i7-9750H and 1660 Ti Cant Seem to Escape Throttling.

[LeonardTheThird]

Been having issues with my Laptop (a Lenovo Y540 15IRH) for a long time. Away from my Desktop during the holidays and it's really cramping my style so I decided to finally try and track down the cause.

I tried everything I could think of under the sun to try and boost the performance, since it was clear throttling was happening somewhere. I didn't get anywhere until I noticed that Thermal Throttling was shown as constantly on in XTU (though not in HWINFO). I thought it was strange, especially since every indication was that the CPU was no higher than ~50c. More poking around and I determined the problem was BD PROCHOT. It was constantly being thrown. Seems like sometimes these sensors go and I'm guessing that's the case here.

So I installed ThrottleStop and disabled BD PROCHOT. For a few glorious minutes I was gaming in buttery smooth 60 frames a second. Now I start my computer this afternoon, and I'm back to 20 frames a second. It's doesn't seem to be the CPU anymore though. The GPU memory clock refuses to rise above 810mhz. If it does ever decide to jump up to 6000mhz, where it should be, I get a brief glimpse of 60 frames before it plummets back down. There are no limits lit up in ThrottleStop, the GPU temp is low (less than 60) and it doesn't seem like the power consumption is that high (~30w), so I'm really struggling to understand what's happening. Before running ThrottleStop the memory clock was almost always 6000mhz, so I feel like I botched the settings somehow to cause this.

My current ThrottleStop settings
High Performance: Checked
Speed Shift EPP: Checked set to 32
BD PROCHOT: Unchecked
FIVR: -125mV on CPU Core, CPU Cache, and Intel GPU


Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Tomb Raider ain't no fun at 20 frames.

 

[unclewebb]

Post some ThrottleStop screenshots so I can see your settings. Turn on the Log File option and play a game for at least 15 minutes. Attach a log file to your next post. Check the Nvidia GPU box in the Options window before you start logging data so that information is included in the log file.

 

[LeonardTheThird]

Everything should be attached. I haven't touched anything on the TPL page, but figured I'd include it just in case.
Thanks!

 

[unclewebb]

Did you experience any problems while you were logging data?

The log file does not show any significant throttling. The GPU is mostly running in the 1600 MHz to 1700 MHz range which is fine. The GPU temperatures are quite low. The log file shows a couple of seconds of CPU thermal throttling when the CPU gets up to 94°C to 96°C. The amount of throttling is minimal. You would likely not notice any slow downs while playing a game.

In the Options window I would set PROCHOT Offset to 2 or 3 to give you a couple of more degrees of thermal headroom before throttling begins. Intel default for this offset value is 0. Once you find a PROCHOT Offset value you like, I would check the Lock PROCHOT Offset box to prevent any software from changing this value.

I usually check the MMIO Lock box in the TPL window. This does not appear to be causing any issues at the moment.

Do some more data logging and play for a longer period of time. If you have any throttling issues, keep track of what time it happened at so you can look at the log file data at the time it happened.

 

[LeonardTheThird]

Yes, except for perhaps the first 30 seconds, performance was quite bad: ~25fps.
I grabbed the clock on my phone and started logging with both ThrottleStop and HWInfo. At 09:37:29 I had just loaded in game and had 60+ fps. By 09:37:57 I was down to ~23 where it stayed the rest of the session. It's hard to tell what's happening from the log, I do see a fairly across-the-board drop at 37:51, maybe that's the key point?
The HWInfo logs are weird. (note, it's a csv file, I just changed the extension to upload here). First of all, there's a ton of GPU thermal throttling, though the GPU is never close to the claimed 87 max. Hot spot temp never even reaches 70. There's also Power throttling essentially the entire time the game is running. It is interesting to see that the memory core clock is at 1500 most of the time the game was running at 60, but then drops to 200 about when my frames also plummeted. It's also interesting to note that the GPU is still power and thermal throttled even after the game is closed (46:29, based on GPU memory consumption). Heck even just sitting here idling with Firefox open I can see HWInfo reporting Power and Thermal throttling every so often. Though temps and power are both minimal.

I'm starting to think this is a case of classic "solve one problem, uncover 3 more". I'd guess Throttlestop has allowed my CPU to finally stretch its legs, and now the GPU is hitting some kind of stupid limits. Or a bad driver or something.

 

[Bogus5]

Try MSI Afterburner to tame your GPU.

Afterburner

MSI Afterburner is the world’s most recognized and widely used graphics card overclocking utility. It provides detailed overview of your hardware and comes with some additional features like customizing fan profiles, benchmarking and video recording.

www.msi.com

 

[LeonardTheThird]

Try MSI Afterburner to tame your GPU.

Afterburner

MSI Afterburner is the world’s most recognized and widely used graphics card overclocking utility. It provides detailed overview of your hardware and comes with some additional features like customizing fan profiles, benchmarking and video recording.

www.msi.com

Yeah, I'd wondered about this. Unfortunately it seems like because it's the laptop version of the card, I can't adjust any of the relevant settings; voltage, power, and thermal limits are all locked.

 

[Assimilator]

I'd guess Throttlestop has allowed my CPU to finally stretch its legs, and now the GPU is hitting some kind of stupid limits. Or a bad driver or something.

There is no need to guess, you have just discovered how laptops work. They have a power budget and when the system exceeds that budget, one or more of the power-consuming items is throttled to prevent the laptop from melting down. In your case both the CPU and GPU were being throttled equally, but since you disabled BD PROCHOT the CPU eats up almost all of the power and leaves none for the GPU. So you get to choose: either mediocre CPU and GPU performance, or amazing CPU performance and shit GPU performance.

There is nothing you can do about this. Do research before buying, not after.

 

[LeonardTheThird]

There is no need to guess, you have just discovered how laptops work. They have a power budget and when the system exceeds that budget, one or more of the power-consuming items is throttled to prevent the laptop from melting down. In your case both the CPU and GPU were being throttled equally, but since you disabled BD PROCHOT the CPU eats up almost all of the power and leaves none for the GPU. So you get to choose: either mediocre CPU and GPU performance, or amazing CPU performance and shit GPU performance.

There is nothing you can do about this. Do research before buying, not after.

I definitely did do research when I bought this laptop 4 years ago. Unfortunately, my experience was limited to desktops and the folks I asked for advice weren't as knowledgeable as one would hope. I'd certainly prioritize different things if I were able to make that decision today. Don't really have the funds to do that though, so I'm stuck with what I have.
I understand there isn't some magical setting that is going to suddenly make the computer run fantastically. I guess I'm hoping to figure out some combination that allows some decent performance from both without getting throttled to the ground.

 

[Bogus5]

Unfortunately, implementing high-performance components in laptops consequently leads to learning ugly trade-offs.

 

[LeonardTheThird]

Well I think I may have found a solution. I disabled Intel Dynamic Performance and Thermal Framework in the BIOS. I'm getting solid 60 with CPU and GPU both at ~70, which seems acceptable.
The question becomes what am I trading off by disabling this? I'd guess perhaps long-term health of the machine? My google-fu did not discover any specific dangers, other than decreased battery life, which doesn't matter much to me, since I'm always plugged in when gaming.

 

[unclewebb]

I disabled Intel Dynamic Performance and Thermal Framework in the BIOS.

That was a wise choice. Your computer will live a long and healthy life whether that is enabled or not. If it runs better with no throttling then I would leave it disabled. For many computers, the Intel Dynamic stuff only causes problems.