When on battery, severe CPU throttling kicks in at 35% charge: how to change ?

Anonymous
2019-12-19T16:39:57+00:00

Brand new Spro7, Firmware up-to-date.

I noticed drastic CPU throttling when battery charge level reaches 35%: CPU tops at about 0.5 GHz and setting the power slide to "Best Performance" doesn't change that.

I found no setting that would allow to change this excessively conservative threshold to something more reasonable like 12 or 15% (my Battery Saver level is set at 15%, but it has obviously no impact on this).

Is this hard-coded in the firmware ?

Any ideas ?

Surface | Surface Pro | Power and battery

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-01-25T20:17:12+00:00

    I have re-imaged my Surface Pro 7 via the USB recovery image downloaded from Microsoft. The re-image does not remove the Surface - Firmware – 14.48.139.0 and Surface - Firmware – 7.161.140.0 which I believe started this issue, as they are part of the firmware of the Surface not Windows install.

    This has made no difference to the throttling issues.

    Is there a way to uninstall/downgrade the firmware?

    Regards,

    Muck

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-01-23T11:29:16+00:00

    [...]

    But this conforts me in the idea that this problem is a driver/firmware/software policy issue, NOT a hardware malfunction.

    It could be an immature implementation of the 'Intel Dynamic Tuning 2.0 with Machine Learning' mentioned in Barb's link

    So Intel would be the culprit ???? Perhaps an update of the Intel Dynamic Tuning Service is needed ?

    IMHO the user should always be able to override AI tuning decisions, e.g. by sliding the Power cursor to the right; forcibly crippling a computer at 35% battery power is ridiculous.

    [...]

    In the same vein:

    While my battery was around 50% charge, I started a CPU intensive job....the CPU topped near 1.30 GHz....I pushed the battery Power Mode to the max (Best Perf), and that didn't change anything...then I plugged the charger and the CPU instantly jumped to 3.40 GHz !

    Is the SPro7 battery so weak that the throttling has to limit power so drastically, even when the battery charge level is still comfortable ?

    Or is it just another symptom of the same issue, namely immature (or excessively conservative) implementation of the 'Intel Dynamic Tuning 2.0 with Machine Learning'?

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-01-18T14:24:39+00:00

    Tried disabling the Intel Dynamic Tuning service, and it fixes the throttling issue. But as benoitvm points out, the CPU runs up to max frequency/power so battery drains much faster.

    Uninstalled the Intel Dynamic Tuning driver, which re-installed on restart. Made no difference to the throttling issue.

    At least it does seem like a software/firmware issue.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-01-17T11:29:00+00:00

    Juste tested disabling Intel Dynamic Tuning Service

    It works...but it completely disables power management/throttling and the CPU runs constantly at full turbo speed (thereby dramatically reducing battery autonomy).

    So I reckon not a good workaround.

    But this conforts me in the idea that this problem is a driver/firmware/software policy issue, NOT a hardware malfunction.

    It could be an immature implementation of the 'Intel Dynamic Tuning 2.0 with Machine Learning' mentioned in Barb's link

    So Intel would be the culprit ???? Perhaps an update of the Intel Dynamic Tuning Service is needed ?

    IMHO the user should always be able to override AI tuning decisions, e.g. by sliding the Power cursor to the right; forcibly crippling a computer at 35% battery power is ridiculous.

    And testing again today, I see that indeed the symptom is independent of any connected hub/keyboard etc. Not sure why during my first quick t'shooting tests I came to the conclusion that it was only when an external USB hub/keyboard was connected: it is NOT the case.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-01-14T10:44:10+00:00

    trying to use the Feedback Hub for the 1st time...found MuckRogers post (https://aka.ms/AA6z3pr) but not sure why I found nowhere a 'upvote' button or function in the UI !!!! (only 'report abuse', 'share' or 'similar feedback')

    SoIi ended up adding 'similar feedback'

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