FPS slowdowns running on battery power.

[bengalih]

I'm looking for some assistance in diagnosing problematic behavior of my laptop while running on battery (and possibly when plugged in?).

This is an older Thinkpad W530 with an i7-3820QM CPU and an NVIDIA K2000M GPU. I'm not sure if the issue is related solely to the GPU or a combination of CPU/GPU and I'm hoping Throttlestop can help me diagnose and hopefully fix the problem. If not, maybe the brains in here can lead me in a better direction.

This all started with a combination of a rebuild to Win11 (though I'm doing most my troubleshooting back on 10 now), and my son's desire for me to play some Roblox with him.
I typically don't game on this machine but this is what actually led me to the discovery of the problem.

In short, what I am experiencing is severe periods slow down (measured in FPS) when playing on battery.
This does not seem to correlate to any other discernable issue with the laptop (i.e. thermals, power,

When playing Roblox (utilizing the discrete GPU) I get FPS in the mid to high 30's range on maximum graphics setting.
For testing I basically enter the same game and stand in more or less the same position and take measurements.
I occasionally see a small dip to 25 FPS, but often run in the high 30s with occasional peaks in low/mid 40s

During this period, my CPU cores can hover around 1.3 GHz, rarely if ever going over 1.6. The CPU utilization typically less than 30%.
Temperatures around 65C for both CPU and GPU. Power draw between about 12-20 W.



IOW, it seems nothing too abnormal to me and most importantly (for the task at hand) a seemingly solid FPS and usage experience.
But the main issue is that as soon as I switch to battery power I start to see periods of low frame rates - dropping between about 5-10 FPS!
This doesn't happen immediately, but generally within a 5 minute play session I will have 1-2 instances of this occurring. Each instance lasting approximately 30-90 seconds.
Sometimes I find that the issue terminates immediately upon plugging AC power back in. Other times it seems I need to wait it out the normal period regardless.

When this frame drop occurs, I see a marked drop in GPU temperatures. However I believe the drop is temperature is an effect of the GPU dropping frame rate, not the other way around.
I don't think the GPU is going into thermal throttle and therefore affecting the frame rate.
I may be wrong about this, but I say it because I am not seeing an upper GPU temp limit that is causing this. It might happen while my GPU reads 59C, but OTOH works perfectly fine when the temps are in the mid/high 60s. I would think that if it was thermal throttling from the GPU it would happen more consistently when temps hit a certain point.(?) Also (and I may be wrong again) but if it was throttling due to dangerous temps on the GPU I expect it would do it whether or not it was on AC power.



I have tried tweaking every performance related setting I know both in BIOS and Windows.
This issue happens in standard/balanced plans as well as when running on high performance (low battery saving) plans.
While my rig admittedly does get hot when running all cores at Turbo, these dips don't seem to correlate at all to temperatures.

I've even run P95 Torture tests in the background to maximize all cores and they don't appear to influence this behavior either way.

Any thoughts about what is going on and how to prevent it?

Some additional notes:
- My laptop apparently has a known (but not too well discussed issue) that if you are using the discrete graphics card at all (meaning it isn't totally disabled in the BIOS) that the CPU cores limit themselves to 1.2 GHz when running on battery power. There are a few tricks to get around this. One is to disable SpeedStep in the BIOS (or I guess with TS?) which allows the cores to work at their 2.7 GHz both plugged and unplugged (at the sacrifice of being able to use Turbo Boost at all). While playing Roblox does not seem to stress my cores beyond about 30% at 1.2 GHz, I have tried these tests with SpeedStep disabled so my cores can run at the higher speeds on battery and this does not get rid of the problem. Therefore, I don't believe this has to do with CPU throttling, but I could be mistaken.

- I am new to Throttlestop and have noted one other issue I notice occurring with POWER that I have just asked about here. I don't know if this could be related, but since that issue does not appear to happen when I am running on battery I don't believe it is.

- Finally, I also observe that every time I unplug my AC power Throttlestop flashes PROCHOT BD for just a second. I don't know if this is normal or not, but temperatures appear well within tolerances when this happens.

EDIT: Attached a TS log that shows me playing for a bit pre and post unplug from power. To my eyes it doesn't show anything that would explain the problem, but what do I know?!

 

[unclewebb]

disable SpeedStep

Leave SpeedStep enabled. On 3rd Gen CPUs, check the Set Multiplier box and press the Turn On button. You should not see the word Monitoring in the title bar when ThrottleStop is setup properly on these older CPUs.

If you are having problems, do not start multiple threads about the same problem. Let's use this thread and I will close the other one you started.

Check the High Performance box in ThrottleStop to switch to the Windows High Performance power plan.

