Random voltage drops when gaming in performance mode since undervolt attempt

[pinchekin]

I have a gigabyte G5 kc and was getting a good amount of fps on pretty much every game but with terrible temps, so i figured i should undervolt it to prevent thermal throttling. The core voltage didnt seem ti make a difference, i could go as low as TS wouls let me, so i lowered the cache setting and it was there where i could see some effect since my system would freeze and had to try a different setting. I tried until i got no freezes and started gaming. Temps were lower but performance was dramatically worse, so i decided to revert all settings. Since then i could never achieve good fps on any game withouut turning on the energy saver preset from the control Center gigabyte tool, any other preset causes cpu voltage to randomly drop between 60 watts to 7 and stay there for a good while, making any game basically unplayable. The lowered voltage causes ugly gpu usage drops and also fps drops. I've tried to clean install Windows like two times but it hasn't helped. I don't know what to do, it's very unstable unless i play in energy saving mode which isn't an optimal experience. Temps are still around 85°c but with the downside of poor performance, even after resetting throttlestop. Thanks in advance. I´ll attach some screenshots and also a couple of log files.

TS Log Perfomance Mode TS Log Energy Saving Mode

 

[unclewebb]

i could go as low as TS would let me

The core and cache voltage are linked together. Adjusting only the core offset voltage usually does nothing. Adjust both the core and the cache together equally. Somewhere around -50 mV to -70 mV seems typical for most 10th Gen mobile CPUs.

Once you find a stable setting, you can try adjusting only the core a little more. See if it makes any difference when Cinebench testing. Older 8th Gen CPUs used to benefit from setting the core offset to a little more than the cache offset. If you do not see any benefit then leave the core and cache offset voltages set equally.

In the Options window PROCHOT Offset is set to 15 which tells the CPU to start thermal throttling at 85°C instead of the Intel recommended 100°C. I would lower PROCHOT Offset to 5 or less. Intel says setting this to 0 is OK. Throttling the CPU at too low of a temperature makes for a cooler running laptop but it can kill maximum performance.

I would toss the Gigabyte Control Center app in the trash. Something is terribly wrong with it. The supposed performance mode log you posted shows severe power limit throttling down to 7.5W. This slows the CPU down to 798 MHz. Hard to game smoothly or do much of anything smoothly at that speed. The random voltage drops are because of this power limit throttling.

The energy saving log file does not have these issues. The biggest problem in that log file is that you have the throttling temperature set too low. Are you sure you named those log files correctly? They look reversed. Either you did not do something right or Gigabyte has done something that is not right.

When your computer is idle at the desktop, what does ThrottleStop report for C0% and what does it show for the deeper C states like C7? If you have a lot of junk running in the background all of the time, that too is going to kill smooth performance. Less than 1% in C0 at idle is normal. Cores averaging 99% of their time in core C7 is possible.

Edit - I would check the MMIO Lock box.

 

[pinchekin]

Hi. I did all the things you recommended, but it had no impact on the problem. Also tried deleting the control enter app but it somehow turns out worse, so the only way to keep it working (kinda) decently is to have it installed. As stated, this problem started occurring after my undervolt experimentation, before that control center was working flawlessly. Can confirm the logs are named correctly. This is what TS reports for C0% and C7%. Thanks.

 

[brutalame]

-Reset the bios profile (will fix your instability problem)

- buy a cooling pad for your laptop (will fix your temperature problem), something like https://www.amazon.com/Cooling-15-6-17-Portable-Powered-Function/dp/B082SSJY2C?c=ts&ts_id=2243862011

 

[Worthis]

Have u tweaked your power plan settings at all?

 

[unclewebb]

The start of the Performance mode log you posted shows power consumption hitting 90W and the CPU pretty much running at full speed. There are no temperature issues.

