ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Ah, OK. Fair enough.
Vyper 17 Slow on Battery
- Thread starter Emi22
- Start date
barlew
Godlike
Thanks very much for your response. I had a read through the article you posted and it is actually full of false information so I wouldn't pay to much heed to it, it also appears to be written just as a generic disclaimer to warn people of tinkering with CPU's. This is much like the disclaimer you get when you first start ThrottleStop or XTU. The document is not specific to to the Vyper as it is for a German company and not PCS. The part where they discuss XTU is completely inaccurate, the changes made to the PL1 and PL2 states through XTU or ThrottleStop are applied through the OS not through the BIOS and do not require a restart, they are applied in real time. Worst case scenario for reducing the PL1/PL2 states too far or undervolting too far is that the PC will crash and force a restart at which point the settings can easily be reverted. If you apply too much power to the PL1 or PL2 the CPU should thermal throttle way before it starts to cook.
The 3 profiles built into GameCenterU provided by Tong Fang appear to be built on top of XTU and when you switch between the different profiles XTU is actually changing the CPU power settings in real time in the background.
After you tried my fix and it worked and then reverted back to the previous state what changed? Did you restart the computer or something?
I have set my PL1/PL2 states in ThrottleStop and then set the program to run on startup using Task Scheduler have you tried that?
My bet is you are seeing the issue during Hybrid or dGPU mode because the dGPU is kicking in and diverting even more power away from the CPU therefore causing the CPU to power limit throttle more aggressively.
Hi man,
well I have to disagree with you here, I found the document to be very accurate actually. And I wouldn't say it's a disclaimer but as the title suggest a guide and warning.
Yes, the document is not specific to the Vyper, why would it be ? It is a guide to tune the CPU, specifically Intel's 10th gen CPUs. The company is a German reseller of Tong Fang chassis and they are known for supporting tuning.
As you said XTU applies the PL1 and PL2 in real time. If you then reboot the laptop you will find that XTU will not save your PL1 & 2 settings but try to default to 45W and 135W without asking. This is not an issues as something in the Vyper sets back the Powerlimits as they should be (35w on battery, 100w office and 120w for the rest) right after booting up. If you open HWiFO64 asap after boot you will see the 45W and 135W PL1,2 for a few seconds before it defaults back to normal. This stays this way even after a clean reinstall of Windows. This shows that XTU is setting values in the bios. It gets even more obvious if we talk about undervolting with XTU. You can go ahead and change the core voltage offset as low as you want and click apply it will not apply until you reboot. You can check this for yourself with HWiNFO64:
Try applying an undervolt in throttlestop and then check HWiNFO64, you will find that the undervolt is active until you close throttlestop. Now do the same with XTU and you will see that the undervolt value is not set until you reboot. If you set an undervolt in XTU and reboot, the undervolt will be set in the bios and stay there, just like the over settings. They will stay there even if you delete XTU, reset the bios to default, clear the CMOS by unplugging the batterys, or even do a CLEAN reinstall of windows (deleting all partitions before reinstalling).
This is what I and the tuning guide are trying to warn you about. What you are saying here was true for older intel CPUs but this has changed with the 10th gen CPUs ! Believe me that if you set lets say an undervolt of 150 and than try to reboot your system, you will be writing your next answer here from your phone. The laptop will not boot no matter what you try.
That is right.
Anyways, enough about XTU. It's not XTU that is causing our low performance issue here.
Exactly.
Nothing that I know of changed, sometimes is works sometimes it does not. I obviously make sure that throttlestop is running before I test the performance. Even when this fix works the laptop is still underperforming by over 300 points in cinebench r20. So definitely not ideal.
Yep, I have noticed that as well. I don't know why the GPU is kicking in anyways. When I'm in iGPU only mode the CPU doesn't throttle at all. The power limit always stay at 35W.
I think there is nothing more we can do about this issue. I hope that PCS will fix this soon !