Many laptops use batteries that are not powerful enough to run both the CPU and GPU at maximum performance levels. The battery is often times only useful for light internet use. Gaming FPS might drop like a rock when switching to battery power. Using ThrottleStop to overcome these limitations can damage your battery.

 

[bengalih]

If you are having problems, do not start multiple threads about the same problem. Let's use this thread and I will close the other one you started.

Thanks. I do not necessarily think these problems are related (nor is the 3rd post on the Speed Step throttling I just created).
I felt there were all individual enough that they were not effecting each other.
I am going to gather the logs you suggested in the other post and if that thread is still open (as per your discretion) I will post there although please keep in mind those POWER issues I mention there do not happen at all during the issue in this thread since this issue involves running on battery power.

So again, I leave to your discretion and will post my results shortly to that thread assuming it is still up. If you want to compound both issues together to troubleshoot I will post here.
If that's the case, I plead not to also combine my 3rd threat about the 1.2 GHz throttling because while that did come up in part of my determining if CPU utilization was in issue here is definitely a separate question and probably should not be conflated.

Thanks again...going to get those logs...

 

[unclewebb]

You have one laptop. All of these problems are related to your one laptop. SpeedStep needs to be enabled and you have to press the Turn On button to send multiplier requests to the CPU.

Use this thread.

 

[bengalih]

You have one laptop. All of these problems are related to your one laptop. SpeedStep needs to be enabled and you have to press the Turn On button to send multiplier requests to the CPU.

Use this thread.

Apologies. I posted the third thread prior to reading your response here. In other forums I might be lambasted for conflating all these issues together when they might only have some tangential relation. I understand your preference now and will keep everything contained here.

So I have several questions related to all the issues, but first let me give you what you asked for and allow you to respond before I query further.

Attached you will find the 15 minute run log along with screen shots of TS, the TPL and TRL windows you requested. I did no modifications on TPL/TRL (I have not gotten that far yet in my understanding of the tool).

I also am running with the settings you recommended to address my FPS drop, namely I have the "Set Multiplier" on and "High Performance" enabled along with "Turn On". As you mentioned it does not display "Monitoring" when this is on.

As per the main TS screen shot attached, I am still seeing POWER flash up fairly regularly. I would say that no more than 45-60 seconds goes by without me seeing it flash. Sometimes it flashes several times over a period of 10-20 seconds and then I might not see it again for another minute or so.

Again, this is when running on AC power.

 

[bengalih]

You have one laptop. All of these problems are related to your one laptop. SpeedStep needs to be enabled and you have to press the Turn On button to send multiplier requests to the CPU.

Use this thread.

Well I hope I haven't worn out my welcome at the very start by my ignorance in multi-posting for thinking my issues were not related. Apologies agian!
I did provide the details in the post above you asked you for in my post regarding the POWER limit flashing.

- Do you see anything there which would indicate an issue? Should I be concerned about this at all?

Regarding my other post about throttling SpeedStep. The steps you provided above about the using "Set Multiplier" instead of disabling SpeedStep do seem to work and be a bit of an improvement. I do still have some questions/issue with this though:

- When I go onto battery power and then use the "Set Multiplier" and set it to the highest value, I am able to increase my clock speeds on battery. This is great. The issue then is that while I can manually adjust it up and down, I cannot seemingly turn it off and set it back to "Balanced" where it will idle at lower speeds but increase when necessary. IOW I can choose a clock multiplier to set it at, and manually adjust it, but it no longer has the default Windows behavior when I am on AC of idling at lower speeds unless required. The same is true of course if I try this on AC power. Once I enable the "Set Multiplier" it seems I am stuck only with manual control until I initiate a power change even (plug/unplug). My guess is again that SpeedStep is somehow noticing this change and "resetting" the CPU. Is there a way around this where I can more easily go from using the "Set Multiplier" and a manual tuning of the speeds back to having it "balanced" and controlled by the system?

- This Throttlestop guide might have incorrectly quoted you in stating:

The developer has recently admitted that while this button used to do something years ago, it basically doesn’t do much anymore. Assume that TS will be governing your CPU as long as the program is running.

Of course you told me to use the "Turn On" button, and it did appear to have an effect. So just wondering if this person was flat wrong, or ...?

I do still have some more questions related to my dropped FPS when on battery. I'm not 100% that the issue is related to the battery not being powerful enough based on what I am seeing for CPU utilization and battery draw, but I will circle back to this once we finalize the above.

thanks again.

 

[unclewebb]

Turn On

Users with computers that have 6th Gen and newer CPUs and have Speed Shift Technology enabled do not need to press the Turn On button. For 5th Gen and older CPUs like you have, or if Speed Shift Technology is not enabled, then you need to check the SpeedStep box and you need to check the Set Multiplier box. You also have to press the Turn On button so ThrottleStop can send the Set Multiplier values to the CPU.

