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I have a Lenovo T480 with an Intel i7-8650U, which has the notorious problem of dropping itself down to 400 MHz whenever it feels like it, due to power limits. For example, even opening an application that uses the Nvidia GPU (before it even fully loads) causes the machine to throttle down and the fan to slow or stop. Intel Extreme Tuning Utility shows power limiting. Adjusting the power limits lower in XTU doesn't actually help anything. Neither does limiting the CPU usage to as low as 25% in the Windows Power Settings. (The CPU never goes above 25%, but it still clocks way up to 3.8 GHz.) I have outright disabled using the Nvidia GPU and instead stick to the Intel graphics, which helps but doesn't totally resolve the problem. This is a system power limit of some kind.
Naturally, I'd rather use my computer at a slower speed for longer, than suddenly landing at 400 MHz. It takes minutes for the Windows start menu to appear when I'm throttled at 400 MHz.
While I can't disable TurboBoost with XTU, I found that I could disable it with ThrottleStop. With TurboBoost disabled, my CPU never goes above 1.9 GHz. It also never goes lower. No power throttling! I can use my computer all day.
The down side of this is that when I'm doing normal things with spikey loads like web browsing, it would be nice if I could let that CPU go a bit faster. It doesn't need to go all the way to 3.8 GHz though.
Is there any way to limit the CPU clock speed while in TurboBoost?
Can you post a picture of your Throttlestop setup. Did you try adjusting turbo ratio limit in throttlestop FIVR window? – lx07 – 2019-12-27T22:17:28.640
@lx07 Hey thanks for the tip! I hadn't messed with those as I wasn't sure what the numbers meant. I see now that they're multipliers. Cranking those down does indeed lower the clock rate and power consumption. If you could post that as an answer, I'd happily accept it. Thank you! – Brad – 2019-12-28T00:29:34.480