Processor stuck on 0.38GHz while on battery power. Nitro 5 (AN515-42)

*****Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42)*******
Ever since I got an ssd installed and had my thermal paste replaced on an Acer service centre, My laptop is showing a new problem now. Sometimes when I boot up on battery power, startup takes a whole 2 minute(not normal for a ssd) and when I open task manager it shows my processor at 0.38GHz contantly.(Normally the processor remains at 1.55Ghz at battery power) I tried everything like rebooting,resetting BIOS, startup repair and nothing seems to work. The only solution I found is by connecting to a power source which bumps the processor to max (2.00-3.14GHz). The processor now reverts to normal 1.5GHz when again removing the power cord. I really need help with this weird situation

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Commodore_1995#

Hello! Have you tried upgrading the motherboard bios-uefi firmware? Have drivers also been updated?

andylb

anuraagkhare2121 said:

*****Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42)*******
Ever since I got an ssd installed and had my thermal paste replaced on an Acer service centre, My laptop is showing a new problem now. Sometimes when I boot up on battery power, startup takes a whole 2 minute(not normal for a ssd) and when I open task manager it shows my processor at 0.38GHz contantly.(Normally the processor remains at 1.55Ghz at battery power) I tried everything like rebooting,resetting BIOS, startup repair and nothing seems to work. The only solution I found is by connecting to a power source which bumps the processor to max (2.00-3.14GHz). The processor now reverts to normal 1.5GHz when again removing the power cord. I really need help with this weird situation

Go into your Power settings, Nitro settings and AMD Radeon display settings , and set all battery options to high performance. Reboot and if that works start to disable high performance one at a time rebooting each time, until you find out who the culprit is.

anuraagkhare2121

egydiocoelho said:

Hello! Have you tried upgrading the motherboard bios-uefi firmware? Have drivers also been updated?

Yes, I regularily check the suppot page for BIOS updates and update them as soon as a new version appers(currently 1.13). All my drivers are also up to date except audio controllers and netwrork adapter.

anuraagkhare2121

andylb said:

anuraagkhare2121 said:

*****Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42)*******
Ever since I got an ssd installed and had my thermal paste replaced on an Acer service centre, My laptop is showing a new problem now. Sometimes when I boot up on battery power, startup takes a whole 2 minute(not normal for a ssd) and when I open task manager it shows my processor at 0.38GHz contantly.(Normally the processor remains at 1.55Ghz at battery power) I tried everything like rebooting,resetting BIOS, startup repair and nothing seems to work. The only solution I found is by connecting to a power source which bumps the processor to max (2.00-3.14GHz). The processor now reverts to normal 1.5GHz when again removing the power cord. I really need help with this weird situation

Go into your Power settings, Nitro settings and AMD Radeon display settings , and set all battery options to high performance. Reboot and if that works start to disable high performance one at a time rebooting each time, until you find out who the culprit is.

As you can see in the screenshot I'm already pluggen in and all the battery settings are on high performance mode too but still the processor won't go above 0.38GHz no matter what I do

Screenshot (50).png

Commodore_1995#

Are you using windows 10 version 1803, 1809 or 1903?

rahulpareek9250

anuraagkhare2121 said:

andylb said:

anuraagkhare2121 said:

*****Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42)*******
Ever since I got an ssd installed and had my thermal paste replaced on an Acer service centre, My laptop is showing a new problem now. Sometimes when I boot up on battery power, startup takes a whole 2 minute(not normal for a ssd) and when I open task manager it shows my processor at 0.38GHz contantly.(Normally the processor remains at 1.55Ghz at battery power) I tried everything like rebooting,resetting BIOS, startup repair and nothing seems to work. The only solution I found is by connecting to a power source which bumps the processor to max (2.00-3.14GHz). The processor now reverts to normal 1.5GHz when again removing the power cord. I really need help with this weird situation

Go into your Power settings, Nitro settings and AMD Radeon display settings , and set all battery options to high performance. Reboot and if that works start to disable high performance one at a time rebooting each time, until you find out who the culprit is.

As you can see in the screenshot I'm already pluggen in and all the battery settings are on high performance mode too but still the processor won't go above 0.38GHz no matter what I do

not a lot of tasks are running try running vs code on batteries and give screenshot of frequency then

anuraagkhare2121

egydiocoelho said:

Are you using windows 10 version 1803, 1809 or 1903?

