Aspire 7 A715-51G throttling itself at 60°- low temperatures.

Jan191

Hi all, as I've said in the title my device seems to be throttling itself at low temperatures. I tried monitoring it using Rivatuner in some games, and the clock speeds keep getting restricted when I hit 60 degrees Celsius. The memory, GPU or anything similar aren't being a bottleneck.

I don't know exactly how to describe the issue. My device is performing similarly to my old laptop with an i5-8300h and GTX1050 4G. Any help is appreciated.

 [Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Gana4066

@Jan191

Hello

You can try cleaning your fan inlets for any dust or debris.

You can try using a Cooling Pad.

Undervolt the CPU/GPU: Undervolting the CPU/GPU can reduce power consumption and reduce temperatures. You can use software like ThrottleStop or Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to undervolt your CPU/GPU.

You can use the below link to learn more about Undervolting.

How to Undervolt your CPU and GPU [TUTORIAL] - PatchKnot.com

These are what we can do right now.

Do like if this helps

Thanks

Jan191

@Gana4066 I just got the system 3 days ago. It's clean. I already use a pad for cooling. I suggest you read the question a second time; the system throttles at just 60 degrees, which is way lower than what would be considered an acceptable temperature for a processor to throttle itself.

Gana4066

@Jan191 I read the question and I am not seeing details about the age of the laptop and whether you are using a cooling pad or not

If this is the case sorry I am not much of a help here as a laptop which is brand new had an issue

Consider reaching out to acer tech support hope they can resolve quicker

PinguW

Yes, I have seen the same issue. The laptop is cool but after using some high-demand games or software, the CPU dynamic PL1 goes to 15W. That is why it slows down. The cooling pad does not help much. For those that say cooling pad etc. etc. Let me tell you. As Intel ARK says, a regular 1240P shouldn´t go to lower than 28w. I fix this using ThrottleStop. I guess the Acer OEM engineer Sucks

To know what I´m saying, Use the HWinfo and find the section of PL1 and PL2. Both have 2 PL options. You will find the dynamic PL1 will switch to 15W after 5 to 10 min of heavy usage. Then you will find it very slow. This issue should be corrected by the BIOS update because the PL limitations are set by the BIOS and it is not available for users. It can also be corrected by the ThrottleStop. But this should be corrected by Acer and not by third-party software.

Uddhav37

Does anyone from Acer watches these posts? Please roll out a BIOS update and rectify this issue.

Uddhav37

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1213939#Comment_1213939

Can you explain how can i solve this issue? Can it do any harm to my pc?

PinguW

Well, you can use the ThrottleStop which you can find at Techpowerup. You have to modify the turbo power limit

Please note that this is not a real fix because it should be embedded in the BIOS. But right now you can get the workaround with the application.

Jan191

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1214135#Comment_1214135

From my experience it doesn't let you change the PL1 limit. I'll try again when I can, but I'd doubt it'll let me. Will update if it does / if I get a useful answer.

PinguW

Well, it will not let you set higher PL1 but at least will not go lower to 15W as the dynamic setting goes when the temperature rises to 87C. In a regular setting without the application, after you stop the burning testing, it will stay on 15w for quite a long time before returning to 28W even if your temperature is at around 50C. I also tested with a fan blowing directly to the CPU without the back cover. The recovery is faster.

So definitely it´s the factory setting. Only Acer can modify the default behavior in different temperature situations.

I should also try to reverse the BIOS and try the test again, but I don´t know what command to enter to reverse back.

PinguW

I found out that this laptop has a design problem.

If I cool down 2 choke near the RAM with a heat sink and also add more heat sink to the VRMs which have a very thin heat spread, the system would not throttle. They just saved some pennies and made the throttle on purpose.

So totally are 3 areas with this problem If I take out the heat sink to one of them the system will start trottling at 15W.

Acer support department, please tell those Quanta engineers they suck and you Acer, how is possible that you validate their design?

eGomes

Hi @PinguW,

Glad with your discovery!

I think it would be very interesting to post here a screenshot of the PCB layout with the position of the SMD components that you had to improve the cooling.

9wep

Hi @PinguW. Could you send a photo of where you installed the additional heat sinks, please?

Sanyam2076

Bro i have the same issue but in my case my gtx 1650 gpu bottlenecks. I have seen in many youtube videos that this version of acer aspire 7 can run gta V at very high settings for around 60 fps and the graphic card usage remains above 90 percent. but in my case the graphic card usage drops to 60-70 percent even in medium setting and i get around 40-45 fps after 10-15 minutes of gameplay. the same situation i am facing in far cry 3 which is a very old game but graphic card usage is at 45-50 percent in that game also. i have 16 gigs of ram in my system so i know that ram probably isn't the issue. also my drivers are updated to the latest version and gpu temp is also stays between 60-65 degrees. how can i fix this?