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Hi guys,
small update here:
I found out for sure that it is not XTU that is causing the low performance issue (people are experiencing our issue without ever having used XTU on their unit). Contrary to what I've said before, it is also not XTU that is trying to set the PL1 and 2 to 45 and 135 watts at boot. Because the potential XTU settings in the bios were the only things that even a clean Windows reinstall would not reset to default and because I've even reflashed the latest BIOS and EC, I can now confidently say that there is nothing more that can be done on our side and that there is no chance that we have caused the issue in the first place.
I wrote a long mail to PCS explaining everything I know about the issue and they said that the research and development team is looking into this atm.
Now we can only wait
small update here:
I found out for sure that it is not XTU that is causing the low performance issue (people are experiencing our issue without ever having used XTU on their unit). Contrary to what I've said before, it is also not XTU that is trying to set the PL1 and 2 to 45 and 135 watts at boot. Because the potential XTU settings in the bios were the only things that even a clean Windows reinstall would not reset to default and because I've even reflashed the latest BIOS and EC, I can now confidently say that there is nothing more that can be done on our side and that there is no chance that we have caused the issue in the first place.
I wrote a long mail to PCS explaining everything I know about the issue and they said that the research and development team is looking into this atm.
Now we can only wait
barlew
Godlike
Hi guys,
small update here:
I found out for sure that it is not XTU that is causing the low performance issue (people are experiencing our issue without ever having used XTU on their unit). Contrary to what I've said before, it is also not XTU that is trying to set the PL1 and 2 to 45 and 135 watts at boot. Because the potential XTU settings in the bios were the only things that even a clean Windows reinstall would not reset to default and because I've even reflashed the latest BIOS and EC, I can now confidently say that there is nothing more that can be done on our side and that there is no chance that we have caused the issue in the first place.
I wrote a long mail to PCS explaining everything I know about the issue and they said that the research and development team is looking into this atm.
Now we can only wait
Good work mate.
I looked at changing the PL1 and PL2 states with XTU after your last post because I realised I only ever used XTU to monitor Power Limit throttling and not to actually change anything. I just assumed it worked the same way ThrottleStop did. Any way what I found was you cannot actually change the PL1 PL2 states with XTU it just doesn't work even with a restart (which makes me wonder how it is implemented through GameCenterU).
I looked at what you said about under-volting with XTU and you were right it does write the value straight to the BIOS. I am surprised though that if you go out of the range of the CPU and cause boot failure that changing the value back to 0 in the BIOS would not fix the issue. Its something I don't fancy trying though.
Interestingly there is a guy who has posted in the other thread who said his laptop worked fine for ages and then just started doing this out of the blue just like you and I have seen people complaining of it on notebookreview.
So something does seem to be changing (or failing?) to cause the issue.
Yep
Setting the value back to 0 in the bios would fix the issue but the problem is if you undervolt to much you will not even be able to reach the bios. I've talked to someone who this happened to and he had to RMA the system. Resetting the CMOS by removing the batteries would not help, nore would anything else, the bios had to be reflashed with the help of an external hardware tool. The companie XMG is now including a warning in the box about undervolting 10th gen CPUs with XTU. So please don't try it and don't tell anyone that XTU is capable of resetting itself back to default in case something goes wrong.
Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to let you all know that we are aware of this issue and have replicated it ourselves. We've approached the manufacturer for an updated BIOS / EC to resolve the power limit issues.
Unfortunately, this all occurred around a national holiday in their Taiwan headquarters so we've been unfortunately forced to wait longer than we'd like.
Please keep in touch with our support team and we'll make sure that we get the fix to you as soon as possible!
I just wanted to let you all know that we are aware of this issue and have replicated it ourselves. We've approached the manufacturer for an updated BIOS / EC to resolve the power limit issues.
Unfortunately, this all occurred around a national holiday in their Taiwan headquarters so we've been unfortunately forced to wait longer than we'd like.
Please keep in touch with our support team and we'll make sure that we get the fix to you as soon as possible!
barlew
Godlike
Great news Chris thanks for the update.
