Need Help Figuring Our Power Limiting with Razer Core X to Laptop via Thunderbolt 3

[Netherscourge]

Hi,

I have a nice stable Throttlestop undervolt for my HP Spectre x360 2019 Laptop. It's a skinny laptop, so it's got bad cooling, but I managed to get it to a point where my temps are good and everything runs stable. Undervolted and unclocked, but it's good.

-One problem. When I plug in my Razer Core X eGPU to the Laptop via my Thunderbolt 3 connection, I instantly get EDP OTHER alerts in the Throttlestop LIMIT window. The moment I plug it in, EDP Other lights up Yellow across the window and stays yellow. If I clear it, it comes back a couple seconds later. If I open and close windows and do other stuff, the EDP Other will go red for a few moments.

I'm assuming the Thunderbolt connection itself requires wattage and perhaps I'm limiting my CPU too much, which might be causing the power throttle? In games using the RTX 3060TI in the Razer Core X, I do notice that I have some stuttering at the exact moment the yellow EDP Other lights pop up on Throttlestop. If I turn off the Razer Core X and just play games on the GTX 1650 MaxQ, there is no throttling.

Note: This happens even if I have both my Laptop's 135 Watt Power Cord plugged in with the Razer Core X TB3 plugged in at the same time. The Razer Core X has a 650 Watt PSU, that dedicates 100 Watts to power delivery. But I keep the Laptop power cord plugged in since it has 135 Watts. Not sure what's going on when it connects though.

So my goal is to figure out how to stop the power limiting when my Razer Core X is plugged in and get a more smooth connection and performance.

System: HP Spectre x306 15T 2019 (i7 9750H, GTX 1650 Max-Q, 16Gb DDR4, SSD)
Razer Core X (650 Watt PSU, 600 Watts dedicated to GPU, 100 Watts dedicated to power delivery - RTX 3060 Ti plugged into the Razer Core X.)
Connection Thunderbolt 3 Cable 40 GB/s, 100W

Any ideas how I can stop the EDP Other throttling when I plug in the Razer Core? Or is that affected by something in the motherboard, and not the CPU?

The first 5 pics with my TS stats and config WITHOUT the Razer Core Plugged in.

The two pics at the end are WITH the Razer Core X plugged in and active:

Edit - I should so note that this EDP Other throttling occurs with or without the RTX GPU plugged into the Razer Core X. If I just use the RazerCore X as an empty TB3 dock, it still lights up the EDP Other lights.

 

[unclewebb]

The only two things that I know of that can cause EDP OTHER throttling are the IccMax settings and the Power Limit 4 setting. You have set the core and cache IccMax to the maximum, 255.75, so that looks good. In the TPL window try setting Power Limit 4 to 0. You can also try setting Power Limit 4 to the maximum which is usually 1023.

The OTHER part of EDP OTHER is not explained in the documentation that I have access to so I do not know of everything that can trigger this. Some users are not able to solve this type of throttling. It sounds like HP has decided to set a limit whenever anything is plugged into the Thunderbolt port. There is likely no way to disable this throttling.

Try running a ThrottleStop log file so I can see what it reports. Play a game for at least 15 minutes with your RTX plugged in.

 

[Netherscourge]

The only two things that I know of that can cause EDP OTHER throttling are the IccMax settings and the Power Limit 4 setting. You have set the core and cache IccMax to the maximum, 255.75, so that looks good. In the TPL window try setting Power Limit 4 to 0. You can also try setting Power Limit 4 to the maximum which is usually 1023.

The OTHER part of EDP OTHER is not explained in the documentation that I have access to so I do not know of everything that can trigger this. Some users are not able to solve this type of throttling. It sounds like HP has decided to set a limit whenever anything is plugged into the Thunderbolt port. There is likely no way to disable this throttling.

Try running a ThrottleStop log file so I can see what it reports. Play a game for at least 15 minutes with your RTX plugged in.

Ok, here's the log file for the past hour or so (attached).

