The ThrottleStop Guide

Hi, thanks unclewebb for your enthusiasm, throttlestop helps me to enjoy my favourite game. I have 4500U cpu, when it reach 76 degrees it switch to "tdp level 1", but your application can change clock from 1.8 to 2.4. 1.8 is "tdp level 1" clock, 2.4 is "tdp level 2" clock. Can I increase it to max 2.7? What can help me to do this except better cooling) ?

 

Welcome to NBR.

You can increase it as high as you like.

Everyone worries too much. Intel CPUs are built like tanks and can happily and reliably run at some very high temperatures for long periods of time. 76°C is a warm CPU and nothing to be concerned about. That temperature is well within the Intel specification. Intel rates the 4500U to be able to run reliably right up until the 100°C thermal throttling temperature.

http://ark.intel.com/products/75460/Intel-Core-i7-4500U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_00-GHz

Individual manufacturers seem to be overly concerned about grandma's hands getting too warm and sweaty when playing an intense game of solitaire. Manufacturers are not doing enthusiasts any favors by punishing users with under performing laptops.

You can try setting the TDP Level in ThrottleStop to TDP Level 2 but unfortunately there is a duplicate register in the CPU that also controls TDP Level which ThrottleStop does not yet have access to. With your CPU, I would use ThrottleStop to set it to TDP Level 2, then I would Lock this setting. After that, I would try using the PowerCut feature in the FIVR window. This might let you get around your throttling problems so you can enjoy your laptop at its full Intel rated speed.

I do not own a 4500U so as always, post some screenshots if you want some advice.

 

@unclewebb
I couldn't find Intel Dynamic Platform & Thermal Driver installed on the Surface Pro 4. In the power options, I don't see Intel Dynamic Platform & Thermal Frameweork Settings. Maybe on this device, it is "hidden" or integrated to the OS.

For undervolting, it seems like sometimes I am able to undervolt, while other times the voltage does not change (reglardless of setting the CPU core & cache to the same voltage drop).

What pictures or any other information would be of interest to you? I can provide them.

 

https://goo.gl/photos/tFdNkSGfvLaw2Y2y6

 

Nothing makes me feel warm and fuzzy like a system operating efficiently

 

ThrottleStop 8.20 picture on the main page :?

 

I was seeing how long it would take someone to notice.
I was proud of how my little i3-6100 is overclocking so far so I thought I would share. The next version of TS handles the monitoring of the Skylake desktop processors much better so I thought a new version number would be appropriate.

@Eason - Are you using the Windows Balanced profile? Try the High Performance profile. When lightly loaded, a faster CPU can get the background tasks done quicker which allows the CPU package to spend more time in the deep C States where the real power savings are. The reported MHz and multiplier may not be as important as C State residency time. A core sitting in a deep C State is stopped, running at 0 MHz and it is getting 0 volts so the reported MHz is probably not as important as one would think it is. The reported Package Power can also be misleading because it is not actual power consumption. It is only estimated power consumption based on the VID voltage. I like to watch the CPU temperature when lightly loaded but that could be misleading too if the fan speed is changing. Some of the new Skylake CPUs support C8 / C9 / C10. I might add reporting of these to ThrottleStop. If you are available to do any testing for me, just send me a message. The i3 I am playing with does not use any of the C States when overclocking the BCLK.



@jackluo922 - Try opening a Command window (cmd) and type in this command:

powercfg -qh

The -q option queries how Windows power configuration is set up and the h option includes the hidden entries. This will show you a pile of stuff so I like to redirect the output of this command to a file for easier viewing.

powercfg >C:\report.txt -qh

You might find something in there if the Dynamic Platform driver is installed on your computer. If you want to share, copy and paste the info in this file to www.pastebin.com and send me a link.

I am not sure why setting the voltage is not being applied consistently. My desktop motherboard has a bios setting where you can choose to disable voltage adjustment but I do not think your motherboard has that option or a hidden option in the bios to control this. Are you using Intel XTU or do you have it installed on your computer? XTU and ThrottleStop access the same voltage control registers so your results might not be consistent if 2 different programs are trying to control the same register in your CPU. Post a couple of screenshots of the FIVR window, with 0 offset voltage and then another screenshot after selecting an offset voltage and after pressing the Apply button.

