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Intel Speed Step slows the CPU down

Chiyawa
By Chiyawa
in Troubleshooting
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Posted

Hi,

 

I've been curious. My friend's laptop is seemingly sluggish to even run anything at all. It's a Dell Latitude 7380 or 7390, with Intel Core i5 8250U processor. The problem only occurs when the system is in battery mode, where Intel speedstep limit the processor to 400MHz. No power management setting can ask make the CPU to go higher than that (the Processor Power Management in Windows power setting set Maximum processor state to 100% and system cooling policy is set to active). We adjusted the minimum processor state to 100% but no effect, even after reboot. Only by disable Intel SpeedStep from the BIOS then only the CPU run at 1.6GHz, but this mean that it'll drain more battery when idle.

 

So, I'm not sure what exactly happens. I mean, I don't think there's anything that could make Intel SpeedStep throttled the CPU like crazy. I don't think I face this issues before with Intel's laptop (actually, a few, but those are because the power adapter is not functioning properly, but they can run at advertised clock speed while in battery mode).

 

Anyone faced this issue before? How do I set so Intel Speedstep didn't go so aggressive on limiting the CPU clock speed (maybe instead of limit the processor to 400MHz, limit it to 1.2GHz).

 

Regards,

Chiyawa

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

 

I apologies if my comments or post offends you in any way, or if my rage got a little too far. I'll try my best to make my post as non-offensive as much as possible.

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4 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

How do I set so Intel Speedstep didn't go so aggressive on limiting the CPU clock speed (maybe instead of limit the processor to 400MHz, limit it to 1.2GHz)

A fresh reinstall of Windows would most likely get it done. Windows doesn't, by default, do this so it must be something your buddy has installed.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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7 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

A fresh reinstall of Windows would most likely get it done. Windows doesn't, by default, do this so it must be something your buddy has installed.

Yeah, but it also surprise me that at BIOS, the current CPU clock speed is throttled to 400MHz. Usually, even in battery mode, the system will run around 1.6GHz. Entering diagnostic mode also take slightly longer time to initialised, and testing the CPU from diagnostic mode also takes longer to complete. So I guess it's not software issues but rather hardware. Disabling Intel SpeedStep brings the system back to it's advertised clock speed.

 

The system is also clean and had not much apps installed other than Microsoft Office, Firefox, Google Chrome, and some accounting software, and I don't think any of them is causing the issue. The BIOS is also up to date and drivers are up to date as well. I come to conclusion that this might be cause by Intel Thermal Management Interface, but could be wrong. Still, this is quite a strange behaviour coming from Dell Latitude laptop or Intel laptop.

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

 

I apologies if my comments or post offends you in any way, or if my rage got a little too far. I'll try my best to make my post as non-offensive as much as possible.

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41 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

-SNIP-

Hm, well, that's a lot of additional detail that would've been good to mention in the original post. Just for the sakes of curiosity, I'd like to know what happens if your buddy boots e.g. Ubuntu from a USB-stick -- will it exhibit the same clock-speed issues under Linux?

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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56 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Hm, well, that's a lot of additional detail that would've been good to mention in the original post. Just for the sakes of curiosity, I'd like to know what happens if your buddy boots e.g. Ubuntu from a USB-stick -- will it exhibit the same clock-speed issues under Linux?

Well, it did exhibit this issue in ePSA (Dell Diagnostic before boot to OS), so I guess it'll be the same. Anyway, I don't have the laptop right now, so I couldn't test further.

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

 

I apologies if my comments or post offends you in any way, or if my rage got a little too far. I'll try my best to make my post as non-offensive as much as possible.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

Hi,

 

I've been curious. My friend's laptop is seemingly sluggish to even run anything at all. It's a Dell Latitude 7380 or 7390, with Intel Core i5 8250U processor. The problem only occurs when the system is in battery mode, where Intel speedstep limit the processor to 400MHz. No power management setting can ask make the CPU to go higher than that (the Processor Power Management in Windows power setting set Maximum processor state to 100% and system cooling policy is set to active). We adjusted the minimum processor state to 100% but no effect, even after reboot. Only by disable Intel SpeedStep from the BIOS then only the CPU run at 1.6GHz, but this mean that it'll drain more battery when idle.

 

So, I'm not sure what exactly happens. I mean, I don't think there's anything that could make Intel SpeedStep throttled the CPU like crazy. I don't think I face this issues before with Intel's laptop (actually, a few, but those are because the power adapter is not functioning properly, but they can run at advertised clock speed while in battery mode).

 

Anyone faced this issue before? How do I set so Intel Speedstep didn't go so aggressive on limiting the CPU clock speed (maybe instead of limit the processor to 400MHz, limit it to 1.2GHz).

 

Regards,

Chiyawa

Literaly nothing you can do. Just disable speedstep. It is th f-ing worst. When my XPS13 with i7 is on battery, even youtube video at 1080p looks like 10fps... I hate speedstep in these dell laptops, because it is not configurable. Some people reported that some battery/performance utility from DELL offers some kind of settings for this, but it never worked for me and my xps.

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  • 2 years later...
Posted

I had the same issue, CPU stuck at 0.4GHz no matter what. I pressed F12 right after booting in order to manually run Preboot Diagnostics, specifically for the fan. Manually triggering fan diagnostic only runs it for half a second, but I was able to listen closely and hear it whooshing. I reinstalled Windows (using the built in start fresh function, preserving files). I updated all drivers. Installed Dell Power Manager and tried high performance thermal profile. Went into BIOS and disabled SpeedStep and all other turbo stuff. Nothing worked. 

 

Finally fix for me was resetting BIOS to defaults (including re-enabling SpeedStep), unplugging from wall, and following the Dell service manual and ifixit guide to remove the back cover of laptop, and unplug the battery for a minute. After plugging battery back in, I booted Windows and it was back to normal.

 

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ca/000181163/how-to-enter-the-built-in-diagnostics-32-bit-diagnostics-supportassist-epsa-epsa-and-psa

 

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ca/000180971/resolve-hardware-issues-with-built-in-and-online-diagnostics-supportassist-epsa-epsa-or-psa-error-codes

 

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Dell+XPS+13+9360+Battery+Replacement/148431

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