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Throttlestop TS Bench Errors

Bobbywobby8910

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Aug 31, 2019
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Hopefully I’m just doing something wrong, but i installed Throttlestop and attempted to run TS bench before changing anything to get a baseline and it will not complete due to errors. How do I determine what is causing the errors?

Dell G3 3590 - i5-9300h

The errors disappeared but I get temps up to 100C almost immediately. I’ve re-pasted already. What could be the issue?
 
You might have done a bad job re-pasting or the cooling solution that Dell is using is barely adequate. Some laptop manufacturers depend on thermal throttling instead of including an adequate heatsink and fan.

A properly functioning laptop computer should be able to run the TS Bench test at full speed with zero errors and zero throttling. If this test reports errors while you are under volting, that means you have gone too far and your CPU needs more voltage.

If it is not too late, maybe you can return or sell your laptop and get something decent. The PowerSpec 1720 includes a cooling solution that can handle a 6 core 8750H and an Nvidia RTX2070 for $1499.



Buying a new laptop is a real crap shoot. When it comes to quality control, the name on the box has become meaningless.
 
Thanks for the reply, this has been a big headache. I have it running the benchmark now, 10.260 on 8T. However, it immediately jumps to 100C.

Dell advised me to disable Turbo Boost, which I thought was asinine, but I did it for kicks. The TS Bench score for 8T is 16.083 and temps don’t get above 64C.

I games for a bit (Apex Legends) and temps didn’t go above 81C, and FPS was roughly the same(110ish) as with Turbo Boost on. I’m guessing since the system was already thermal throttling before turning off Turbo Boost that is the reason the game FPS was similar?
 
it immediately jumps to 100C.
What type of thermal paste are you using? How did you apply it? A little too much is usually better compared to not quite enough.

Disable turbo boost is the typical lame answer you will get from Dell. Imagine buying a performance car, paying extra money for a turbo and then being told that you cannot actually use it. Huh? They have laws to protect auto consumers from shady companies like that. Many laptop manufacturers have been getting away with building throttling laptops for the last decade. It is not just a Dell problem.

Instead of completely disabling Turbo Boost, you can go into the ThrottleStop FIVR window and lower the turbo ratio limits a few notches. This gives you some control over how much turbo boost the CPU will use.

Luckily, some games are limited by the GPU. This means you can reduce the CPU performance significantly without it causing a huge drop in FPS. For CPU dependent games, killing turbo boost will kill your frame rates.
 
Thanks again for the reply. I used arctic silver that I had left over from a desktop build a few months ago. I applied liberally.

I paid roughly $540 for this laptop and I knew there might be some issues. I’m great with desktops but this is my first gaming laptop after using MacBooks for general use. I’m not really looking to spend big money for a laptop that I use sparingly for gaming while traveling etc.

I’ll try the turbo ratio tweaks you speak of in throttle stop. Any advice on where to start or what would be ideal?
 
Arctic Silver is OK for desktop CPUs but for laptops that do not use an integrated heat spreader, there are better choices. Do some Google research. It all depends on how much money you want to spend and on what is easily available where you live.


Turbo ratio tweaks are trial and error. What works best will depend on the game and your cooling. It is just another option to balance heat vs performance.

Are you using ThrottleStop to under volt your CPU? This can make a significant difference. I would do that first before anything else. It might be enough to solve your temperature problems. Setting the CPU Core and CPU Cache voltage equally to a negative offset somewhere around -100 mV to -125 mV is a good place to start testing. If you get any errors in the TS Bench test or if you get a BSOD, you have gone too far and will need to increase the voltage. Do both single thread testing as well as full load testing. Both are important when tweaking an Intel laptop CPU.
 
I repasted with arctic MX-4 and thermals are solved. I had bad spread on my 1st attempt after re-examination. However, power limit throttling abounds while gaming. Temps stay around 75C while the processor stays around 3.3 GHz with TDP of 25W.
 
The Intel specs show that the Core i5-9300H has a TDP rating of 45 Watts.


the processor stays around 3.3 GHz with TDP of 25W
And that sums up why I do not recommend buying a laptop from Dell. Your actual performance is not coming close to the advertised specs.
 
Undervolting gets me to 3.7GHz with 36W TDP while gaming. It seems several reviews of this model have gotten similar results under combined CPU and GPU load.

When looking at the cooling solution I’m not sure why they don’t separate the CPU and GPU instead of having them tied together. In this model they each have a fan adjacent to them. I guess it allows for better cooling under singular loads from either the cpu or gpu but that isn’t reality for a gaming laptop.

I’ll certainly not recommend this laptop to others, but I’ll be keeping it since it was very cheap and will be used sparingly. Also, it replaced a MBP w/eGPU setup I had that was more cumbersome and performed worse.
 
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