For your 3rd Gen CPU, when ThrottleStop shows the word Monitoring in the title bar, or if SpeedStep is disabled, the Set Multiplier value will not be sent to the CPU. That means ThrottleStop will not have control over your CPU speed.

Now that you know how ThrottleStop needs to be setup, are you able to run the CPU at its full rated speed? ThrottleStop should be able to prevent your CPU getting stuck at only 1.2 GHz or 1.3 GHz. That amount of throttling is poor design by your laptop manufacturer.

BD PROCHOT

Some laptops trigger BD PROCHOT throttling for a few seconds when you switch from AC to battery power. This type of throttling is normal. It is a cheap and easy way to protect the battery from a sudden power draw. This can help avoid long term damage to the battery.

When I go onto battery power and then use the "Set Multiplier"

The original purpose of ThrottleStop was to fix throttling problems and to try and run the CPU at maximum speed for maximum performance when plugged in. With older CPUs like you have, I used to recommend exiting ThrottleStop so that Windows could regain control of managing the CPU speed. You can switch to the Windows Balanced power plan after exiting ThrottleStop.

If you really want or need to use ThrottleStop when running on battery power, try checking the Power Saver box on the main screen. This was originally designed to slow the CPU down when it is lightly loaded. This feature is far from perfect but might be useful for you. In the Options window you can adjust the Power Saver C0% value to tweak this feature.

I rarely ever use a laptop on battery power so ThrottleStop is a little short on features for that purpose. I prefer to run all CPUs at max speed even on battery power. As long as the C states are enabled, I never found that power consumption was that bad when doing this. Here is an example of vastly different CPU speeds and voltages but hardly any difference in idle CPU temperatures or power consumption.

I am not familiar with POWER lighting up red on the main screen on older CPUs. The 4th Gen and newer CPUs introduced Limit Reasons data which is a much better and more thorough way to track what is causing a CPU to throttle.

To try and increase your turbo power limits, open the TPL window and check the MMIO Lock box. Clear the Disable Controls box and set the Long Power MSR PL1 and Short Power MSR PL2 power limits both to 100. Does that make any difference to POWER flashing red? If that does not help with POWER lighting up red then I do not know what else you can do about this. Probably nothing. Some older CPUs had power limits set internally that could not be increased. It does not seem to be a huge problem for you. Your CPU is running at a good speed even when POWER is flashing red.

Check the Log File box on the main screen and then go play a game for 15 minutes. When finished testing, exit the game and then exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize your log file. It will be in your ThrottleStop / Logs folder. Attach a log to your next post so I can see how your computer is running. The log file will include data from Your Nvidia GPU as long as that box is checked in the Options window. If your FPS drops after switching to battery power, it might be the Nvidia GPU that is being power limit throttled. You can switch to battery power for 5 or 10 minutes when testing. Continue running ThrottleStop so it can log this info too. I prefer to see too much data than not enough data.

If it makes you feel any better, you are not the only person with poor gaming performance when trying to play games on a laptop that is not plugged in. Many gaming laptops are a myth. The battery is OK for light internet use but you will rarely get similar performance when running on battery power compared to when you are plugged in. Throttling of the CPU and GPU are common soon after you pull the plug.

 

[bengalih]

Sorry for the delay...had a HDD failure needed to deal with...

Now that you know how ThrottleStop needs to be setup, are you able to run the CPU at its full rated speed? ThrottleStop should be able to prevent your CPU getting stuck at only 1.2 GHz or 1.3 GHz. That amount of throttling is poor design by your laptop manufacturer.
...
The original purpose of ThrottleStop was to fix throttling problems and to try and run the CPU at maximum speed for maximum performance when plugged in. With older CPUs like you have, I used to recommend exiting ThrottleStop so that Windows could regain control of managing the CPU speed. You can switch to the Windows Balanced power plan after exiting ThrottleStop.

If you really want or need to use ThrottleStop when running on battery power, try checking the Power Saver box on the main screen. This was originally designed to slow the CPU down when it is lightly loaded. This feature is far from perfect but might be useful for you. In the Options window you can adjust the Power Saver C0% value to tweak this feature.