1809(17763.557) Single language home edition

Commodore_1995#

Have you checked that all drivers are up to date? I suggest you download the driverbooster program: https://www.iobit.com/downloadcenter.php?product=pt-driver-booster-free-new

anuraagkhare2121

rahulpareek9250 said:

anuraagkhare2121 said:

andylb said:

anuraagkhare2121 said:

*****Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42)*******
Ever since I got an ssd installed and had my thermal paste replaced on an Acer service centre, My laptop is showing a new problem now. Sometimes when I boot up on battery power, startup takes a whole 2 minute(not normal for a ssd) and when I open task manager it shows my processor at 0.38GHz contantly.(Normally the processor remains at 1.55Ghz at battery power) I tried everything like rebooting,resetting BIOS, startup repair and nothing seems to work. The only solution I found is by connecting to a power source which bumps the processor to max (2.00-3.14GHz). The processor now reverts to normal 1.5GHz when again removing the power cord. I really need help with this weird situation

Go into your Power settings, Nitro settings and AMD Radeon display settings , and set all battery options to high performance. Reboot and if that works start to disable high performance one at a time rebooting each time, until you find out who the culprit is.

As you can see in the screenshot I'm already pluggen in and all the battery settings are on high performance mode too but still the processor won't go aove 0.38GHz no matter what I do

not a lot of tasks are running try running vs code on batteries and give screenshot of frequency then

I already tried stress test using CPU-Z but it remained stuck on 0.38GHz. Even the mouse pointer is lagging as a side effect

Commodore_1995#

That's why I suggest you try updating the notebook drivers.

anuraagkhare2121

egydiocoelho said:

That's why I suggest you try updating the notebook drivers.

Windows update shows nothing. Checked with Driver booster.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/ob/uhj08jab3ch8.png

Commodore_1995#

None of these three drivers are power scheme related. Have you tried updating the drivers on the amd website?

anuraagkhare2121

egydiocoelho said:

None of these three drivers are power scheme related. Have you tried updating the drivers on the amd website?

The ones from windows update or driver booster are newer than those from support page.

Commodore_1995#

Have you tried using the throttlestop program to verify that it solves the problem?

andylb

anuraagkhare2121 said:

egydiocoelho said:

None of these three drivers are power scheme related. Have you tried updating the drivers on the amd website?

The ones from windows update or driver booster are newer than those from support page.

Do NOT use Driver booster, these 3rd party driver update programs can cause many problems also Windows update are NOT the way to update your GPU/CPU, only use the AMD website, the very latest drivers are in the link below.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-19-7-5

Commodore_1995#

I agree in part with what you said @andylb! It is true that these programs may download some wrong driver. I also know that microsoft does not recommend these programs. However, I've had several situations where this program has solved many other users' problems, especially when the hardware is quite old and the drivers are hard to find.

My suggestion is to use this program only once to check for a newer driver that is not on the official intel, amd or nvidia websites and then uninstall it.

However, I agree with you that the best download source is the official sites like intel, nvidia and amd.

andylb

egydiocoelho said:

I agree in part with what you said @andylb! It is true that these programs may download some wrong driver. I also know that microsoft does not recommend these programs. However, I've had several situations where this program has solved many other users' problems, especially when the hardware is quite old and the drivers are hard to find.
My suggestion is to use this program only once to check for a newer driver that is not on the official intel, amd or nvidia websites and then uninstall it.
However, I agree with you that the best download source is the official sites like intel, nvidia and amd.

Yes you have the same view as me, it can be useful under certain circumstances but this probably isn't one, the Laptop is newer and all his hardware is supported by the manufacturer.

anuraagkhare2121

andylb said:

anuraagkhare2121 said:

egydiocoelho said:

None of these three drivers are power scheme related. Have you tried updating the drivers on the amd website?

The ones from windows update or driver booster are newer than those from support page.

Do NOT use Driver booster, these 3rd party driver update programs can cause many problems also Windows update are NOT the way to update your GPU/CPU, only use the AMD website, the very latest drivers are in the link below.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-19-7-5

I already installed the mentioned AMD drivers from amd website. The funny thing is that the problem went away when I booted the next day but it still occurs sometimes when switching from AC to battery power source, at least 2 times out of 10, for the reference. I've been using this laptop for like 6 months and never did these things used to happen. Even though it's not frequent it's still there and I wonder if I need to contact the sevice centre

anuraagkhare2121

andylb said:

anuraagkhare2121 said:

egydiocoelho said:

None of these three drivers are power scheme related. Have you tried updating the drivers on the amd website?

The ones from windows update or driver booster are newer than those from support page.

Do NOT use Driver booster, these 3rd party driver update programs can cause many problems also Windows update are NOT the way to update your GPU/CPU, only use the AMD website, the very latest drivers are in the link below.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-19-7-5

I use driver booster only to check for missing/outdated drivers but I rarely update through it. When I see a new version I go to device management and from there "search for update on web" . If it downloads a new version then it's fine otherwise I leave it as it is.