L502x Throttling under load

I was running folding at home on my L502x with a 2720QM and noticed it seemed to be running slower than expected.

After digging into the problem, it turns out the CPU is throttling down from 3.0GHz to 2.6GHz, and finally to 2.2Ghz. It is supposed to be able to turbo to 3.0GHz when all cores are maxed out, but it was getting too hot so it downclocked.

I was checking temps with HW Monitor, and CPU speed with CPU-Z.

Has anyone else experienced/tested to see if their CPU could turbo when under max load?

I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to fix this without resorting to buying a laptop cooler.

 

It's doing what it was designed to do. Go into turbo and up clock speeds when needed. This creates excess heat, which heats up the processor quicker. Once the processor reaches a certain temp, the cpu starts downclocking the cores to keep temps under control.

Are you expecting it to run at full turbo speeds constantly under max load? No amount of cooling modification will make that happen. These processors run fast and hot. They eventually need to downclock to keep from reaching TDP.

 

Supposedly the i7-2720QM is able to turbo up to 3GHz on all four cores, 3.2GHz on two cores, and 3.3GHz on just one core.

I guess I was expecting it to be able to do that, since it has the ability to do that.

 

It does, and your own evidence showed that it does. The point of Turbo is to exceed the capacity of the cooling system temporarily. If it was meant to do that all the time, it wouldn't be Turbo, it'd be standard.

That said, my 2620M stays in Turbo (though sometimes lower speeds in Turbo) under full load because its a dual core.

 

Which speed is it able to consistently stay at under full CPU load?

 

It never dips below 3.0 GHz with both cores at full bore.

 

Yeah, that's expected.

Turbo will only kick when the TDP limit of the processor is not reaching, and it's cool enough to raise its frequency safely.

If you want the best benefit from turbo boost, then the easiest way is = get a decent cooling pad, and a thermal paste like MX4, AS5 or OCZ freeze (if you can do yourself or get it to be done from dell).

 

Even my machine (Dell XPS 14) has turbo problems. It doesn't kick in well when compared to the way the other machines do.

For me at full load, the processor remains at 1.86GHz for a second and then dips to its normal frequency (1.73GHz).

 

I did a repaste with AS5 when I got it, so it's possible I could have screwed something up. However, judging by how the default thermal paste job looked, I would be hard-pressed to have done worse.

I would be grateful if anyone else with an L502x with a quad could test their turbo frequency and post the results here.

 

Hey, I have the i7-2630QM and on full load on all cores, turbo starts off @ 2.6Ghz then after a short time goes down to 2.3Ghz and stays there. Stock speed of the 2630 is 2.0GHz, but it will stay at 2.3GHz indefinately under full load.

This is tested using Handbrake to encode video files.

On the other hand the i7-2630QM has a single core Turbo Boost max of 2.9GHz, but I have never seen this, the max I have ever seen is 2.8GHz. No big deal though!