Early 2015 Throttling - Some info I'd like to share

Hi everyone,
People talk about the AW17r3 nowadays so I might be a bit late but there still might be people trying to deal with throttling and the information is all scattered around on the web so I hope this information helps someone out there. I have been trying to solve this 800 MHz throttling issue since I got my AW17r2 and recently I have found out some information and I wanted to share these:

1-Processor Input Voltage (VCCIN)
I used to get power throttling all the time and I learned that setting a good Processor Input Voltage (aka VCCIN) will cause the system to calculate fewer wattage hence there will be a headroom for power. This will prevent power throttling (or TDP Throttle as Throttlestop puts it that way).

2-Intel Dynamic Platform & Thermal Framework Driver
I did a clean windows 10 installation yesterday and after I installed all the drivers from DELL website manipulating the VCCIN didn't help! I had power throttling making my CPU freq hover around 800-1300 MHz after only 3 minutes in 3DMark Firestrike loop. I read somewhere that the driver mentioned above has a negative impact on the CPU so I tried uninstalling it and voila! No more power throttling

3-Disabling Thermal Throttling
I was getting thermal throttling for no reason, my temps were fine (70-75 deg C). I managed to get rid of thermal throttling by disabling BD PROCHOT in the throttlestop.

4-Increasing Current Limit
The stock 85 amp limit isn't sufficient for heavy workloads. Limit Reasons was reporting EDP when this current limit was occurring. I set the PP0 Current Limit to 100 amps and I haven't faced such issues anymore. I played The Witcher 3 for 30 minutes and I was able to play the game @ 3.4 GHz with 0 throttling. I monitored the temps & clocks via RivaTuner and I also opened Limit Reasons which is visible during gameplay; Limit Reasons was empty the whole time, my temps were hovering between 70-85 deg C and both the GPU and CPU clocks were stable at their max values.


How I applied these settings:
I used Throttlestop to set all the CPU parameters and I used HWiNFO 64 for monitoring and overriding fans. Here are the screenshots from ThrottleStop:



HWiNFO Bug:
Lastly I want to inform some sort of a bug. After finishing playing the game, when I set the fans to system auto via HWiNFO, I get TDP Throttle (Power throttling) for 15-20 seconds which makes the CPU freq 2600 MHz. I am clueless on the reason.


Thanks for reading so far and if you think I am wrong on something or anything please do inform the community. And lastly I want to mention that I've found most of these facts online so I am just sharing my info with you, I am not claiming any discovery.
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
EDIT: I did a clean install of Windows 10 and I wiped all the drives during installation. I wanted to see if I really needed 3rd party applications to maintain the boost clock on the CPU. Shockingly, I haven't experienced CPU throttling as I did before. I didn't install all the drivers -e.g. the framework driver-.

Now, the CPU holds at 3.2-3.4 GHz range and reports current limit throttling when the clocks drop to 3.2 GHz. Other than that the clocks drop to 2.6 GHz after a while during heavy games such as The Witcher 3 or Battlefield 4. I believe this is because I am using the 180W adapter. The 330W adapter is on the way right now.

Also sometimes I got thermal throttling so in order to get rid of that, I used ThrottleStop.

I was able to test the system with a 240W adapter. I wanted to see the limits and to do so, I applied a moderate OC to both CPU and GPU. To be specific, I OC'd the CPU by 100 MHz (3.4 to 3.5 GHz) and I OC'd the GPU by 300 MHz both on core clock and the memory clock. The GPU OC needed a bit of overvolting to maintain stability so I increased the voltage by 75 mV's. The results were great IMO. I was able to get a solid 9815 score on Firestrike which is 17% more than the stock score 8350. I didn't have much time to test the system with the 240W adapter. So I cannot really speak about the persistence of CPU throttling on 240W adapter, however the system didn't lower the clocks at all. The minimum clock reported by HWiNFO was 3.5 GHz and the system was stressed for about an hour!

I aim 10k firestrike when the 330W adapter arrives. I will let you know if the throttling persists.

 

What is the consequence of Power Limit Throttling? I see it occuring frequently after running CPU a 100% for a half hour or so. But I don't see any slowdown in the proc.

 

From my observation I can say that there are different levels of power limit throttling. The power limit throttling you get is probably minor and thus you don't feel it. When I get power limit throttling my CPU frequency gets to 800 MHz which is absolutely not acceptable.