@wfreedom - Have you tried using some negative offset voltage to reduce power consumption? You can also try adjusting the VCCIN up or down a little before using the PowerCut feature to see if that makes any difference. To be honest, Intel's U CPUs were never intended to run at full speed while all 4 threads are fully loaded during a stress test. All 4 threads running at the 24 multiplier really is not that bad during a stress test. Older U CPUs used to throttle down and get stuck at the 8 multiplier during a stress test like this which is pathetic but 24 is acceptable.

In ThrottleStop, try increasing the PP0 Current limit and then uncheck the PP0 Power Limit and see if that makes any difference. The 24 multi during this test could be the max that you are going to see.

 

Hi, thanks for making ThrottleStop available.

Recently, Windows Defender in Windows 10 started identifying ThrottleStop as "Trojan: Win32/Varpes.M!cl", removing it and actually blocking the download linked from the first post. What to do?

 

ThrottleStop 8.10 beta 2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0dpSo9k93jDU1hHdWJqNUd3NGM/view?usp=sharing

I just scanned the ThrottleStop download at www.virustotal.com and 55 out of 56 of the most widely used and reputable antivirus programs on the planet all say that the ThrottleStop download is clean. The only programs complaining are Rising which is based in China and Windows Defender which VirusTotal does not use. Interesting that a virus scanner from Microsoft that VirusTotal does use also says that the ThrottleStop download is clean. Rising antivirus tends to flip flop. Some days it complains and some days it gives ThrottleStop the thumbs up.

I cannot change Windows Defender or Rising Antivirus. If you need to use the latest version of ThrottleStop, you will need to turn off Windows Defender. I use Avast antivirus. It is free, easy on resources when setup properly and it usually scores much better than Windows Defender in most antivirus tests. There are lots of other free antivirus programs to choose from that all beat Windows Defender.

 

You're saying to use high-performance on battery with TS to get better battery life that "balanced"? I didn't use high performance on battery because I figured passive cooling and not staying at 100% clocks would help battery life.

edit: using high performance keeps the est. power consumption a few W higher and the clocks are pinned at 3.3ghz. If I turn on power saver it just clamps to 900mhz, but won't upclock under load.

 

As unclewebb mentioned, this is a false positive. I believe it has to do with the low level behaviours which Throttlestop has which presumably mimic the low level behaviours of true Trojans/ virii.

If you want to keep your antivirus enabled:

1. In the Cortana/ search box, launch "Windows Defender"
2. History Tab
3. All Detected Items -> View Details
4. Select Throttlestop and select Allow Item.
5. Quarantined Items -> View Details
6. Select Throttlestop and select Restore
7. Do not move throttlestop wherever it is kept. The exception is based upon location.

Every few virus definition updates, windows defender pops a complaint again and you will need to go through the above procedure. Throttlestop is now being detected as "Trojan:Win32/Fethar.B!cl" since the 4 April 2016 virus definition updates.

I get the same using High Performance mode... from a reported idle load of around 1-2W to around to around 4-5W because it runs at full turbo boost even under no load. I suspect that Intel speed step somehow gets disabled in high performance mode even though the "minimum processor state" is still 5% in the Power Plan.

@unclewebb Is it unusual that my laptop does not use package C6 and C7 states in idle (it does use Core C6 and C7 states). Running an i7-6500U processor. My C7 state limit is "locked"

Whoa... something strange just happened. After enabling high performance profile... it now seems to use package C6 and C7 states - might be a bug. Currently testing and will report back.

Edit: Now I can't reproduce the previous behaviour - great. My laptop may have gotten into a bugged state. Now at idle the package is spending 30% in C7 state and power consumption is in the sub 1W category. I don't think I've ever seen power consumption this low before to be honest and I'm not sure what's happening - either that or it may be that when I've been watching this in the past background processes have been keeping the CPU busy.

Edit 2: Okay, found it... there seems to be a bug with my computer where C6 and C7 states are disabled on AC power (which might be normal) but then when the power is disconnected those states remain disabled. Seems I need to reboot after disconnecting AC power.

 

@intruder16

Code:

  Subgroup GUID: 48df9d60-4f68-11dc-8314-0800200c9a66  (Intel(R) Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Settings)
    Power Setting GUID: 07029cd8-4664-4698-95d8-43b2e9666596  (Config TDP Level)
      Possible Setting Index: 000
      Possible Setting Friendly Name: High TDP
      Possible Setting Index: 001
      Possible Setting Friendly Name: Nominal TDP
      Possible Setting Index: 002
      Possible Setting Friendly Name: Low TDP
    Current AC Power Setting Index: 0x00000000
    Current DC Power Setting Index: 0x00000000

It looks like your laptop is set to High TDP mode (0) for both AC and DC power.