I am currently holding off on my PCS purchase of the Vyper 17 because I read about this issue. You mention there is a temporary fix. Are you able to give me to details so I know whether delaying purchase is necessary?
Hi Chris,
maybe you should try to contact a competitor and get their bios.
Their bios is very well tuned: undervolting up to 80mv, function keys lock switch option, power limits that make sence...
I've also noticed that I cannot use external monitors when in iGPU mode, anyone having that issue as well ?
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barlew
Godlike
Yes mate I detailed the fix in the following thread:
Vyper 17 inch terrible performance when running on battery
When I try to run the laptop on battery power I noticed i get random points where the laptop lags extremely badly. All I am doing is browsing file structures and trying to browse the internet and watch Youtube etc. The laptop works absolutely fine when plugged in. The system will run perfectly...
I use mine on battery all the time now with this fix it works perfectly. Whenever I switch to battery I just start ThrottleStop and minimise the application so It runs in the system tray then get on with business. I don't even notice a difference.
Really not good advice to give on the official PCS forum. This course of action would undoubtedly void the warranty.
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If you read my message again you'll see that I was talking to Chris, Chris is a staff member and not a customer. Maybe my message wasn't clear enough. What I'm suggesting here is that Chris or maybe the CEO of PCS could try to contact the US reseller (I'm not allowed to write the name here) and get there perfectly working bios for us customers.
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barlew
Godlike
Sorry Red that is my bad. Still a pretty ridiculous suggestion though.
Why ridiculous ? This would make your and our Vyper 17 work better.
I think this is worth a try. Especially when the ODM is taking so long to even start working on a new bios. The US reseller in question has been through all the work already. So why not avoid doing all that again and just try to make a deal with them ?
Having this bios would also attract many more customers to PCS and make the Vyper work better overall.
barlew
Godlike
Well I am pretty sure there are a whole host of legal reasons preventing PCS or the other distributer you refer to from sharing BIOS files between each other to distribute to their customers.
I would imagine it would upset Tong Fang.
On top of that I am also pretty sure that said distributer with the GUCCI all singing all dancing BIOS would not want to give it to a competitor in the first place.
Maybe, I dont know.
Well, it would cut off the work of programming a new bios now. Less work and eventually more demand from PCS.
Yeah your probably right about that. But still worth a try in my opinion. I've been chatting on red** with the CEO of the US reseller in question and he seems like a nice person.
barlew
Godlike
Don't get me wrong if we could get the same BIOS as the reseller you are referring to that would be a gold plated solution.
However it would need to be a fully bonafied PCS BIOS. I imagine the only way that would be accomplished is by PCS and Tong Fang getting together which they appear to already be doing.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Now that we've had an official reply from a PCS staff member on here there is little point in continuing to argue further. You don't know what the contractual relationship is between PCS and Tong Fang for example. You don't know whether the 'competitor' would be legally allowed to share the BIOS details even if they wanted to, and you can't be certain that the two chassis are identical in every respect so that the BIOS from one is directly transferable to the other.
Your suggestion is a good one however and I'm sure that PCS have considered that 'solution', but there will be good reasons why they've not immediately implemented it. Possibly legal, possibly contractual, possibly technical, we don't know - and quite likely never will know.
What we do know is that PCS is fully aware of the problem and is working with Tony Fang to resolve the issue.
Yes mate I detailed the fix in the following thread:
Vyper 17 inch terrible performance when running on battery
When I try to run the laptop on battery power I noticed i get random points where the laptop lags extremely badly. All I am doing is browsing file structures and trying to browse the internet and watch Youtube etc. The laptop works absolutely fine when plugged in. The system will run perfectly...www.pcspecialist.co.uk
I use mine on battery all the time now with this fix it works perfectly. Whenever I switch to battery I just start ThrottleStop and minimise the application so It runs in the system tray then get on with business. I don't even notice a difference.
Awesome! That's great news. Doesn't seem like too much of an annoyance at all if temporary