 

ive been in discussion about 'throttle' issues of late...... my AW15 R2 used to throttle quite a bit, once i was able to set a high enough fan curve via HWinfo the throttle disappeared.

it seems once these skylake laptops spike (85c onwards) the throttle kicks in and drops the clocks...

sure its got a lot to do with the sudden burst from idle ... this creates a huge amount of heat over that tiny die, while the cooling is very good it does take a second or 2 to pull that onto the heatsink.... IMO

 

SOmething seems off with your cooling to be honest. It chould be around 10c lower with normal ambient temperature of around 22c.

 

Yes something is wrong with the cooling, although I seem to observe this level of temperatures in witcher 3 only. Here is a screenshot during heaven benchmark:

A few minor spikes of frequency occured instantly during the test however I don't think I should be upset about that. Also I tried running the cpu @ 3.4 GHz and there was no current throttling.

 

That makes sense! I will try decreasing the fan speed by steps. Although the throttling type is power, it's not thermal throttling so there is still a question mark in my head.

 

i wanto to add some things about my experience, i have the alienware 15 R1 with i7 4710hq

i dont had to use throllstop, i made a repaste with liquid ultra ( now never have thermal thrtottling ) and changed the stock thermal pads with Artic thermal pads.
I found that the max frecuency on 4 cores without having power throttling is 3 Ghz, and in core is 3.2Ghz. like this:

Now, in any game or test i have throttling
i dont use a notebook coller, only use and old stand from genius that is damaged and dont function, but is enought to increase the height on the back of the notebook allowing to take fresh air to the vents.
i have the Vbios from premamod.com ( allowing me to overlock my Gtx970m +150Mhz on core and +400Mhz on memory)
i found that the overlock in my gtx 970m is beneficial to my cpu temperature, and i am going to explain you why:


as you can see, the coper bar used to disipate the heat of the cpu is attached to the gpu too. In this notebook each fan ( left and right ) manage different speeds depending on the temperature of the CPU or GPU, the cpu fan (left) spin more than the other. Making the overlock will case that the right fan spin more, and decreasing the temperature of both (cpu and gpu ). Also i put a thermal pad square above the PCH to reduce the temperature.

 

I understand what you did and that's good however if you feel like squeezing the last bit of your laptop to gain performance I'd suggest you to use throttlestop so you won't have to downclock. Also you may use HWiNFO to override cpu & gpu fans separately. I will get a 240W adapter soon, after that I will testing some settings with OC.

 

I cannot seem to get the throttle to go away and I just got the 240 W power adapter. Is there anyway you can help?

 

It has nothing to do with Skylake laptops... This is Dellienware or BGA problem. You know this? Skylake laptops work just fine if everything is done correctly...

 

I

I think they work fine for the majority of people in general. I have yet to experience a temperature over 80c under full load.

 

really..??? what, stock clocks..??

run it @ 4.2ghz on all 4.... pretty sure you'll see over 80c then..

 

@unclewebb @orancanoren

I have with my AW15 R1 - 4710HQ throttling to 1,8 GHz.

Do you know a VCCIN setting for my CPU to try solving the issue? (if i see it correct you have a 4720HQ)...

under Point 4 you wrote that you also raised your Current Limit to 100 amps from 85 - makes this your CPU / GPU hotter?

thanks

 

@JohnnyR8 - If you need some help with ThrottleStop head over to the ThrottleStop Guide thread and post there. The link is in my signature.

Go over there and post some pictures of how you have ThrottleStop setup. Include a ThrottleStop Log File while gaming so I can see what you mean when you say it is throttling to 1.8 GHz.

www.imgur.com works well for posting screenshots and www.pastebin.com works well for posting log file data.

 

@unclewebb

i have started a new thread called: "AW 15 R1 Throttling" where i have put in a Throttlestop-Log and a screenshot - (if you want i can also post all in your ThrottleStop Guide thread)

thank you for your help!

 

Sorry to necro but. How is your system running these days? Im interested in how stable these settings are. I have a 17 r2 and my last one crapped out almost immediately on overclocking the gpu and playing overwatch. Overclock was +37.5mV and 200mhz on GPU core.

 

@judal57 is your go to person he fixed majority of the PC problems. PM him.