I5 9300h power throttling at 25W

[Scamp]

Good day to all,

This is my first thread (don't know if this is the right section) and i am posting it because i have a problem… of course

My laptop is a MSI GF63 thin 9RCX with a I5 9300h and a GTX 1050 TI max-Q.
I was beginning the process to undervolt with THROTTLESTOP the CPU to obtain better thermals, battery and all the good stuff, so i go and set some benchmarks (with both tsbench and ) and here i noticed that sometimes the CPU was power limited at 25W.
After some testing, I come to the conclusion that when the dedicated GPU is active, for example when NVIDIA control panel is open, something (BIOS, Firmaware, i don't know) limits the power of the CPU to 45 and 25 watts for the short power (28 seconds) and long power respectevely.
Consequently core clocks plummet and sometimes even below the base clock speed. TDP of the CPU is 45W, of the GPU is 46W and the power brick is rated at 120W, so i don't understand why this happens. This obviously not good for games… i think.
Thermals should not be a problem, temps at 45W are well below 80°C and around 72-74°C, fans are not even at 100% so I image there is some headroom.

Now,:
Is this normal? Is there some way to bypass this? Or at least raise this 25W limit a bit?

All this is done with AC connected, fresh install of Windows, drivers and bios updated, nothing touched on Windows power settings or TRHOTTLESTOP settings.

I should also specify that I am an engineering student and i will use this laptop (primarely) for code writing, computing and multy-body systems simulation (which requires both CPU and GPU), but gaming (on a budget) too

Thanks everyone

 

[unclewebb]

Is this normal?

Lots of manufacturers do stupid things with their laptops. All sorts of throttling schemes are dreamed up. Someone, somewhere might think it is a good idea at the time when in reality, it could have some serious negative consequences. Some of these problems can be fixed by using ThrottleStop.

In the FIVR window, try selecting the Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits box on the right side. Before you do this, click on the Install button in that section and follow the directions. You have to go to the Mega site to download the RwDrv.zip file.

RwDrv.zip

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I uploaded this file so it is 100% safe. Unzip this file and copy RwDrv.sys into your ThrottleStop folder. After you do that, close the FIVR window and when you reopen it, if you followed the directions, the Install button should be gone.

With Disable and Lock checked, in the TPL window, set the turbo long and short power limits to 60 and 60 so they do not interfere too much. Do some more testing and post lots of ThrottleStop screenshots so I can see the problem and so I can see how you have ThrottleStop setup. Open up the Limit Reasons window and see if anything is red. A yellow box means the CPU was previously throttling and a red box means that throttling is in progress. Make sure the CPU is loaded before taking a screenshot.

 

[Scamp]

Thanks for the answer
I did what you suggested
While testing with Prime95, the throttling still happens but differently this time, i'll explain:
now when i open or close the NVIDIA control panel, the throttling at 25W still happens,yes, but only for a short a amount of time, like 5-10 seconds, then the PWR goes up again to 45W.
this is the situation (btw NVIDIA panel is in italian, but everything is default):

PL1 is red for everything (what are RING and EDP OTHER btw?), but again only for some seconds, and during this time the cpu clock is brought down to base clock and sometimes lower.
I didn't test any games yet, didn't have much time... so i'm a bit concerned that the power limit will fluctuate during games/rendering leading to unstable performance.

Instead without NVIDIA panel opening or closing, the situation is:

Here are the other ThrottleStop windows and settings (this are at idle, shouldn't make any difference right?):

Thanks again for the support, really appreciated.

 

[unclewebb]

Thanks for posting your detailed results. That makes it a lot easier for me to make some suggestions.

EDP OTHER stands for Electrical Design Point. Intel does not really explain what Other is in their publicly available documentation. If you see EDP Other light up red in all 3 columns at the same time, this typically means the throttling is being caused by the Current Limit. Your PP0 Current Limit is set nice and high and does not seem to be causing any problems.

PL1 refers to the long term turbo power limit. PL2 is the short term limit. When PL1 lights up red in the CORE column, it is common for EDP OTHER to light up red in the RING column at the exact same time. Not sure why but I do know that it is PL1 causing the problem.

Anandtech has some info about Intel CPUs and what the ring bus is all about. It is an old article but I think it is still relevant.

Intel's Sandy Bridge Architecture Exposed

www.anandtech.com

Do you really need to know this stuff? Not really but you seem curious so there you go.

In the Turbo Boost Limits window, it is the Clamp option that can force a CPU to run below the base frequency. It can lead to an excessive amount of throttling so I never check Clamp.

Most people are not aware that Intel CPUs actually use 3 duplicate sets of turbo power and time limits. The CPU constantly compares these limits and will throttle based on the lowest power limit that it finds. Getting rid of the Clamp option in one section may not solve a problem if one of the other power limit registers has Clamp enabled.

