What the heck is going on with my CPU? Low clock, low power draw at max util

Uncle Humjaba

Limp Gawd
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May 6, 2006
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I've got a Dell Latitude 9510 2-in-1 with the I7-10810U. Recently I tried transcoding some videos off my phone from H265/HEVC to H264 so I could stitch them together (laugh now at trying to do this on a 15W processor).

Curiously, when using 100% of the CPU for an extended time, the clock frequency plummets. I can't figure out why. Temperatures look fine, and it's only drawing like 10W according to the Intel Power Gadget. What am I missing? Why isn't this thing cranked up until it reaches the thermal throttling point? I'm plugged in, fully charged and on "high performance" windows profile. Running the latest and greatest drivers/bios/etc. from Dell

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More that likely it's a combination of thermal/power/acoustics limiting the frequency to manageable level for that small enclosure.
Have no experience with Intel Power Gadget but you can also use HWInfo to get some readings.
 
You could try "ThrottleStop" to find out what gets triggered.

Warning though: I had one system that throttled due to the mobo VRM becoming overloaded, and the very act of opening ThrottleStop cleared that (without activating any of its options).
 
Who is your laptop manufacturer? Dell for example has a "Dell Power Manager" that further optimizes charging schedules, power schedules, etc. If your brand has something like that it could help. Also make sure you're on the "high performance" power plan.
 
I've got a Dell Latitude 9510 2-in-1 with the I7-10810U. Recently I tried transcoding some videos off my phone from H265/HEVC to H264 so I could stitch them together (laugh now at trying to do this on a 15W processor).
Can you give a little more detail about what you are doing? Because I feel like you may be wasting time on transcoding which you may not need to do.
 
Who is your laptop manufacturer? Dell for example has a "Dell Power Manager" that further optimizes charging schedules, power schedules, etc. If your brand has something like that it could help. Also make sure you're on the "high performance" power plan.
Dell Power Manager is set to Ultra Performance

Can you give a little more detail about what you are doing? Because I feel like you may be wasting time on transcoding which you may not need to do.
Not really the point - I'm also compiling applications on occasion which runs slowly and at similarly low temp/power usage/frequency.

I'll see what HWINFO says.
 
While transcoding...
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PL1 Power Limit is 12 watts... maybe that's our limit here? Seems unnecessarily low
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Yeah, top-end 9000 series laptop processors were called a joke for the same reason. They're good, but only within a very specific set of parameters (set by intel and their partners). If you want a thin-and-light that can crunch numbers fast here and there, on small datasets, they're fantastic. If you want a workstation, these processors are pretty much the antithesis to that usecase.
 
Well, bummer. Learned something today.
Hopefully Dell will sell a Ryzen version of this thing soon

Back to work!
 
Well, bummer. Learned something today.
Hopefully Dell will sell a Ryzen version of this thing soon

Back to work!

I think there are some models which aren't as bad, but you definitely need to do some research to make sure they'll work reasonably well. I think they're all limited to one or two threads, though. Just some have a higher/longer boost.
 
While transcoding...
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View attachment 379381

PL1 Power Limit is 12 watts... maybe that's our limit here? Seems unnecessarily low
View attachment 379384
it says the power limits are unlocked, just like a desktop Intel. So theoretically, you should be able to manually set the values (crank up the time so that the turbo is really long, maybe even "forever") and test thermals and set the TDP for PL1 and 2, based on reasonable thermals. And then only do that when plugged in or risk very short battery life.
 
When I prep for purchasing any CPU or system I always make sure I understand the spec page.
For Intel it is always Intel "model number" Ark on a google search and review the Intel ARK spec page.
For AMD "model type" specs and review the AMD spec page.
 
it says the power limits are unlocked, just like a desktop Intel. So theoretically, you should be able to manually set the values (crank up the time so that the turbo is really long, maybe even "forever") and test thermals and set the TDP for PL1 and 2, based on reasonable thermals. And then only do that when plugged in or risk very short battery life.
Here's a tutorial I just grabbed from another thread:

https://bradshacks.com/disable-power-limits/

laptop mobos often don't reveal these options in the bios menu, like an aftermarket desktop mobo. So you often need to use Throttlestop.
 
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