CPU Underclocking???

[Cphillam]

My laptop was running fine one day, and a couple of hours later I started droping 30-40 frames in games like fortnite, and CSGO. 

 

At first I though it was my graphics card, and maybe it is, my valley benchmark 1.0 scores were way lower. But temperatures and core clocks were all the same. So I checked my CPU, in task manager and it says it is running at a clock speed of 0.79 GHz!! instead of the Base clock speed of 2.20 GHz. Is this normal? 

 

SPECS:

 

Dell XPS l702x

 

Intel Core i7-2670QM

 

Nvidia Geforce Gt 555m (3gb)

 

16 GB DDR3 ram

[Thunderzzu]

Might be a far reach, but check whether you have the power saving mode enabled lol. Happens to me all the time - check the Windows 10 power saving mode as well as the control panel power profiles and any dell power saving features.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're not running anything, the CPU will downclock on its own as a power saving feature. You need to look at Task Manager when you're actually running something.

[Cphillam]

6 minutes ago, Thunderzzu said:

Might be a far reach, but check whether you have the power saving mode enabled lol. Happens to me all the time - check the Windows 10 power saving mode as well as the control panel power profiles and any dell power saving features.

I have made sure that I have turned off all power saving features.

[TheGlenlivet]

2 minutes ago, Cphillam said:

I have made sure that I have turned off all power saving features.

Download HWMonitor and run it in the background while you play for 30 minutes, then check to see what the temps and usage for your CPU and GPU are.  I bet you are thermal throttling.

[Cphillam]

8 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If you're not running anything, the CPU will downclock on its own as a power saving feature. You need to look at Task Manager when you're actually running something.

Here is task manager and SpeedFan while running Cinebench R15, as you can see, cpu is maxed out at 0.79 GHz and 36% utilization. And my cinebench score is much lower than others with the same configuration.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 minutes ago, Cphillam said:

Here is task manager and SpeedFan while running Cinebench R15, as you can see, cpu is maxed out at 0.79 GHz and 36% utilization. And my cinebench score is much lower than others with the same configuration.

You can see in SpeedFan that CPU utilization is actually 100%, as you would expect with CineBench. Task Manager doesn't seem to be doing a very accurate job. I would confirm clocks under load with a different software as well.

I thought it could be thermal throttling (it's a laptop, after all ) but the temps seem at bay in that screenshot. Although it may have clocked itself down and dropped the temps before the screenshot, so i don't know (unlikely, though).

[Mira Yurizaki]

Dumb question to add: Are you running off the battery or no?

[Cphillam]

9 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Dumb question to add: Are you running off the battery or no?

My battery is in, but completely dead. I have to run it off a power supply 100% of the time.

[Cphillam]

19 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Download HWMonitor and run it in the background while you play for 30 minutes, then check to see what the temps and usage for your CPU and GPU are.  I bet you are thermal throttling.

Played CSGO for some time, temperatures only getting up to the mid 50's

[Cphillam]

8 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

You can see in SpeedFan that CPU utilization is actually 100%, as you would expect with CineBench. Task Manager doesn't seem to be doing a very accurate job. I would confirm clocks under load with a different software as well.

I thought it could be thermal throttling (it's a laptop, after all ) but the temps seem at bay in that screenshot. Although it may have clocked itself down and dropped the temps before the screenshot, so i don't know (unlikely, though).

I was thinking task manager was right and so was SpeedFan. If it was clocking at 0.79 GHz, perhaps speed fan thought that was 100% of the cpu?

[danejesse1]

4 minutes ago, Cphillam said:

My battery is in, but completely dead.

Some laptops will automatically underclock themselves if the battery is not installed and the power brick can't supply enough power. I know my T420 can do that. If you battery is 'dead' meaning it doesn't work anymore (doesn't hold a charge) that might be causing the issue.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 minutes ago, Cphillam said:

I was thinking task manager was right and so was SpeedFan. If it was clocking at 0.79 GHz, perhaps speed fan thought that was 100% of the cpu?

Clocks and utilization are separate things. Changing the clocks won't change the usage metric afaik. If anything, a CPU running at slower speeds will remain at 100% for longer to complete the same task.

On the other hand, task manager in Windows 10 is known to misreport things, so I would not conclude the clock is indeed lower until confirming with a different software tool / BIOS.

Edited January 18, 2018 by SpaceGhostC2C
added link

[Cphillam]

Just now, danejesse1 said:

Some laptops will automatically underclock themselves if the battery is not installed and the power brick can't supply enough power. I know my T420 can do that. If you battery is 'dead' meaning it doesn't work anymore (doesn't hold a charge) that might be causing the issue.

The only problem is that my laptop was working just fine since the battery has been dead. 

[Cphillam]

Just now, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Clocks and utilization are separate things. Changing the clocks won't change the usage metric afaik. If anything, a CPU running at slower speeds will remain at 100% for longer to complete the same task.

On the other hand, task manager in Windows 10 is known to misreport things, so I would not conclude the clock is indeed lower until confirming with a different software tool / BIOS.

any suggestion for programs to use to confirm this?

[danejesse1]

I'd check out this forum post and this reddit post. They seem to solve a similar / the same problem.

[Cphillam]

5 minutes ago, Cphillam said:

any suggestion for programs to use to confirm this?

maybe just a coincidence, but it just so happens to be that 0.79 GHz is 36% of 2.20GHz. 36% was the highest utilization my cpu was displaying.

[Cphillam]

1 minute ago, danejesse1 said:

I'd check out this forum post and this reddit post. They seem to solve a similar / the same problem.

will look.

[Cphillam]

I think I figured it out. It would seem that i was using a faulty power supply! Thanks so much for the help!

[K0MP4CT]

Just thought I'd chip in here. Task manager sucks when it comes to overclocking. My CPU is @4.7GHz and task manager is adamant it's running at 5.3GHz. Always check with trusted software.