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Quadro RTX 3000 TDP issue

cride20

New Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2024
Messages
6 (0.02/day)
Hello fellow readers!
I'm relatively new to here but I'm so clueless about a gpu related issue... after trying to fix it for the past 5-6hours I started to gave up, and this forum looked the most promising to ask such a question

Backstory:
Recently I bought a Lenovo P53 with a Quadro RTX 3000 and an i7-9850H for a cheap price, but my issue is that the gpu is underperforming, like way below expectations. (using 15-20w instead of its 80w tdp)

Issue:
GPUs current TDP is around 15-20w paired with 100% usage in creative apps, games, benchmarks everything. The clock speeds seems to be locked to 300MHz for some odd reason.
The frustrating thing is somehow I fixed it for 10minutes and it locked back to 30w again.. because of that I saw that it can eat 80w easily and perform 500% faster I started to find methods to fix this "issue".
Thermals are fine (<65C) power limiting shouldn't be an issue since it did work before with 80w easily, and the power cable is 230w that could easily power the whole system.
(I'm also attaching a screenshots how does a locked performance look like, and how did that unlocked performance looked like before)

GPU-Z Performance cap reasons:
Pwr = (performance is limited by total power limit)
Thrm = (performance is limited by temperature limit)
After some registry tweaks instead of idle: (still drops down to 300mHz as soon as I open any GPU intensive application)
VRel =(performance is limited by voltage reliability)
Vop = (performance is limited by max operating voltage)


A method that "works":
One method I found is that if I change the NVIDIA control panels "Adjust image settings with preview" tab to "Use my preference emphasising: Performance" then settings the max power inside NVIDIA APP to maximum performance, then reinstalling NVIDIA driver via the NVIDIA app beta, it works until I put the notebook into sleep or hibernate, closing the lid, restarting etc. you got the point.
I don't want to reinstall the driver everytime I want to do some GPU heavy workload.

Other methods I tried:
Regedit:
"DisableDynamicPstate" to 0 (disable dynamically changing performance states to maintain max performance p0 state)
"EnableDriverControlledPMM" to 0 (driver controlled power management off)

Other:
Tried installing game ready drivers maybe it'll fix some issues, it didn't
Hidden power plan settings I found... (no idle state on the cpu) didn't fix it

Sorry if some sentences are hard to understand, I'm not that good at the language :/
Thanks any help and time that you spent reading it :D
 

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Nvidia has a very complex organization of poer limits. While GPU-Z is great - some additinal power-usage related info may be seen in hwinfo64 for some GPUs.

Here is somebodys screenshot for desktop GPU - with my marks on expanded/especially interesting. The values are irrelevant, its just a sample what info can be interesting.
make a pair of similar screenshots with such info - one when the problem exists and second while the problem do not present (after your complex but temporal workaround).

1726269059706-png.363318
 

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All mobiles thermal throttle now
 
I have same issue. Recently bought P53 with same specs for about 150$ which seller listed as damaged but i managed to get it running on 170W power supply but without battery. GPU also throttles at about 30W with about 60C temperature (hotspot is 8 deg higher) frequency is about 1000MHz and CPU can reach 70W tdp without reaching 90C with throttlestop so thermals are good even without repasting. Some people had P53 throttling issue due to "lap mode". For me reinstalling driver didnt increase TDP. I thought TDP limit was due to lack of battery - are you using P53 with or without battery? I had throttling issues in T480 due to lack of battery.

All mobiles thermal throttle now
No. Not at all. Issue clearly isnt related to thermals.
 
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I have same issue. Recently bought P53 with same specs for about 150$ which seller listed as damaged but i managed to get it running on 230W power supply but without battery. GPU also throttles at about 30W with about 60C temperature (hotspot is 8 deg higher) frequency is about 1000MHz and CPU can reach 70W tdp without reaching 90C with throttlestop so thermals are good even without repasting. Some people had P53 throttling issue due to "lap mode". For me reinstalling driver didnt increase TDP. I thought TDP limit was due to lack of battery - are you using P53 with or without battery? I had throttling issues in T480 due to lack of battery.
I'm using it with the battery. I do have to note out that if I use it unplugged the gpu goes up to 900MHz clock and 35w, but as soon as I plug in the powercable it goes back down to 15-20w and 300MHz

Nvidia has a very complex organization of poer limits. While GPU-Z is great - some additinal power-usage related info may be seen in hwinfo64 for some GPUs.

Here is somebodys screenshot for desktop GPU - with my marks on expanded/especially interesting. The values are irrelevant, its just a sample what info can be interesting.
make a pair of similar screenshots with such info - one when the problem exists and second while the problem do not present (after your complex but temporal workaround).

1726269059706-png.363318
I attached both screenshots I hope those are the informations that you wanted me to provide. Also I couldn't find "normalized" TDP
Edit: Even if it cooled down, the performance limits stays "Yes" and won't go back to "No" (Attached another screenshot without being thermal throttled)
 

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Have you checked Windows power settings for it being plugged in, and NVIDIA control panel? Just a shot in the dark.
 
