Intel i7 9750H Laptop Power Throttling at 30w

SaltyPrince · March 16, 2023

Hello, this is my first time ever posting so go easy on me.

My Specs

Alienware M17 R2 (2020) Intel i7-9750H 2.6ghz boost clock 4.5ghz

16gb ram

windows 10

bios 1.20

I will try to keep this as short and understandable as possible. Ever since dell blocked me from undervolting my cpu its been nothing short of a pain in my backside when gaming. I decided to dig deep into my hardware to test out what i can do to maximize its performance. The issue im having that i never used to have is under a heavy load my cpu is dropping to base clock speed (2.6ghz) and a wattage of 28-30w. Its TDP-Down is rated at 35w and normal TDP 45w.

No matter what i have tried nothing yet works. I have tested turning off PL2 and minimizing turbo time limit. Leaving PL1 and 2 as is and capping the core clocks to a lower speed. Even putting PL1 to 35w to keep temps from maxing out yet still after 5 mins in a cpu intensive game it insists on dropping to base clock and 30w. Even when temps are far within the optimal load specs its still doing it. From all my testing i have noticed one thing. It only does this when GPU is under load. Cpu stress testing performs at a sustained rate without throttling to 30w.

I have recently found out i suffer from pump out with the paste so i changed to a phase change pad with the honeywell ptm and with the even pressure and coating its made a big difference however, during gaming the 30w drop still happens. From what i have heard it could be a motherboard setting that was introduced thats doing this?

My GPU wont go above 70c so its definitely a cpu problem im having. My recent log file (attached) from throttlestop shows when all settings are factory it PL1 limits and drops in game. Factory settings are PL1 90w PL2 90w Tau 32 secs. Im guessing dell put my PL1 to the max boost wattage to get the most out of it but whats the point if it cant sustain more than 30w during gaming.

If anyone has any answers that might know how to help me around this i would really appreciate it.

Edit: I reset throttlestop and restarted my computer again but this time it shows default pl1 as 47 and pl2 90. So i tested the game i want to play with nothing changed and here is my results in log file 'default' and second screenshot