Laptop performs poorly when plugged in!

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

Hello everyone. I dont understand how this happens, but my laptop performs noticeably poorly when plugged in. I've checked the power plans, nothing seems wrong there too..
Its a Asus Vivobook M413IA with Ryzen 5 4500U, 8GB 3200MHz, 512GB SSD.
I thought that it was a TDP issue since my the chipset gets only 25W (as mentioned in website) and the charger outputs 45W only.. But the catch is, it performs consistently good on BATTERY O_O

I've attached a video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JmjNI2Chj6l3H9XF2Y33nqnud3LzvFNs/view?usp=sharing

On battery, CPU sustains clock of 3.1GHz all cores (along with 100% load on iGPU too)
When plugged in, CPU drops to 1.5GHz along with 100% load on iGPU.. and no, it does not improve over time

Thank you!

[XeliGamer]

hi check what processes is running in the background using task manager what could be happening is when you plug your AC in the processes that is running in the background could be at a idle and when you plug the AC in then it powers up again .

[Devryd]

how are the thermals with and without the charger?

[RONOTHAN##]

I've had a similar issue on my old laptop, where when it was plugged in it would throttle down to 800MHz. The solution was using a program called Throttlestop and disable Prochot. It's worth a shot at least. 

[Devryd]

Quote

I've had a similar issue on my old laptop, where when it was plugged in it would throttle down to 800MHz. The solution was using a program called Throttlestop and disable Prochot. It's worth a shot at least. 

While this might fix the problem, it cant be the real solution to a relatively new laptop. Maybe there is even still warranty on the device. If so, I would contact the support and ask for help there.

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

30 minutes ago, Devryd said:

how are the thermals with and without the charger?

When on battery, the CPU gets stable at 78-82C and iGPU at 74-75C full load on both.
As soon as I plug the power, the CPU drops from 3+GHz to 1.5GHz on full load and temps start going down to around 68-70C

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

26 minutes ago, Devryd said:

While this might fix the problem, it cant be the real solution to a relatively new laptop. Maybe there is even still warranty on the device. If so, I would contact the support and ask for help there.

Well, the problem is that they just simply ask to visit service center, which for me is quite far away.. I was thinking this could be solved via some settings and things because clearly its not an issue of cooling/fan.. Maybe charger..?

 

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

36 minutes ago, XeliGamer said:

hi check what processes is running in the background using task manager what could be happening is when you plug your AC in the processes that is running in the background could be at a idle and when you plug the AC in then it powers up again .

Even if some processes come back up again, CPU's frequency shouldn't drop right.. 

[Devryd]

Do you have a possibility to reinstall windows?
Just to find out if something is broken here.

 

 

[Devryd]

Also, you could look whether there is a bios update available for the laptop

[XeliGamer]

2 minutes ago, Hold-Ma-Beer said:

Even if some processes come back up again, CPU's frequency shouldn't drop right.. 

no it shouldn't it should actually go back up to max speed and run faster your laptop is running back to front supposed to be fast with the AC plugged in not the other way around .

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

3 minutes ago, Devryd said:

Also, you could look whether there is a bios update available for the laptop

Well, I did recently update the bios, but this behavior was same from the start.

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

8 minutes ago, Devryd said:

Do you have a possibility to reinstall windows?
Just to find out if something is broken here.

 

 

I did upgrade to windows 11 a while back

[Devryd]

If has been a problem since you have the laptop, you should absolutely contact the support. There seems to be something wrong with your machine

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

So, after digging around a but more and playing with Performance boost modes in Power options, I concluded this:

The laptop when detects sustained max load on both CPU and iGPU, it does everything it has to do to stay under 60C, be it throttling the CPU or iGPU to their lowest.
If separate load to CPU is given, it stays around 3.8GHz all core for a bit, but then settles around 3.4GHz all core to maintain temps under 70C
If separate load to iGPU is given, it easily maintains max speed (1.5GHz) all the time.

 

And this behavior does not register as any type of throttling in HWINFO64, so it must be the windows install or the Asus specific drivers -_-

 

Should I try a clean install? I want a sustained good performance at certain times.. Especially when I know the machine can deliver it without harming itself

Sorry for the long message

@Devryd@XeliGamer@RONOTHAN##

[RONOTHAN##]

26 minutes ago, Hold-Ma-Beer said:

So, after digging around a but more and playing with Performance boost modes in Power options, I concluded this:

The laptop when detects sustained max load on both CPU and iGPU, it does everything it has to do to stay under 60C, be it throttling the CPU or iGPU to their lowest.
If separate load to CPU is given, it stays around 3.8GHz all core for a bit, but then settles around 3.4GHz all core to maintain temps under 70C
If separate load to iGPU is given, it easily maintains max speed (1.5GHz) all the time.