Have you checked Windows power settings for it being plugged in, and NVIDIA control panel? Just a shot in the dark.
I did without any progress.. What I'm going to try now is installing an older driver maybe it'll work
 
Just managed to increase tdp to 80W. It was matter of selecting "high performance" mode in throttlestop.
 
Just managed to increase tdp to 80W. It was matter of selecting "high performance" mode in throttlestop.
WHAAAA it works wow thank you so much wow

Edit: works 70% of the time... Other times it still locks down to 300MHz with 50celsius temps
 
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Yeah - throttlestop works intermittently. After trying many things i just found better solution - disable "Lenovo Intelligent Thermal Solution Service" in windows services. You need to disable service and disable its startup. If it doesn't work disable "Lenovo Intelligent Thermal Solution" device under system devices in device manager. I also did some registry tinkering but not sure what i changed or if it did anything good. P53 Is beast but need tinkering to use full of potential. Thinkpads are quite conservative in terms of power an temperature limits which makes sense for commercial client.
 
My museum of laptops is extensive. Generally a discrete GPU is limited to maybe 75W power as the chassis cannot handle much more heat as the coolers have less air flow compared to desktops.

I have T series and P series machines so I am aware of the situation. So the RTX 3000 should be set to 75W or so loaded and < 3W when idle.
 
P53 cooling system is very capable. Only things holding it back are stock fan curves and power limits. Mine P53 gpu doesnt get to 70 degrees when gaming. Cpu will throttle above 75W. There were some issues some P series overheating due to bad die contact but from what i see they are quite rare.
 
Yet another mobile throttle complaint

 
Yet another mobile throttle complaint

Your posts arent helping. You clearly know nothing about mobile workstations.
 
Yeah - throttlestop works intermittently. After trying many things i just found better solution - disable "Lenovo Intelligent Thermal Solution Service" in windows services. You need to disable service and disable its startup. If it doesn't work disable "Lenovo Intelligent Thermal Solution" device under system devices in device manager. I also did some registry tinkering but not sure what i changed or if it did anything good. P53 Is beast but need tinkering to use full of potential. Thinkpads are quite conservative in terms of power an temperature limits which makes sense for commercial client.
After installing lenovo performance app I changed it to maximun performance and inside nvidia to consistent performance, and now it work at 75w and max 55celsius temps. I didnt know this beast is that good at cooling... i don't know why lenovo and nvidia had to limit this card so badly
 
Yeah - GPU cooling is amazing - mine never exceeded 70C with factory fan settings and sits below 60 using tpfancontrol . CPU overheats but only if you remove factory power limit but it can pull 80+ watts and go to 4.9 Ghz... Crazy. I have P51 which have problem sustaining 60W CPU due to thermals (one core is 15C hotter than rest). GPU power limit isnt due to NVIDIA. It is fully Lenovo fault. If you read some of user complains you will understand that lenovo is in very hard situation when it comes to p series - some users want silent workstations for casual use with cad or programming for which factory fan controller is ok - components run with conservative power limits and get quite hot but fans are barely audible and you can get few hours of battery life. But some users me included use this things stationary for FEA solutions / gaming ,/ compiling / rendering and need all of performance for which factory fan curves and power limits are too weak. Unfortunately like i said previous i dont have battery so lenovo app doesn't let me change power settings... Do your P53 have coil whine? Mine whines above 100Fps. Do you have igpu enabled in bios?
 
Yeah - GPU cooling is amazing - mine never exceeded 70C with factory fan settings and sits below 60 using tpfancontrol . CPU overheats but only if you remove factory power limit but it can pull 80+ watts and go to 4.9 Ghz... Crazy. I have P51 which have problem sustaining 60W CPU due to thermals (one core is 15C hotter than rest). GPU power limit isnt due to NVIDIA. It is fully Lenovo fault. If you read some of user complains you will understand that lenovo is in very hard situation when it comes to p series - some users want silent workstations for casual use with cad or programming for which factory fan controller is ok - components run with conservative power limits and get quite hot but fans are barely audible and you can get few hours of battery life. But some users me included use this things stationary for FEA solutions / gaming ,/ compiling / rendering and need all of performance for which factory fan curves and power limits are too weak. Unfortunately like i said previous i dont have battery so lenovo app doesn't let me change power settings... Do your P53 have coil whine? Mine whines above 100Fps. Do you have igpu enabled in bios?
I fully disabled the igpu inside bios and only using the discrete card (I've done that because the display is 4K and that small igpu couldn't fully power the 4K HDR display without lagging)
I dont hear any coil whine or so... Currently playing far cry primal (my fav far cry) and I'm way above 100fps on ultra settings and its almost full silent compared to some gaming notebooks.
Altough I changed the fan speed with tpfancontrol app to the maximum just in case (it's still not loud at all)
 
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