Here is some System Agent info for Sandy Bridge.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3922/intels-sandy-bridge-architecture-exposed/4

Do some Google searching if you need to know more. I am just the TS programmer. I don't know how this stuff works.

I use a Non Turbo Ratio of 1 on my laptop. It is plugged in 99% of the time so this setting gets rid of all those intermediate multipliers and prevents multiplier throttling which the Y510P has as a feature. No need to use Set Multiplier so fixing the problem this way saves a few CPU cycles. To be honest, after setting NTR to 1, I could just turn ThrottleStop off. That solves my throttling problem.

It would not be unusual if a different operating system requires slightly different offset voltage. There are so many variables that it is impossible to say what the actual cause is. If you are getting BSOD when idle then maybe Win 10 is using slightly different C States compared to Win 8.1.

Software reported power consumption for Intel CPUs might not be accurate at all when the CPU is idle. This data is only meant to control the Turbo Boost feature so how accurate this data is when the CPU is idle is anyone's guess. I would trust core temperatures more than data from the power consumption sensor. Running the CPU fast when idle allows the CPU to spend more time in the deep C States. A fast CPU is really not as bad as some people think it is.

Some computers will lock out some C States when on AC or battery power and sometimes they might not get enabled again when switching back and forth. Power and C State related bugs are common because not enough users have access to good quality tools like ThrottleStop which show you which C States are being used. My Asus board has nice adjustments in the bios for Package, C2, C3, C6, C7, C8 but no matter what I select, only Package C2 works. Everyone just assumes that this stuff works when often times, it might not work at all.

@illuzn - Thanks for the "How To Keep Windows Defender Happy" tutorial.

The Windows High Performance power plan has the Minimum and Maximum processor states both set to 100%. If these are not both 100% then someone has changed the plan so it really isn't a High Performance plan anymore.

One item that can make a significant difference to C State residency time when idle is the Timer Resolution which is in the TS - Options window. A setting of 16 should give you 15.6 µs which will maximize C State residency time. When set like this in ThrottleStop, if you end up with a different Timer Resolution then you have some other program on your system that is changing this. A low setting of 1 µS might be good for smooth gaming.

@Eason - PowerSaver was a feature developed during the Core 2 era. Make sure SpeedStep is enabled when using this. I do not use this feature. I just run my laptop fast so it can spend lots of idle time in C7.

http://i.imgur.com/osgOOz7.png

If a core is spending 99% of the time in C7 then it really doesn't matter too much whether software shows that it is running at 3.0 GHz or 0.8 GHz. The reality in this situation is that 99% of the time the CPU core is at 0 MHz and it is getting 0 volts. Whatever the core is doing the other 1% of the time becomes unimportant. To save power, work on increasing C State residency time.

 

hi!
can you explain the powersaver c0% option on the Options menu? Mine is 35 what does it do?

 

@unclewebb Already had that set to 16 for the reasons you stated =)

@andrer2926 Those C-states are core power states.
C0 = Normal operation
C1E = Halt. CPU clock partially halted except for interrupt (wake up) requests
C3 = Deep Sleep. CPU clock completely halted (the CPU will not wake up till the next scheduled interrupt).
C6 = Power off. The CPU state is stored to static RAM (which is separately powered) and the CPU is powered down to 0V.
C7 = Extended Power off. I believe this only has a real benefit over C6 when all CPU threads are in the C7 state. When this occurs the static RAM is flushed (presumably to normal RAM) and the CPU package is powered down to 0V.

You may notice that the percentages do not add up to 100%. I believe that is because there are actually other states which throttlestop cannot/ does not track e.g. the C1E state referred to above but there is also C2 and C4. Not sure if this is because those states are not tracked or if there would be a performance hit from doing so.

Finally there are core c-states and package c-states. These affect individual cores/ the entire cpu package respective. Have a look at this guide from Anandtech.

 

@illuzn
C1E is a package state, C1 is a core state. CPU clock is halted and C1 is usually just a "hlt" opcode to the CPU. There's also mwait and legacy control. Halt states are usually initiated by the OS and can also be disabled by the OS if desired or 3rd party software can also initiate idle c-states. Use to use software initiated C-States when taking advantage of the IDA bug on the older Core2 CPU.