The main turbo power limit can be adjusted in the ThrottleStop TPL window. The Disable and Lock Turbo feature that I told you about tries to disable the secondary set of power limits so they do not cause throttling. The third set of power limits is controlled by the EC and I do not think anyone knows how to get to those power limits yet. This third set of power limits cannot be adjusted by Intel XTU or by ThrottleStop.

Based on what you posted, I think you should try adjusting the primary power limits that are in the ThrottleStop TPL window. When your computer is reasonably idle, with the Nvidia control panel window closed, clear the Clamp option and set the Long and Short power limits to 60 like your screenshot above shows. After that, check the Lock option in that section. This will temporarily lock the main power limit register. If Nvidia is messing with that one, it will not be able to do that anymore. Press Apply or OK to exit the TPL window. Run the TS Bench to put a load on the CPU and then open up the Nvidia control panel window and see if this fix makes any difference to power consumption.

The Lock option will lock the power limit register until you reboot. If you run ThrottleStop again, it will immediately Lock the power limit register. If you decide that having this register locked is not what you want, you will need to reboot to reset the CPU. Before running ThrottleStop, delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file. You will have to redo your ThrottleStop settings but at least that register should not be locked anymore.

I think it is the third power limit controlled by the EC that is setting its long power limit to 45. If that is the case, I do not think there is any easy fix for that.

Next time you buy a laptop, instead of MSI, check out laptops built on the Tongfang chassis. After some ThrottleStop tweaking, I have seen screenshots of the 8750H and 9750H running all 6 cores at full speed without any throttling troubles.

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The mainstream manufacturers do not seem to cater to enthusiasts anymore.

I noticed in your screenshots that you are not using Speed Shift technology. This is a feature of modern Intel CPUs which in theory gives better off idle response. If you always run your CPU at full speed then having Speed Shift (SST) enabled is not important. If you want your CPU to slow down a little when it is idle, enabling Speed Shift is the best way to do it. You can do this in the ThrottleStop TPL window. Once Speed Shift is enabled, you will see SST in green on the main ThrottleStop screen. When you check the Speed Shift EPP box, this value can be adjusted from 0 to 255.

EPP stands for Energy Performance Preference. The CPU looks at this setting and adjusts performance accordingly. A setting of 0 tells the CPU to run at full speed, all the time. This is fine and is recommended when plugged in. Most people running on battery power prefer to have their CPU run a little slower when lightly loaded. An EPP setting of 128 is a common default value when on battery power. I prefer using 80 since sometimes, a setting of 128 might interfere with maximum performance. Once you go beyond 128, maximum performance will continue to decrease. An EPP setting of 255 will have your CPU running like a slug, regardless of load. That's not for me but some people like being able to turn their high performance laptop into a netbook. The Min Max Speed Shift values in the TPL window let you control the minimum and maximum multipliers. Lots of new stuff for you to play with!

 

[Scamp]

Wow! That's what i call an exhaustive answer, thanks!

Sadly, it seems that we are dealing with the power limit controlled by the EC. I've disabled clamp and checked the lock option, as you suggested, but, nothing changed, the moment i open NVIDIA control panel or anything related to the GPU, during a load, the CPU is limited to 25W.

I think its because MSI believe that the cooling system is not able to handle the heat generated by both (more or less 90W at full load). Need to test games, maybe it does not impact performance as much as i thought.

Regarding TSbench, after undervolting at -0.125V it doesn't load fully load the CPU, it settles at about 40-41W whithout any throttilg at 4GHz, is that normal?

Next time you buy a laptop, instead of MSI, check out laptops built on the Tongfang chassis. After some ThrottleStop tweaking, I have seen screenshots of the 8750H and 9750H running all 6 cores at full speed without any throttling troubles.

Sounds amazing, unfortunately this is one of the downsides of living in Italy, missing out on all the good tech stuff... they are not available here, i think, maybe through some import/export agency...
Well i choose this msi, primarly because of its weight and price to specs, the other choice was a HP pavillion with a I5-8265u and a 3GB GTX 1050, for roughly the same price and weight.
I need a notebook with a good-ish GPU to perform some post-processing, simulations and occasionally mild gaming, so i've gone for the MSI

Anyway, i'm going off-topic... so unless there is some major changing in philosofy in the next bios/firmware update i'm guessing there is nothing to do right?
I've read somewhere that is possible to trick the system into thinking that it is using less power than it is actually using, referred to IMON tweak, i think... do you recommend this, or just not worth it, since it requires unlocking the bios and other stuff?

You are really helpful and kind, thank you!

 

[unclewebb]

Regarding TSbench, after undervolting at -0.125V it doesn't load fully load the CPU, it settles at about 40-41W without any throttling at 4GHz, is that normal?

Under volting reduces power consumption. The TS Bench is still fully loading your CPU, it just no longer requires full power. That is one of the benefits of under volting a laptop. By reducing power consumption, it lets Intel CPUs with limited TDP budgets run faster or cooler or a little bit of both.