Yes. If I keep all my defaults (Speedstep, BD PROCHOT, C1E) and then simply use the "Set Multiplier" option and "Turn On" TS then it works to increase my base CPU speed from 1.2 GHz up to the upper limits (3.2-3.5Ghz) when I'm running on battery.
However, as I described above (and will try again, because maybe I'm not being clear) if I turn off TS it does not "hand over" control of speeds back to the CPU/OS as I would expect. While I can use the "Set Multiplier" to set myself down to a lower speed again, whatever speed I set it to is "stuck" there.
This is true even after I exit ThrottleStop and even if I toggle performance plans in the OS.
In fact, even if I go into the currently selected power plan and change the minimum processor states down to say 5% (on battery), it does not lower the CPU settings.
The *only* way I am able to pass control back to the OS is by reconnecting AC power again with TS disabled.
In truth this may not be an issue because as I observe (as I write this) under normal battery operation my CPU seems to stay at 1192-1196 MHz no matter the load placed on it.
This is equivalent to a multiplier of 12 (out of a maximum of 37) on my system.
So, I guess the solution for me would be some sort of quick switch between a 12 and 37 multiplier when on Battery. This would allow me to toggle between how my system behaves normally (throttles) to full power through TS?

Interestingly, I do not see the same behavior when my system is plugged in and I use "Set Multiplier" with TS. It seems to properly switch between whatever I have in "Set Multiplier" and being controlled by the system power plan (throttling as appropriate), when I toggle the multiplier (or Throttlestop) on and off.

I am not familiar with POWER lighting up red on the main screen on older CPUs. The 4th Gen and newer CPUs introduced Limit Reasons data which is a much better and more thorough way to track what is causing a CPU to throttle.

To try and increase your turbo power limits, open the TPL window and check the MMIO Lock box. Clear the Disable Controls box and set the Long Power MSR PL1 and Short Power MSR PL2 power limits both to 100. Does that make any difference to POWER flashing red? If that does not help with POWER lighting up red then I do not know what else you can do about this. Probably nothing. Some older CPUs had power limits set internally that could not be increased. It does not seem to be a huge problem for you. Your CPU is running at a good speed even when POWER is flashing red.

I have done this and it doesn't appear to help. I am however attaching a screen shot of my settings to ensure I did them correctly(?)
Should I just assume the POWER flashing isn't an issue? Does it still have meaning, can it just be disregarded, or is it just a red herring in this case?

Check the Log File box on the main screen and then go play a game for 15 minutes. When finished testing, exit the game and then exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize your log file. It will be in your ThrottleStop / Logs folder. Attach a log to your next post so I can see how your computer is running. The log file will include data from Your Nvidia GPU as long as that box is checked in the Options window. If your FPS drops after switching to battery power, it might be the Nvidia GPU that is being power limit throttled. You can switch to battery power for 5 or 10 minutes when testing. Continue running ThrottleStop so it can log this info too. I prefer to see too much data than not enough data.

You will find the log file attached. This is with TS configured with just the default settings using the High Performance plan. I also enabled my NVIDIA GPU in the options so that would be shown. I played for 15 minutes on AC and did not see any frame drops. Then another 10 minutes on battery power. I would say that every 2-3 minutes (approx.) I would go from normal FPS down to under 10 and this would last about 1.5-2 minutes until recovering again for another 1-1.5 minutes before dropping back down. It is essentially unplayable at this setting (I can however change the graphics quality down to increase FPS. I believe in other tests if I did this I did not experience these drops, but would need to test again for sure).

If it makes you feel any better, you are not the only person with poor gaming performance when trying to play games on a laptop that is not plugged in. Many gaming laptops are a myth. The battery is OK for light internet use but you will rarely get similar performance when running on battery power compared to when you are plugged in. Throttling of the CPU and GPU are common soon after you pull the plug.

What is strange to me is that my CPU isn't heavily used when playing, its the GPU being taxed. If I run a P95 torture test while playing the game it doesn't seem to make a difference. IOW the system exhibits the same behavior (with the same frequency) whether or not it is running at 25% CPU power or 100% CPU power (with more power draw). At this point I would at least like to understand what the limiting is. Is it some built in GPU throttling? Is it related to heat and/or power draw? Because I can't seem to correlate it to either. I'd be willing to try some additional tests to investigate more if you can recommend anything.

thanks again for all your assistance.

 

[bengalih]

Check the Log File box on the main screen and then go play a game for 15 minutes. When finished testing, exit the game and then exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize your log file. It will be in your ThrottleStop / Logs folder. Attach a log to your next post so I can see how your computer is running. The log file will include data from Your Nvidia GPU as long as that box is checked in the Options window. If your FPS drops after switching to battery power, it might be the Nvidia GPU that is being power limit throttled. You can switch to battery power for 5 or 10 minutes when testing. Continue running ThrottleStop so it can log this info too. I prefer to see too much data than not enough data.

Any other suggestions based on the data and log file above? If it helps I have all sorts of BIOS settings seemingly related to the processor and thermal management. Wondering if any of these settings jump out as something that might need a tweak?

thanks.