Probably easier to use the term cache rather than static RAM. Note that an L3 cache flush in package state C7 will likely cause high latency when woken.

 

@Dufus I'll defer to your expert knowledge - my comment was made based upon 2 hours of reading through this stuff trying to understand why my package wasn't dropping to C6 and C7 on Ac. Given the latency problems, I understand why now.

 

@unclewebb hey just a quick question in regards to throtlestop and UI. back in v5 or v6 we can left or right click to bring up the profile menu. but in v8.02 it has to be right click, anyway to input left click as well in newer version or an update of this?

 

I have beta 2 version.
Trying to run it in Windows 10 as CPU often stucks at 0.78 Ghz.
Whenever I try to run it I get message:

"A referral was returned from the server"

What is wrong with this app?

 

@unityole - Are you talking about the System Tray menu popping up with a Left or a Right mouse click on the icon?

@Forssberg - Have you downloaded ThrottleStop and unzipped the download onto your laptop or desktop computer? I have never seen that error message before. Are you accidentally trying to run it on a server and not on a local computer?

It mostly works for most users and it usually solves the stuck at 0.78 GHz issue that many computers have. Post some more specific details about your system and maybe a screenshot of the error message. That quote you posted is nowhere to be found within ThrottleStop itself. Are you using Windows Defender or some other antivirus software. Maybe your system is protecting you or preventing you from using ThrottleStop.

@andrer2926 - The C0% adjustment in the Options window refers to the PowerSaver feature. I am not a big fan of this feature since I think letting the CPU manage itself as it rapidly goes in and out of various C States is the best way to manage a modern CPU. That percent adjustment lets ThrottleStop decide when it should go into full speed mode and when it should go into low speed mode. The higher you set PowerSaver C0%, the harder your CPU will have to work before going up to full speed. The default setting of 35% was a random number I pulled out of my hat.

 

I'm just going to chime in and say... that is a pretty offensive thing to say to someone who has spent countless hours for free developing a wonderful piece of software that works for thousands of people.

 

yea system tray, on v8.0.2 only right click works and left click doesnt bring up the profile menu. on v6 both left/right click worked just fine.

 

heh from his msg u can tell hes new to the laptop forum and prob new to throttlestop. i often tell people and they think this is a 3rd party software and dont trust it and prefer cpu temp or real temp over it, which is really sad. those software are so poorly made can't even compare to throttlestop.

@Forssberg if it didnt work for u, chances are your computer hardware limitation conflict with the software. ie bios limitation etc. or windows 10 just suck =)

 

Just a second here. RealTemp still does over a million downloads a year from TechPowerUp alone even though it has not been updated in years so it cannot be that "poorly made". Guess who wrote RealTemp? ME!!!!

I was getting bored working on RealTemp so I took a big chunk of RealTemp code and created ThrottleStop out of it to help out the throttling Dells. The rest is history.

Some people have trouble with ThrottleStop. If a user can explain things or show me some pics, I try my best to help them out. For many TS users, English is not their primary language so sometimes it takes a while for me to understand the question.

I was just working on ThrottleStop's icon issues tonight. I will try adding a left mouse button click back into ThrottleStop for you. I seem to recall that the reason I removed this option was because this was interfering with being able to double left mouse click on the system tray icon to get ThrottleStop to open and close. That feature is more important to me.

 

LOL i guess your outdated gadget dont interest me much haha tbh the GUI looks not so good, compared to throttlestop that is.

rest assured though throttlestop is excellent, i have 11 laptops, two from lenovo, one old school dell, one HP, two alienware (dell), two clevo, one of Acer, sony, Asus and samsung. throtlestop work on all of them just fine and most of the issues i have probably discuss with you before likely with the machine themselves. even Hwinfo64 doesnt work that well, sometimes i run into issues with 1 cpu core being completely taken up by that software and only hard restart would save me from it..

its great to see the new TS will work with skylake and xeons, this gives hope to future gaming laptop lol

 

guys, in ThrottleStop, what is Analog I/O? how does that differ from system agent?

 

I'm not an expert... but System Agent is also called Uncore (i.e. not part of the CPU Core). Essentially it is the parts of the microprocessor which keep the CPU running properly e.g. L3 cache, memory controller, etc. I don't use Throttlestop to boost performance (although that is a side effect) but in my use changing System Agent voltage does not give me any battery life or performance boost.

