Laptop Thermal Throttling with games unplayable

[merosomal]

I've owned an Asus Zephyrus G14 from 2020 with a Ryzen 7 4800HS and GTX 1660 Ti for nearly two years now.

I haven't been playing any demanding games in the past few months, but installed AC: Origins recently and after 5 or so minutes of gameplay my FPS dropped to about 15 from 90+. After some investigating, I've figured out that it is thermal throttling. Here's everything I've done since to try and fix this, checking if it still continues to throttle after trying each thing:

• Reinstalled all drivers and ensured Windows is up to date.

• Cleaned the fans

• Repasted the CPU and GPU

  • Definitely needed this. Old paste was crusty.

  • Couldn't repaste the VRMs as didn't have suitable paste, so left the old one.

• Reinstalled Windows and all drivers.

• Lowered the CPU TDP

Only lowering the TDP to 10W (!) using Ryzen Controller somewhat helped the problem and brought me into ~40fps or so. That is still not good enough, and obviously I wouldn't want to be limiting my TDP to 10W to do anything. Ryzen Controller also doesn't play well with Riot Vanguard so I won't be able to play Valorant with the mates.

Here's HWInfo screenshots of CPU and GPU taken when it starts to throttle and fps drops. The GPU is still throttling even though the CPU is at 10W TDP.

How can I diagnose this further? Is my laptop just done? Or could the VRMs have anything to do with it and I should try repasting them too?

Any and all help appreciated.

[porina]

You can attach images to this forum which will make it easier for people.

 

Not familiar with that model laptop, is the cooling shared between CPU and GPU? Have you tried to lower the power limit of the GPU? Fundamentally it looks like it is just hot. Maybe AC:O is just more demanding than previous games and pushes it over.

[AnewUser3021]

I think its just hot. Same with my HP pavillion 15, different game resulting different temps. Also I notice not repasting vrm resulting performance drop. It's because of vrm thermal throttling that makes it can't deliver enough power. Don't be afraid anything below 98 degrees Celsius is fine for a laptop

[merosomal]

1 hour ago, porina said:

You can attach images to this forum which will make it easier for people.

 

Not familiar with that model laptop, is the cooling shared between CPU and GPU? Have you tried to lower the power limit of the GPU? Fundamentally it looks like it is just hot. Maybe AC:O is just more demanding than previous games and pushes it over.

I was cross posting with reddit on the G14 subreddit so used Imgur. Apologies.

 

Yeah, the cooling is shared between the two. In principle the laptop should not have a problem handling Assasins Creed... I’ll try playing around with the GPU tdp when I get home and report back. I did notice occasional fps drops in Valorant before but attributed it to the laptop just having a moment. 

1 hour ago, AnewUser3021 said:

I think its just hot. Same with my HP pavillion 15, different game resulting different temps. Also I notice not repasting vrm resulting performance drop. It's because of vrm thermal throttling that makes it can't deliver enough power. Don't be afraid anything below 98 degrees Celsius is fine for a laptop

I might have to give repasting the VRMs a try. Issue being the K5 Pro paste is difficult to source where I live and might take a bit of time for shipping. Unless there are some alternatives you know of?

[AnewUser3021]

18 minutes ago, merosomal said:

I might have to give repasting the VRMs a try. Issue being the K5 Pro paste is difficult to source where I live and might take a bit of time for shipping. Unless there are some alternatives you know of?

I personally don't use a thermal paste for vrm because the gap is too big between the vrm and cooler. Also using paste for vrm can be a bit messy. So I stick to thermal pad

[merosomal]

29 minutes ago, AnewUser3021 said:

I personally don't use a thermal paste for vrm because the gap is too big between the vrm and cooler. Also using paste for vrm can be a bit messy. So I stick to thermal pad

The G14 is known to not have much lee way in terms of space to be able to fit a thermal pad. The K5 Pro seems to be a stickier paste than most and so stays in place. I think LTT even had a video on it, but it’s also what everyone recommends to use for the VRMs with this laptop.

 

Do you know if there is a way for me to check its definitely the VRMs which are over heating?

[AnewUser3021]

9 hours ago, merosomal said:

Do you know if there is a way for me to check its definitely the VRMs which are over heating?

Play a game or run benchmark and see if the cpu voltage drops in hwinfo. In my laptop everytime i play a game after several minutes the voltage drops to 6~ volt and the fps drop significantly

[merosomal]

12 hours ago, AnewUser3021 said:

Play a game or run benchmark and see if the cpu voltage drops in hwinfo. In my laptop everytime i play a game after several minutes the voltage drops to 6~ volt and the fps drop significantly

Just played AC for a bit and took screenshots from HWInfo. CPU Voltage looks like it stays constant at around 0.925v. Meanwhile the GPU voltage tops out at 0.95v, then goes down to around 0.688v and stays around there, sometimes hovering into a low 0.7v's. (Not reflected on the screenshot as took that after I already quit the game.)

Do these voltages suggest anything to you? 

[AnewUser3021]

Maybe try to change the power plan setting from nvidia control panel. 

- Open nvidia control panel

- GO to manage 3D settings

- Click Program settings

- Choose your game in select program to customize

- Search power management mode in the list

- Change the setting to Prefer maximum performance

- Apply

[AnewUser3021]

18 hours ago, merosomal said:

Just played AC for a bit and took screenshots from HWInfo. CPU Voltage looks like it stays constant at around 0.925v. Meanwhile the GPU voltage tops out at 0.95v, then goes down to around 0.688v and stays around there, sometimes hovering into a low 0.7v's. (Not reflected on the screenshot as took that after I already quit the game.)

Do these voltages suggest anything to you?

How is it now? 

Does it works?

 

If it gets solved with that then you probably don't have to change the thermal pad. 

[merosomal]

2 hours ago, AnewUser3021 said:

How is it now? 

Does it works?

 

If it gets solved with that then you probably don't have to change the thermal pad. 

Unfortunately, that didn't fix the problem either... I might just get some K5 Pro and replace the paste on the VRMs...

 

Someone on reddit also suggested my use of Arctic MX-5 on the CPU and GPU was a bad choice. Any opinions?

[merosomal]

On 9/20/2022 at 8:36 AM, AnewUser3021 said:

How is it now? 

Does it works?

 

If it gets solved with that then you probably don't have to change the thermal pad. 

It's been a while but thought I'd drop an update. I repasted the laptop again today using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut on the CPU and GPU, as well as repasting the VRMs with K5 Pro.

 

I haven't gotten any fps drops yet, and the temps don't go above 80c now!