   DATE       TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  BAT_mW  TEMP    VID   POWER
2022-06-09  19:50:10  41.98   33.5  100.0       0   72   1.1748   68.5
2022-06-09  19:50:11  41.99   30.2  100.0       0   76   1.1641   73.0
2022-06-09  19:50:12  42.00   28.7  100.0       0   80   1.1851   68.4
2022-06-09  19:50:13  42.00   29.2  100.0       0   75   1.1776   68.0
2022-06-09  19:50:14  41.86   36.4  100.0       0   87   1.1738   76.2   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:15  41.90   52.2  100.0       0   81   1.1804   87.7
2022-06-09  19:50:16  41.99   37.4  100.0       0   87   1.1918   86.6
2022-06-09  19:50:17  41.84   46.0  100.0       0   83   1.1721   89.6
2022-06-09  19:50:18  41.96   36.4  100.0       0   77   1.1923   77.4
2022-06-09  19:50:19  41.99   31.7  100.0       0   83   1.1827   75.2   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:20  41.97   42.7  100.0       0   86   1.1678   83.0
2022-06-09  19:50:21  42.00   30.4  100.0       0   86   1.1896   89.0
2022-06-09  19:50:22  42.00   24.4  100.0       0   86   1.1952   89.1
2022-06-09  19:50:23  41.99   30.1  100.0       0   83   1.1927   91.8
2022-06-09  19:50:24  41.94   39.8  100.0       0   84   1.1796   90.0
2022-06-09  19:50:25  42.00   15.6  100.0       0   82   1.1927   81.2
2022-06-09  19:50:26  41.49   19.1  100.0       0   60   1.2017   73.6
2022-06-09  19:50:27  41.87   12.4  100.0       0   69   1.1818   56.2

Within a few seconds this changes to severe PL2 power limit throttling. Instead of running at 90W, now power consumption is being limited to 8W or less. This is what causes the CPU multiplier to drop down to as low as 8.00. Your CPU is running at less than 800 MHz compared to 4200 MHz above.

   DATE       TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  BAT_mW  TEMP    VID   POWER
2022-06-09  19:50:45  30.42   42.4  100.0       0   68   0.7946   35.2   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:46  16.40   95.2  100.0       0   61   0.7163   14.7   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:47  10.51   75.2  100.0       0   57   0.6250    9.5   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:48   8.00   51.7  100.0       0   57   0.6249    7.9   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:49   8.00   57.5  100.0       0   56   0.6239    7.9   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:50   8.00   73.8  100.0       0   57   0.6244    7.5   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:51   8.03   54.1  100.0       0   58   0.6760    7.6   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:52  15.29   81.2  100.0       0   59   0.6704   13.5   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:53   9.95   60.7  100.0       0   58   0.6710    8.9   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:54  11.69   77.4  100.0       0   58   0.6577   10.1   PL2
2022-06-09  19:50:55   9.46   49.9  100.0       0   57   0.6399    8.5   PL2

Why does this happen? I have no idea. It has nothing to do with you adjusting the voltages.

In the ThrottleStop Turbo Power Limits window, try checking the MMIO Lock box and clear the Disable Power Limit Control box. Run another log file and see if you are still getting severe power limit drops. You probably will be.

There are 3 sets of turbo power limits. ThrottleStop only has access to the MSR and MMIO power limits. Some manufacturers use an embedded controller (EC) to manage a third set of power limits. It is usually the EC that does crazy things like set the turbo power limits to 8W.

If this never used to happen then something has changed. Reboot and do not run ThrottleStop and you will likely still have this issue.

Windows has 3 default power plans. High performance, Balanced and Power Saver. I would use one of these instead of any Gigabyte power plans. You can press the Restore plan defaults button to hopefully go back to the Windows default settings.

Will this fix things? Probably not. It seems like a problem with the Gigabyte software or EC. Some sensor is sending bad data to the EC. It thinks there is a serious problem so it responds by dropping the turbo power limits to a ridiculously low value. That is the problem but I do not know how to fix this.