I believe Analog I/O is the voltage of the chipset. I'm way out of touch here but I believe it is what used to be called the North/ South Bridge controllers for things like PCIe, etc.

 

Been using throttlestop for a year and I absolutely love it. I do have one question though. When ever I set my clocks to (31,32,33,34,35,36, etc) I also get a little bit less. This wasn't the case with my last laptop. So say I set my clocks to 33, it will show up as 32.7 on the front screen. I don't think this is a huge issue and I am sorry if this has already been discussed (there's a hell of a lot of threads here), but I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this.

 

That's probably because the Front Side Bus Frequency is 99.8Mhz or something rather than spot on 100Mhz - which when multiplied by your multiplier will not make a round number & instead show less than you expect. It used to be like that for my laptop until I increase the FSB frequency to exactly 100Mhz (I did that in my BIOS).

 

Well that makes sense, thanks. I cant seem to find any option to change the fsb in my bios so I guess it's something I can deal with

 

@sluggz - What CPU model do you have? ThrottleStop has a bug when running on any of the latest Skylake processors. Intel made some changes to how the monitoring timers that ThrottleStop uses. The good news is that I think this bug has been fixed in version 8.20 which is almost ready for release. On my desktop Skylake i3, I can go up and down through the multipliers and get exactly xx.00 just like previous versions showed for the Haswell and older processors. If you have a Skylake CPU and want to do some testing for me, send me a message.

 

Hi @unclewebb,

Happy to test for you as well. Mine is reporting XX.XX multipliers as well - also the clock speed does not line up with that shown in task manager.

I actually though this was a function of skylake's new speed shift feature which basically removes the old software p-state system and replaces it with hardware speed shift built into the CPU. Now I know it's all marketing mumbo jumbo but reports from reputable sources seems to indicate that there should be finer granularity.

 

Yeah I noticed that on my system with a 6700K, even if Throttle Stop is running, it still throttles when I run a FireStrike benchmark for example down from my overclocked 4.4 GHz on all cores to 4 GHz

It doesn't throttle in AIDA64 stress test, only when the GPU is also used like in Fire Strike

here are my settings:

 

@Phoenix - Throttling and reporting the wrong multiplier might be two different things. The throttling might be power related. How many watts are your turbo power limits set to? Could also be current related or a power adapter that has reached its limit.

The ThrottleStop bug I was talking about is in your screenshot where you are seeing multipliers slightly less than 45.00 and the BCLK is slightly higher than 100.00. I will send you a link for the new version of TS that I am working on. Give that a try and see if the multi and BCLK are reported differently.

Edit - You have your Conversations turned off. Start a Conversation with me and I will send you the link.

 

oh sorry I thought that bug was the one I am experiencing with my system throttling.

For what it's worth, I have a single 980 GTX with a 6700K and dual 330W power adapters

Power limit 1, 2, 3, 4 in the BIOS are all set to 300000 and IA Current limit/Ring / sys current limit set to the max

Turbo Power Max and Short Turbo Power max = 160W

 

@unclewebb

BTW, why am I not able to set the clock speed to 2.0 GHz in the battery plan? it doesn't go below 40, I wanna set them all to 20

Although on the main screen under the battery profile, the Set multiplier is checked and set to 20

 

The multiplier adjusters In the FIVR window only control the turbo ratio limits. The default multiplier for a 6700K is 40 so that is as low as those adjusters go. To control the multiplier at multipliers lower than this, you need to use the Set Multiplier feature. Try setting your Non Turbo Ratio to 0. The Non Turbo Ratio setting can block the functionality of the Set Multiplier feature.

Don't blame ThrottleStop. Intel designed their CPUs with multiple registers that all interact, trying to control the same thing. On the Skylake i3 I tested, the Set Multiplier worked fine once Non Turbo Ratio was at zero.

Is 160 Watts enough for a 6700K at 4.5 GHz? Try bumping those limits up to see if that helps with the throttling.

Someone that spams this thread with pictures is just the kind of person I need helping test out the new version. How can I get it to you?

 

I just sent you a PM bro......

 

Finally noticed it. Link sent.

 

@unclewebb

Tried setting the Non Turbo Ratio to 0 (it was 20 before), now even while on the high performance plan, the speed is fluctuating between 2.65 GHz and 3.9 GHz.....

