of stress tests, then it will likely confirm the issue is related to paste or heatsinks not making proper contact.
 
C

Crispy01

Member
It was months ago I last did any of this, decided to stop messing until recently. I don't have the details of the last Thermal paste I personally used, but it came with "ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND".
Also, on one of the many RMA's, the last time I sent it off, it was stated that the CPU was repasted by them, so I have no idea if they used the same or not, nor do I know how exactly they re-attached. I assume they did it better than I did, being professionals.

GPU is not having throttle issues as far as I can tell - the temp stabilizes around 85c under heavy load, never seen it higher, but is usually lower.
Battery plan is on "Best Performance".
Fan is on turbo mode any time I am playing a game.
Task Mgr doesn't show anything with an unusual level of CPU usage when idle, nothing I have noticed anyway.
For checking whether its been reattached properly, I will do this next week when I order some new air duster and thermal paste.
Again, most of this stuff has been redone by PCS themselves and I am assuming they did it far better than I could, and they did it mutliple times, with no real improvement after each...
EDIT - Forgot to mention, I do have a cooling stand as well, one with fans.
 
Last edited:
C

Crispy01

Member
SpyderTracks said:
85 is extremely high for a gpu, 84 is the target temp so it's throttling.
Click to expand...
Ah damn, really? I didn't realise, as the GPU usage has never gone beyond 40% in any of the games that I play where I have the issues, I just assumed it was being bottlenecked before it became an issue.
 
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