This is what I did during the TS log:

-Booted up the laptop with the Razer Core X OFF
-Turned on Logging in TS.
-Ran a quick TS Bench for giggles. No issues.
-Turned ON the Razer Core X
-Loaded up Steam and then Ran No Man's Sky for a bit. During No Man's Sky, lots of stuttering on Enhanced Settings (recommended for 6GB GPUs. My GPU has 8GB, so figured a good spot.) Still stuttered though. FPS wasn't that great. It fluxuated a lot in the mid 40s, with dips to 10s when stuttering occurred. I believe the EDP Other light started flashing up at this point.
-I went back to the desktop and then went into Throttlestop and changed the Power Limit 4 from 163 (default) to 0 as suggested.
-I went back into No Man's sky for a bit. Performance was still stuttering. I then exited out of No Man's Sky and had a BSOD. Laptop rebooted. I kept the Razer Core X on during the reboot and left it on this whole time.
-I went into TS and changed the Power Limit 4 from 0 to 1023.
-Went back into Steam and played No Man's Sky again. Same stuttering and performance. I then exited out of No Man's Sky and again, as it was returning to the desktop, I had a second BSOD.
-Rebooted again. This time I went into Steam and played Valheim on mostly maxed out settings. FPS was mainly at 30FPS, which for this game is pretty good. This game didn't stutter as much as No Man's Sky, but still felt more sluggish at points.
-Exited out of Valheim.
-Shut down my laptop.
-Turned OFF the Razer Core X
-Rebooted the laptop without the Razer Core X.
-Copied the TS Log file and attached it here.

So, that's where I'm at. Any other suggestions?

 

[unclewebb]

The biggest problem is your GPU is mostly running at 300 MHz. That seems to be what is causing the stuttering.

Your turbo ratio settings are limiting the CPU to 3500 MHz instead of 4000 MHz. Temps are fine so there seems to be no reason to do this.

Not sure how to fix your sluggish GPU problem.

 

[Mussels]

I've not used these setups before, but i too have to wonder if the 135W power brick is somehow not enough - the only time's i've seen weird behaviour like that, is when the laptops think the charger cant keep up and down throttle

 

[Netherscourge]

I was able to get rid of some stuttering just now by disabling the GTX 1650 MaxQ in the Device Manager and rebooting with only the Intel 630 and the Razer Core's 3060 Ti enabled. I also set the Nvidia Control Panel to Globally Prefer the High-End Nvidia GPU, instead of Auto-Detect.

The 1650 Max Q idles at 300 MHz, and it looks like Throttlestop only monitors the onboard Nvidia GPU, because now that's its disabled, TS doesn't let me select the "Nvidia" GPU or set the GPU to show in the taskbar, even though the RTX 3060 in the Razer Core is handling all the graphics right now. Perhaps that why it was showing at 300 MHZ in the TS log?

For comparison, the RTX 3060 TI is currently idling at 555 Mhz.

The stuttering has stopped in No Man's Sky suddenly and it's running much smoother.

However, the EDP Other lights are still flickering in the TS Limit Window.

So, some performance progress at least.



UPDTE: Alright, so I played some Valheim and it was super smooth.

Then I ran 3Dmark's Time Spy. Before I disabled the 1650 MaxQ, I scored a 7889. Now, with the 1650 MaxQ disabled, I scored a 8320. There was no throttling shown in either the CPU or GPU during the TimeSpy benchmarks, according to the graphs. Temps never got above 72C on either the CPU or GPU.

So, I think I finally solved the performance issues!

However, I'm still wondering if I should be worried about the EDP Other lights. They continue to light up yellow and flash red once in a while, no matter how many times I clear the limit display. Still not sure what's causing that.

For now though, my setup seems pretty stable. No errors or PL1/2 throttles appear during any bench tests either. Just those 3 pesky EDP Other lights when the Razer Core X is activated.

 

[unclewebb]

still wondering if I should be worried about the EDP Other lights

You can worry all you want but that is not going to solve this problem. No one including myself knows how to make all EDP OTHER warnings go away so there is nothing you can do about this. In the log file you showed me, it was not causing any significant CPU throttling.

ThrottleStop is only able to monitor a single Nvidia GPU. If the primary Nvidia GPU is disabled then I guess it does not go looking for your secondary Nvidia GPU. Try using GPU-Z. It should be able to recognize your RTX 3060.

Glad to hear you have finally got some playable and smooth FPS.