I also tried checking/unchecking the LOCK checkbox but it's the same

I am not blaming you or Throttle Stop, just trying to see if I'm doing something wrong.

 

When testing, is there a load on the CPU? Something simple like the TS Bench is useful for this. I will go fire up my i3 and post some pics of what I get.

 

here you go bro, no load, just Chrome running and idle....

 

Sorry, I meant put some load on the CPU and check the multiplier then. When lightly loaded, the CPU will be spending its time bouncing around between various low power C States so the multi can also be bouncing around. Some load on the CPU usually results in a steadier multi reading in ThrottleStop.

The 100.00 MHz BCLK is looking better.

 

ok a bit better now, I see core 3/4 dropped to 800 MHz.

What I'm gonna do next is re-enable C-States in the BIOS since I had them disabled then check

On a side note, the Cache Ratio is @ 20 / 2.0 GHz so is working right

 

That's not throttling. Post a screenshot of just ThrottleStop while under load. What HWiNFO reports for MHz can be a little misleading. In a Core i processor, at any instant in time, all active cores are locked to the exact same multiplier and frequency. You can have cores entering various C States but the active cores are always running the same multi. As well, all active cores are always using the exact same voltage.



In this example, all of the C States are disabled so the multi is very steady at 20.00.

 

I don't think that's throttling... you aren't approaching any sort of conditions where throttling should occur.

For me set multiplier has never worked on a i7-6500U.

 

Ok that makes sense. I have the 6820hk

 

ok here is a screenshot with your above settings, I can see the CPU still @ 4 GHz in task manager

I know ThrottleStop is for preventing CPU throttling.

What I am trying to do here is to force it to run @ 2.0 GHz to save power for when I am out in a cafe but maybe that isn't possible with the 6700K as you said.

 

Off topic: What! i7-6700K on a laptop holy dooly.

You may find that artificially setting the multiplier to 20 constantly on battery power actually dents your battery life.

The CPU is meant to throttle down under low loads - you will see that under idle some of your cores are already running at below 20 multiplier.

What I have found helps is disabling CPU turbo. Running in turbo costs me around 50% more power for a 20% increase in clock speeds. Obviously in the race to sleep stakes this is terrible.

Most of your power saving will come from c-states and allowing the CPU to throttle down (rather than sticking it at a constant 20x) e.g. I've got 8 apps open with 6 MS Edge tabs (including 1 playing a youtube 1080p video). My CPU is sipping a miserly 1.5-2W. At that burn rate its actually my screen and wifi which are eating up battery (and not CPU).

 

Not only a regular 6700K, but you can have it delidded for lower temps and can even opt for a binned Silicon Lottery 6700K for guaranteed 4.4 to 4.5 GHz overclocks on a laptop or even higher. In addition, G.Skill RAM of up to 2800 MHz on a laptop See:

EVOC P870DM-G Gaming Laptop

Secondly, I think I might just forget about forcing the CPU to run @ 2.0 GHz while on the Performance Plan and just use the Power Saving Plan in Windows which puts the CPU @ 800 MHz

Ill just use Throttle Stop to prevent throttling while the GPU is being used during gaming as that is what is triggering my throttling down from 4.4 GHz to 4.0 GHz when gaming

I have just increased the Turbo Power Max / Short Turbo Power max from 165W to 225W

 

Last off topic post: That's bloody amazing that a desktop CPU can now be squeezed into a form factor resembling a laptop.

I mean yes 4.8kg is not even approaching ultra book class but that was a fairly normal weight for most normal laptops even 5-6 years ago.

I'm guessing the compromise is battery life (which is why you are here). That 10W idle power consumption for CPU alone can't be conducive to decent battery life (not that its designed to be used primarily on the road) - especially with a dGPU and huge monitor also chewing up power.

If you are looking to get a little more portability out of it try these settings:
- Disable CPU turbo on battery in your power plan (set the maximum processor state to 90-95 percent).
- Let the CPU throttle itself down by enabling C-states and setting the minimum processor state to 5%.
- See if you can completely disable the dGPU on battery - dGPUs are not exactly power sippers and my understanding is that, in any event, that the NVidia still sips quite a bit of vampire power even when fully disabled.
- Undervolt your CPU. Skylake-U is very much undervoltable - not sure if this applies to Skylake-K processors but give it a go (in the FIVR window). Most people seem to have stable undervolts on Skylake-U in the -0.75 to -1.25 mV range. This is around 10% of the power consumption.