Automatic downclocking issue on battery on P650RS

Hi,

I have a Clevo P650 RS, with a 6700HQ, GTX 1070. I've recently had to reinstall (through win10 refresh) Windows because of a failed update, and I've recently had my laptop repasted by a third party repair shop. Also I might note, in the past I've tried a BIOS update, my EC was successfully updated to the latest provided by my vendor, but since there wasn't an EFI loader provided, nor a manual, I couldn't update my BIOS (BIOS version: 1.05.04, EC couldn't find, I think 1.05.06 maybe?).

I've recently noticed, that while running on battery, my CPU is contantly downclocked to 1.59 Ghz, even when I'm running the High performance power plan, with no upper limit on CPU speed specified by it. In CCC, the power conservation is set to balanced, and I can't change it to performance, despite my Windows power plan is right.

This downclock seemingly happens when CCC is loaded, and won't budge a bit even if I run prime95. http://imgur.com/APKmnCB

I've tried 4 versions of CCC, one that arrived with the official DVD containing drivers, one found at my manufacturers website, one on the official Clevo driver page, and one installed by Obsidian launcher. Every one of them had this issue, and since this persists even with the Obisidan one, which comes without XTU, my initial guess, that that was causing it, is proven to be wrong. If I remove CCC completely, the issue is gone. Also, I can use throttlestop, to manually set my CPU speed to the normal 3.1Ghz, or anything above 1.59Ghz.

I don't know whether the issue came after the repaste or after the windows reinstall, because in that time period, I only used my laptop with an AC adapter, but I think if the repaste would be to blame, there would be other, more serious issues as well. (And there aren't, also my quite bad thermals improved quite much because of the repaste.) Also, the laptop was functioning perfectly between the EC and BIOS flash, and the win reainstall.

Has anybody encountered anything like this before? Should I try reinstalling Windows, or should I try updating my BIOS? If I should update, does anybody know how to update using EFI, and where to acquire an EFI loader for the update?

 

Yes, the machine is designed to be able to game in battery mode so the CPU is limited to allow the GPU to run as fast as possible.

 

So the laptop cuts it's CPU power in half, even when using MSHybrid mode and running a browser on it's Intel integrated GPU, to enable me to game on it? That's either ********, or very very bad design. Even my 4 and a half year old Lenovo ups its clock speed while on battery if needed, and this PC too, without CCC installed. If you want to say that CCC by design throttles my CPU this much while idle, I might as well go and sell my PC right now.

 

Your Lenovo did not have to worry about powering a 1070 in the worst case to be fair. You can try contacting your reseller for the latest BIOS/EC to see if it can clock up with the GPU not activated but with how quickly anything can cause that and overdraw the battery it may not be able to do that (I would have to look it up).

 

Powering a 1070 is a fair point as it takes quite more power than anything in that generation, though this still does not explain why, without CCC, Windows is able to handle boosting and speed shifting the whole available CPU range.

I'm already contacting my reseller, and will do a BIOS update as soon as they can send me a detailed guide, instead of some strange half chinese included documentation.

The thing why I'm concerned is, I didn't notice any of this downclocking before the reinstall. I have this device since February, and used it quite a lot on battery, and I was content with its performance. I have no concrete proof that there was no downclocking (like a video or logs), but if there were, it didn't effect my user experience. Right now, whatever is happening is effecting it severly, so this is why I'm desperately trying to find a solution.

Thanks for your help anyway

 

It might just be that an updated firmware needs to go hand in hand with the latest CCC to manage it properly.