940XM Throttling Issues

I seem to come back to this forum every time I have a CPU issue, because that's pretty much all that happens to me with this laptop. Now, I'm not sure if it's my naivety, or some kind of malfunction, but I cannot for the life of me get my 940XM to stay at 3.5Ghz and not revert to an old, high-multiplier setting that I was using previously.

One day I'll be playing a game or something and it'll freeze. I'll have to hard reset. I boot up, and next time I play that game, my cpu is throttling and downclocking because of excessive heat. I have 5% factory OC enabled. That's literally ALL that I want to do as far as OCing my cpu. I've tried to screw with Throttlestop, and don't want to have to worry about it.

What's the suggested method for simply having default voltages and turbo enabled with 5% BIOS OC? I had this thing running at 3.5Ghz 24/7 for months, and all I want is that stability back

 

Have you cleaned the fans and heat sinks ?

 

Ya it's emphatically not a mechanical issue. I've replaced the heatsink, repasted the CPU with IC diamond, and I have a notebook cooler underneath it blowing air directly into the fan. It was working flawlessly before yesterday. All of a sudden the multipliers jump to x25 across the board instead of the normal x25 x24 x18 x18 and the thing throttles like no tomorrow.

 

How long has it been since you repasted with the IC diamond? The reason I ask is because I remember my 920XM ran pretty hot. It didn't take very long before the IC diamond was cooked and no longer working at all. Works great for GPUs, but I don't use it on CPUs anymore.

That being said, what are your CPU temperatures when the problem occurs?

 

It's been like 3 months since I pasted it. The temps get up to around 95 degrees and it starts downclocking. I know that Throttlestop settings are sticky, but I set them to default voltages and multipliers, enabled it, and rebooted. Now it seems like my clock speed stays between 3.5 and 3.0. It used to be almost constantly 3.5. Weirdddddd...

 

I am pretty confident that applying new paste will fix your issues. 95° C is pretty warm, and I haven't known IC Diamond to last very long on an XM CPU. It dries out too quickly.

AS5 is tried and true. People gripe about it being old or whatever, but it has never done me wrong. It is time for a repaste, regardless of what you decide to use. That 920XM is an absolute heater, especially if you're upping the TDP with ThrottleStop.

 

95C is too hot, I would recommend you to drop the OC or something might go wrong with it.

 

Okay, I repasted the CPU with Noctua NT-H1, and the problem persists. It's not like I don't know how to apply thermal paste either. I've done it to several laptops and countless desktops. I'm now 100% convinced the problem is software, not hardware related.

I'm aware that 95C is far too hot. It's just that I had the same OC settings for the better part of a year with no issues, and after a hard reset, I cannot get the same results with the same settings.

Again, my only desire is to maintain the 5% factory OC via the BIOS with Turbo mode enabled, and have any and all other settings be completely stock. I just want my 3.5Ghz back.