How to completely bypass Asus' 22W power limit on Flow Z13 (UEFI Variables)

[Mnky313]

DISCLAIMER:

I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGED DEVICVES
Though I have been using this for months now without issue. Just be sure to modify your throttlestop PL1/PL2 accordingly. PL1 of 36W (set, actual power is ~75W) and PL2 of 55W (set, actual power is ~100W) is the highest I would go and even then you should adjust turbo window accordingly. The reason I have PL1 set high is it will only stay at that on no dGPU load which will give better performance is stuff like VMs or other heavy CPU tasks, when the GPU is running it will default to '22W' which is now 45W.

And theoretically the tablet should throttle itself to prevent damage even if you set crazy high power limits.

Also, sometimes the power limit doesn't apply when rebooting with the charger connected so it's advised to disconnect it and reconnect it after a reboot just to be sure the '22W' (which is now 45W) stays in place. (This was fixed in BIOS 315)
THIS IS FOR SPECIFICALLY THE 'ZE' (i9) VARIANT ON BIOS 312/315,
It can be done on other models/BIOS but it's a more complicated process, here is where that process and all the information I got came from: https://www.reddit.com/r/FlowZ13/comments/vplgfg/tutorial_compeletely_get_rid_of_the_dumb_cpu/

 

Asus has this weird power throttling thing on the Z13 that causes the CPU to be stuck at 22w under combined load (like while in a game). This causes performance to tank in certain games and be inconsistent in others.

How this works:

The values you are modifying are the IMON slope and IMON Offset, these values are responsible for keeping track of CPU power draw, by modifying these you can trick the system into thinking it's pulling less power than that it actually is.
 

Requirements:

FAT32 Flash drive (or a flash drive you don't mind formatting)

GZ301ZE Flow Z13 on BIOS 312

 

Setting up the Flash drive
(If you already have a FAT32 formatted flash drive skip to step 5)
(If you have a flash drive that's 32GB of less just right click it in file explorer and select 'format' and choose FAT32 from the File System dropdown, then skip to step 5)

1. Open disk management (WIN + X followed by K opens it BTW)
2. Find the flash drive in the list of disks

3. Right click the volume (blue bar) and select 'Delete Volume...' (THIS WILL WIPE THE DRIVE)
You should see the drive as 'Unallocated' now

4. Right click the Unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume', A wizard will open, press Next.
Enter '500' for the volume size & hit next:

Choose whatever letter & hit next:

For File system select 'FAT32' from the dropdown and leave everything else as default, click next then finish:

Now you should see a portion of the drive is a FAT32 partition:

5. Extract the attached zip (EFI-SHELL.zip) to the flash drive, make sure the contents are on the root of the drive, not in a folder called EFI-SHELL:

(You might not see System Volume Information, that's fine. I have show system folders on)

6. With the flash drive plugged into the Z13 reboot and press F2 to get to the BIOS, then hit F8 to open the boot menu. select 'UEFI: *whatever the flash drive is*'

7. Once you're at the EFI Shell prompt type RU.EFI & hit enter

8. Once it loads hit any key to dismiss the welcome prompt

9. Hit ALT + '=' to open the list of variable names, scroll down until you see 'CpuSetup'
 

10. Hit enter on CpuSetup and you should see a screen that looks like this:

11. Hit CTRL + FN + Down Arrow to go down a page (the numbers on the side should change from 0000-00F0 to 0100-01F0)

12. Now it's time to enter the values from this table:

I attached the spreadsheet I made that generates these values based off the desired TDP. 45W seems to be the highest you can go without having thermal throtting issues under sustained load (though the battery will drain while on the charger). You can open the sheet for yourself and change the Desired TDP & use those values, the process is the same. (The spreadsheet also contains some other testing stuff as well that's not used)

Use the arrow keys to move the cursor to each of the Bytes in that table (they are displayed without the '0x' in the top left highlighted in grey)

Once you're at a value you need to change simply type in it's corresponding Value and hit enter

Repeat this process until all the numbers in the table match the ones you've entered:

13. Once that is done press CTRL + W to write changes, dismiss the 'Updated OK' popup and hit CTRL + ALT + DEL to reboot.

 

That's it. You're done.

Power reporting will be incorrect because of how this works though, so remember that. Temperatures/Clock speeds will still report correctly and will be the best way of seeing if it worked.

 

 

 

 

 

[asdasx]

dead limk

[Mnky313]

2 hours ago, asdasx said:

dead limk

I keep having issues with attachements, there's a link now instead.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/940730622438166578/1058824871666253834/EFI-SHELL.zip

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'd definitely not do this as the limitation may be down to the VRM not being specified for that load so you're risking it going up in smoke.