When your CPU is under volted, the TS Bench can run at full speed, 4 GHz, without triggering any throttling. That is the maximum speed a 9300H can run at when all 4 cores are active. There is nothing you can do to go faster than that. The TS Bench does not use any AVX instructions so it is not overly demanding compared to some other stress tests. It is still a good test for checking basic stability when under volting. Because it is not hammering the CPU with AVX instructions, it will test the other side of your CPU that most stress testing programs are ignoring. The TS Bench will report errors if your under volt is not stable. You should also do some partial load tests by running 1 or 2 Threads of the TS Bench. Most people only do full load testing but laptops tend to crash when lightly loaded if you under volt too much.

Too bad MSI did not have the guts to tell consumers up front that even though they are paying for a 45 watt CPU, sometimes, you will only be getting the equivalent performance of a 25 watt CPU. If this "feature" is not documented then MSI is being dishonest. Imagine buying a car with a feature like that. When it senses you are going up a hill, it decides to disable half of the cylinders to make sure the engine does not overheat. Any car company that did not disclose that feature would be facing a large class action lawsuit. Their brand name would be dragged through the mud on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Laptop manufacturers have been getting away with deceptions like this for more than a decade. ThrottleStop has been a good tool to help combat this insanity but it looks like Intel has given manufacturers enough tools so they can screw consumers out of the performance that they paid for. That is disgusting. End of rant!

I know about IMON tweaks but I have never gone down that road. If you become disappointed with your laptop, you might have to try this. Installing a modified bios is not without risks. I would not be trying this too soon after buying a new laptop.

Wow! That's what i call an exhaustive answer, thanks!

I do get a little carried away sometimes.

 

[Scamp]

Too bad MSI did not have the guts to tell consumers up front that even though they are paying for a 45 watt CPU, sometimes, you will only be getting the equivalent performance of a 25 watt CPU. If this "feature" is not documented then MSI is being dishonest. Imagine buying a car with a feature like that. When it senses you are going up a hill, it decides to disable half of the cylinders to make sure the engine does not overheat. Any car company that did not disclose that feature would be facing a large class action lawsuit. Their brand name would be dragged through the mud on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Laptop manufacturers have been getting away with deceptions like this for more than a decade. ThrottleStop has been a good tool to help combat this insanity but it looks like Intel has given manufacturers enough tools so they can screw consumers out of the performance that they paid for. That is disgusting. End of rant!

Yeah... unfortunatly, this is the best that i can get for the price and i image that other mainstream manufacturers aren't much better
In the mean time i wrote to MSI support to address this and another issue with GPU coil whine, that increases with the GPU load, maybe a defective unit... i hope is not another "feature" of this series

I know about IMON tweaks but I have never gone down that road. If you become disappointed with your laptop, you might have to try this. Installing a modified bios is not without risks. I would not be trying this too soon after buying a new laptop.

5 days is too soon?

Anyway, unless there are news/updates from MSI i guess this is a dead end, unfortunatly

@unclewebb Thank you very much for your help, time, support and insight on how your amazing ThrottleStop work, really really appreciated

 

[unclewebb]

One last trick. It will not solve the problem you are having but some users have found slightly better temps and power consumption by under volting the CPU Core significantly more than the CPU Cache. For the 8750H and 9750H, somewhere around -125 mV for the cache and -250 mV for the core.

This subject is open for debate. Some users say that increasing the core offset way beyond the cache offset does not make any difference. Other users are convinced that it has lowered their temps. I do not own any 8th or 9th Gen hardware so I have not been able to test this. It is definitely worth playing with.

If there is an advantage, it also seems like if you go way beyond -250 mV, it will not make any difference. The CPU will simply ignore the ThrottleStop request. I am not sure what the optimum value is. If you want to kill some more time, have at it!

 

[Scamp]

mmm... interesting i've always believed that core and cache should have an equal offset, good to know!

Ah, I've noticed one other thing, don't know if I should open another thread or not… This time its about c-states, while the cores can go "down" to C7 the package will not go below C3 even at idle with aboslutely nothing running, apart from TS.
Consequently the power usage at idle is around 1W when it should be at 0.5W, for 9th gen CPU as I've read... Do you know a fix for this?

I should mention that C-states are enabled via bios, no peripherals are connected, PCI is at maximum battery etc... I've done everything written in this guide:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...e-on-windows-enabling-deeper-c-states.815602/

Thanks again

 

[unclewebb]

The package C states not fully working is a common problem but I do not know how to fix this. I have a weird problem on my 4th Gen laptop where the available package C states changes depending on whether I start my laptop up using the power button or if I resume my laptop using an external mouse. Maybe it is a USB driver or something like that. I do not have enough inside info to solve this so I gave up trying.

Package C2

Package C6

Almost identical core C state activity but completely different package C states. I never noticed this problem when I was running Windows 7. I first noticed this sometime after switching to Windows 10. I checked all of the Windows hidden power profile settings but nothing jumped out at me for what is causing this.

 

[Scamp]

All right, worth a shot

Thank you!