 

And this behavior does not register as any type of throttling in HWINFO64, so it must be the windows install or the Asus specific drivers -_-

 

Should I try a clean install? I want a sustained good performance at certain times.. Especially when I know the machine can deliver it without harming itself

Sorry for the long message

@Devryd@XeliGamer@RONOTHAN##

A clean install isn't a bad idea, but I'd still contact ASUS as said above. 

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

Just now, RONOTHAN## said:

A clean install isn't a bad idea, but I'd still contact ASUS as said above. 

Yea, I've tried that, but they just tell you to visit service center which is quite far away for me, especially during this pandemic

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, Hold-Ma-Beer said:

Yea, I've tried that, but they just tell you to visit service center which is quite far away for me, especially during this pandemic

Weird they should offer at least some type of over the phone tech support. Then yeah, I'd do a clean install (format and install, not just hit "System reset") to eliminate drivers/Windows install as the issue. 

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

1 hour ago, Hold-Ma-Beer said:

So, after digging around a but more and playing with Performance boost modes in Power options, I concluded this:

The laptop when detects sustained max load on both CPU and iGPU, it does everything it has to do to stay under 60C, be it throttling the CPU or iGPU to their lowest.
If separate load to CPU is given, it stays around 3.8GHz all core for a bit, but then settles around 3.4GHz all core to maintain temps under 70C
If separate load to iGPU is given, it easily maintains max speed (1.5GHz) all the time.

 

And this behavior does not register as any type of throttling in HWINFO64, so it must be the windows install or the Asus specific drivers -_-

 

Should I try a clean install? I want a sustained good performance at certain times.. Especially when I know the machine can deliver it without harming itself

Sorry for the long message

@Devryd@XeliGamer@RONOTHAN##

Also, all this shit does not happen at all on battery power xD 

It happily maintains 3GHz and 900MHz on battery till it dies..

Like wtf dude

[Devryd]

1 hour ago, Hold-Ma-Beer said:

Yea, I've tried that, but they just tell you to visit service center which is quite far away for me, especially during this pandemic

If a clean install doesnt help, you are simply out of options.

[XeliGamer]

I agree a clean install try that if that doesn't fix your problem then you out of luck my friend 

look maybe try a different charger as some chargers might not push out enough current to the laptop itself happened to me when I had a dell laptop I used a 45w and it under preformed but when I got a 65w it ran as it should try that option might help a higher wattage charger could maybe help you .

[Devryd]

41 minutes ago, XeliGamer said:

look maybe try a different charger as some chargers might not push out enough current to the laptop itself happened to me when I had a dell laptop I used a 45w and it under preformed but when I got a 65w it ran as it should try that option might help a higher wattage charger could maybe help you .

If the problem has been there from the beginning, I asume, that @Hold-Ma-Beer is using the stock charger. Then it shouldnt be a problem

[Qyygle]

It could be that on battery, the more limited CPU and GPU clock speeds are actually keeping the laptop from hitting thermal limits ASUS has set in firmware.

 

Do you have any way of limiting the CPU or GPU like throttlestop allows for intel chips? I haven't had as much experience with AMD Ryzen, but AMD may have utilities that allow this (wattman?) Try limiting CPU and GPU speeds to match the clocks you see under battery mode, and see if you still throttle.

 

If you can't find any utilities that can do this, try just going into the advanced power seetings in windows power plan, and set max CPU utilization to like 99 or 95%. That may limit the CPU from boosting (it at least does for intel)

If all else fails, take the bottom cover off the machine, point the biggest fan you have at the cooling fins, and run your tests again. If your ad-hoc cooling allows the machine to run full tilt while plugged in, its almost certainly ASUS's firmware limitations.

 

Each laptop manufacturer is free to set its own thermal limits in firmware/bios outside of the 100* limit amd and intel use. This is why independant laptop reviews are so important, two different machines with the exact same specs can perform wildly different, depending on the manufacturer set limits, cooling, etc.

AMD machines especially have been treated as second class devices by lots of manufacturers for a long time. You'd commonly find skimping on cooling or build quality as they considered these budget devices. To make up for bad thermal solutions, throttling the power delivery is often a solution they went with.

[Hold-Ma-Beer]

So I initially thought about thermal issues too.. like maybe Asus set some pretty low temp limits for sustained loads since this is a thin and light category machine but its something even weirder.

So, to recap, on battery, the performance is really solid. CPU and iGPU boost to their limits (yea voltage limits ) but they dont drop after a certain speed. When plugged in, both drop unreasonably (since nothing new shows up under throttling sections on HWinfo64)
 

What I found is, when battery hits 100%, the performance is back again. As soon as I unplug, let it drop a bit, then replug, the performance suffers until it reaches 100%. So the next reasonable thought process is some charging components inside the laptop overheating? so it limits overall performance.
But the worst part is that even after limiting charging to 80%, performance does not improve

So only way to get sustained good performance is to run it on battery / Run it plugged in at 100%

@Qyygle@XeliGamer@Devryd

[Selle]

I have seen similar issue with bad chargers. I would try another charger