Surface Book 1st Gen Not Turbo Boosting - Low CPU Frequency at Times

[Jesus Coder]

Hi there,

I have the i7 variant of the Surface Book first gen. While it has and continues to be a great laptop for school, I am unable to achieve the turbo speeds listed under the processor's specifications (3.4GHz). Instead, my CPU clock speed sits about .1-.3 GHz lower than base speed (2.6GHz) at all times, sometimes dropping further. Same happens even when running a full CPU benchmark. Additionally, I have recently run into the issue of the CPU severely lowering clock speeds (<1.5GHz) whenever charging my computer under 50% battery life. Although my first thought was this may be the device thermal throttling, I do not believe this to be true as my CPU temps stay around 45-50 degrees under normal workload, and under 65 when running benchmarks. I also do not hear the fan very often, which also leads me to the conclusion of this not being a thermal issue.

I have tried changing Windows power and performance options as well as messing around in ThermalStop, but have yet to resolve this. I have listed a few screenshots of my power configuration along with ThrottleStop below.

Thanks!

 

[Bogus5]

Could you post a screenshot of the TS Bench test and the TPL window?

 

[Jesus Coder]

Sure thing, @Bogus5. I ran the TS Bench test while on battery power.

 

[Bogus5]

The BIOS has blocked the ability to set in the FIVR window, the power limits in the TPL window are set according to the CPU specification. You can change the Speed Shift EPP value in the TS main window to a value between 0 and 128, for example 60. Find the right setting.

 

[Jesus Coder]

Hmmm. Well, when changing the Speed Shift EPP value, I noticed that any value lower than 128 decreases the CPU frequency. Running the TS Bench test with the setting set to 128 does seem to have negligibly improved the performance as I received a score of 72.415 seconds compared with the 75.806 I got before. Still, it appears that the CPU is not surpassing 2.45GHz while completing the benchmark.

Any other ideas?

 

[Bogus5]

If the BIOS closes access to the FIVR settings, that's the end of the game. At most, you can raise the power limits in the TPL window.

 

[unclewebb]

Microsoft has set the IccMax current limit to 33.00 which is very low. That can cause constant EDP throttling like you are seeing. The FIVR is locked so you cannot make any adjustments.

Search Google. There might be an unlocked BIOS available or perhaps someone has figured out how to modify the UEFI variables to unlock the FIVR.

Even if you get IccMax unlocked, you will still be limited by Power Limit 4 which is also locked to a value of 46 in the TPL window. Someone at Microsoft really did not want users running their Surface Books at their full Intel rated speed. Often times more restrictive power and current limits are because of a BIOS update. Early BIOS versions can have less restrictive power and current limits so they perform well for review sites. When people complain about the heat, out comes a BIOS update with a lower power or current limit. Everyone likes to immediately update the BIOS but with some laptops, that can end up being a mistake.

 

[K7SEM]

Use ThrottleStop 9.3.1 or older one and then decrease voltage CPU Core and CPU Cache to value -125mv
Keep SpeedStep and C1E enabled

 

[unclewebb]

Use ThrottleStop 9.3.1 or older

The BIOS has locked out the voltage control settings. How is using an old version of ThrottleStop going to help? You cannot decrease the voltages or increase the current limits if they are all locked.

 

[K7SEM]

To OP just download the ThrottleSTOP modification below

 

[unclewebb]

@K7SEM
Older versions of ThrottleStop might allow you to move the voltage sliders back and forth. The older versions did not report when the BIOS had locked out CPU voltage control.

TS 9.6 reports this correctly. The voltage sliders are now locked when using this version because they were not actually doing anything in the older TS versions. You can tell by looking at the FIVR voltage table that the voltages are not being applied to the CPU when it is locked.

 

[Jesus Coder]

Apologies for the late reply. Thank you everyone for the recommendations. Since posting, I have factory reset the laptop as I was having other issues with it. After doing so, most of the problems I described here have went away. The CPU still doesn't appear to boost frequently, but I have noticed it climb to 2.9GHz at times. In response to what @unclewebb had said regarding unlocking the BIOS, I have found a guide on Reddit regarding how I may go about doing this, if I ever get around to do it. The article is found here for anyone else who stumbles upon this thread. Though, for right now, I may leave everything untouched as the laptop's performance is now above adequate for my needs.

Also, I did try the version of ThrottleStop @K7SEM suggested to use. Upon using it, a few parameters were unlocked that did seem to change CPU speeds. However, changing these settings did not seem to fix the power throttling issue as I believe the main culprit is ICCMax, as suggested by unclewebb, which remained locked.

Thank you again to everyone who contributed to this thread.