[Mnky313]

38 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I'd definitely not do this as the limitation may be down to the VRM not being specified for that load so you're risking it going up in smoke.

very possible.

Though it runs at much higher CPU power with the XGm connected so idk.... I've been using mine with this for months with no issues.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, Mnky313 said:

very possible.

Though it runs at much higher CPU power with the XGm connected so idk.... I've been using mine with this for months with no issues.

I can certainly appreciate the frustration though, I have a ASUS laptop that has a Ryzen 2500U and it runs great for the first 10 minutes, then throttles to half the frame rate.  That's why I suspected it was VRM related as I can't think of a logical reason a laptop would throttle at 60C, while on AC.  Though not quite as amusing as a Lonovo I had that would throttle the CPU to 800Mhz once the battery reached 66%, which is how I learned about Throttlestop and the BD_PROCHOT shenanigans.

It seems laptop vendors are just absolutely insane.

[lollo78]

On 9/8/2022 at 11:47 PM, Mnky313 said:

I attached the spreadsheet I made that generates these values based off the desired TDP. 45W seems to be the highest you can go without having thermal throtting issues under sustained load (though the battery will drain while on the charger). You can open the sheet for yourself and change the Desired TDP & use those values, the process is the same. (The spreadsheet also contains some other testing stuff as well that's not used)

Hi, I was unable to find your spreedsheet file. Please, could you share it again?

 

Also a little question for you: on my HP laptop PL1 and PL2 are set to 17W and 35W. What value I have to use in the IMON SLOPE mathematical formula as start point?

Thanks a lot

[Mnky313]

On 9/23/2023 at 5:16 AM, lollo78 said:

Hi, I was unable to find your spreedsheet file. Please, could you share it again?

 

Also a little question for you: on my HP laptop PL1 and PL2 are set to 17W and 35W. What value I have to use in the IMON SLOPE mathematical formula as start point?

Thanks a lot

I have no idea where the spreadsheet ended up but the formula should be:

Actual power draw = (reported power draw + IMON Offset) * (1 / IMON Slope)

i.e.

45W = (22 + 5) * (1/0.6)
45W = 27 * 1.67

[lollo78]

3 hours ago, Mnky313 said:

I have no idea where the spreadsheet ended up but the formula should be:

Actual power draw = (reported power draw + IMON Offset) * (1 / IMON Slope)

i.e.

45W = (22 + 5) * (1/0.6)
45W = 27 * 1.67

I'm trying to find a good formula for my laptop, but every combination I try the temp goes over 95°C and thermal throttling like the hell. I repasted (Arctic MX-6) but nothing...

[Mnky313]

I'm not sure if this is would help you, have you tried raising the limits in throttlestop?

I would try just using .9 slope and seeing how it reacts, you can go down to .8, etc. and see what happens.

this UEFI modification really shouldn't be needed on most machines, throttlestop usually works.

[lollo78]

I'm trying to apply the imon slope tweak directly modding the bios of my laptop with setup_var.efi tool.

the "issue" is that my laptop is an Hackintosh, so I can't install Throttlestop.

So, your advice is to leave untouched the 5000W offset and try to work only with Imon Slope?

Thanks a lot

[Mnky313]

3 minutes ago, lollo78 said:

I'm trying to apply the imon slope tweak directly modding the bios of my laptop with setup_var.efi tool.

the "issue" is that my laptop is an Hackintosh, so I can't install Throttlestop.

So, your advice is to leave untouched the 5000W offset and try to work only with Imon Slope?

Thanks a lot

I would try with 0 offset and 0.9 slope, from there you can decrease slope and see what temps are like

[lollo78]

20 hours ago, Mnky313 said:

I would try with 0 offset and 0.9 slope, from there you can decrease slope and see what temps are like

If I don't use the Imon Offset, I need to specify always the Prefix to "-" (minus symbol) and insert 0 (zero) as Imon Offset?

 

Another question is: I have 4 group of strings related tothe "Imon things". They are grouped in:
- Core/IA
- GT
- Vcc IN

- System Agent.

 

I have to change the "Imon things" in all the 4 groups or only inside Core/IA?

 

Thanks

[lollo78]

Hi @Mnky313, following your clue I did other test.

 

Avoiding any Imon Offset value I applied only the Imon slope to System Agent, Core/IA and GT (no VccIn) and a "-" Prefix to all of this.

 

I started from 90 and go down until 75. Under 75 the throttling issue appears.

Compairing Cinebench R23 results I'm now using 77 because it give me the best performance.

 

There is a way to improve more? Thanks a lot!