Question Laptop Throttling

tHa ShIzNiT

Platinum Member
Feb 15, 2000
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Dear good people of Anandtech,

I am the owner of a Lenovo 720s laptop with i5 7300hq and 1050ti Max-Q, which I got a good deal on. The laptop is very slim, looks great, weighs very little and works quite well when plugged in.

When it is running on battery though, there is serious throttling and I'm not sure if its the CPU or GPU being throttled, but I can't even run a SNES emulator, when I run it its like 1 frame per second and the sound is all messed up. And there's basically no way to stop it from happening. I have done a good bit of research but the laptop seems to be "hard-wired" for this throttling and it cant be turned off. I'm not sure if the throttling occurs when it is plugged in as well, to some extent, but when its unplugged the thing is like molasses when any gaming is involved.

I am planning on buying another laptop for my son soon, and I am hoping to avoid this problem.

Below is a youtube video where the guy describes the problem. Unfortunately I did not see this video prior to purchasing.


I want to know if you folks can tell me: is this a problem just with my laptop, or is this problem widespread? I want to make sure this doesnt happen again with my next purchase!

And of course, if anyone has any idea how I could stop this from happening, that would be amazing too.

Gracias amigos.
 

grimham

Member
Jun 16, 2005
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I didn't watch the video, but I'm assuming that even if you set the laptop for "Max Performance" while on battery power in the Power Setup it's still slow? And nothing in the BIOS that you can see?
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
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I didn't watch the video, but I'm assuming that even if you set the laptop for "Max Performance" while on battery power in the Power Setup it's still slow?

Max Performance setting(or high performance) isn't always the best advice. Sometimes the balanced mode runs it faster.

OP: Generally, laptops with powerful discrete GPUs can't run at full speeds when on battery and will throttle quite significantly. Either the battery can't supply the power, or its deliberately limited to protect it. Install a hardware monitoring program to monitor both CPU and GPU, and see how badly its throttling.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/battery-saver-mode-gaming

I don't know how demanding the SNES emulator is, but emulators can be very demanding on the CPU, so that could be the typically expected behavior.
 

killster1

Banned
Mar 15, 2007
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So you have to choose a thicker laptop. Ultra thin always seem to throttle from heat etc. Portable gaming is a must? How long does the battery last unplugged. I imagine one hour with how you want it to run :O. I undervolt my cpus on all my laptops. I foolishly picked thin gaming models too but the mx150 ismt power hungry luckily (but doesnt play games perfect either)
 

tHa ShIzNiT

Platinum Member
Feb 15, 2000
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Thanks for the replies folks.

MTM: Not sure if this is what you mean but Lenovo 720S-15IKB Laptop (ideapad) - Type 81AC

I definitely have the latest bios and latest drivers for it.

So I just loaded up Path of Exile and Titan Quest Anniversary Edition. They actually run pretty much flawlessly without the laptop being plugged in. But Retroarch doesn't, it runs at like 1 frame per second and the music sounds like its cutting in and out.

I'd just like to be able to whip this thing out on a plane and play RetroArch SNES for any amount of time without being plugged in. It wont even play for a second and heat up, it just is completely throttled from the beginning. I thought it would at least let the thing heat up first before throttling.

Anyways, now I'm running HWInfo64 while pulling up an SNES game on retroarch and the CPU speeds seem to vary every second between full speed and half speed.

Any ideas on that? I guess the throttling is very hard-wired into this thing so I can't even do anything about it...

Yeah, I'll have to go with a thicker laptop next time I guess. This one is so sleek and nice, I guess if its too good to be true, then it is...
 

tHa ShIzNiT

Platinum Member
Feb 15, 2000
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How hot is it running? What's the temperature?

I just ran a test. CPU cores start out at around 38C, and go up to like 41C when running RetroArch SNES emulator with the battery unplugged (and this is with the emulator running at like 1 FPS). So I believe its not a heat issue, its as if the thing is just hardwired to not even have a chance of there being a heat issue, because its just totally throttled from the get-go.

Super annoying but I suppose I'll have to live with it! I mean if it only affects my emulators, thats not really that bad. But like I said, the dream was to play emulated games on a plane where there would be no plug in possibility.
 
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killster1

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I just ran a test. CPU cores start out at around 38C, and go up to like 41C when running RetroArch SNES emulator with the battery unplugged (and this is with the emulator running at like 1 FPS). So I believe its not a heat issue, its as if the thing is just hardwired to not even have a chance of there being a heat issue, because its just totally throttled from the get-go.

Super annoying but I suppose I'll have to live with it! I mean if it only affects my emulators, thats not really that bad. But like I said, the dream was to play emulated games on a plane where there would be no plug in possibility.

i take several 12+hour flights and that would be a nice thing to have. Seems like a tablet and external battery would do the same right? maybe throw in a controller. (what do you use) i was tempted to try a xbox one bluetooth linked one.
 
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IntelUser2000

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Oct 14, 2003
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Super annoying but I suppose I'll have to live with it! I mean if it only affects my emulators, thats not really that bad. But like I said, the dream was to play emulated games on a plane where there would be no plug in possibility.

If you just want to run emulators, U chip based devices might work fine for you.They use integrated graphics so the battery life when unplugged will be much better.
 
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