Predator PH16-71 Thermal throttling in simple tasks??Temp high while gaming

dragosdv

Hello everyone,

Recently I bought this machine:

System Model Predator PH16-71

Processor 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900HX, 2200 Mhz, 24 Core(s), 32 Logical Processor(s)

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU

Upgraded to 64gb of RAM.

I already read lots of discussion online regarding the temperatures of this machine. My temp are pretty high while gaming for both CPU and GPU but my understanding is that this is kind of normal already and there is no solution ( looks like acer completely abandoned this model in terms of software/bios upgrades ) . I myself tried lots of tricks including several Modes from predator sense while gaming and there was no big difference. Lowest temps that I had were in Quiet & Balanced mode , while perfromance ( FPS meaning ) being the same while in Performance or Turbo mode.

However..

I noticed my machine is throttling also while in simple tasks like browsing with few tabs. As you can see in the attached snip I have a session of about 42 minutes of internet browsing and Riot client open ( but not playing ) and 80% of the time my CPU was throttling???

I understand that temps can be high in intensive tasks and this is acceptable for a high end machine, but seeing such behaviour in simple tasks makes me wonder if it's indeed really normal or there might be something wrong with my laptop ( like thermal paste not being placed propely or some software issue ).

Thanks

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]
[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

dragosdv

Forgot to add photo in intial post

scyronex

From my recent digging into 13th and 14th gen stuff, it looks like Intel’s Raptor Lake and the refreshed versions have been catching some serious heat, like a firenest. I’ve got the same chassis as you (though with a weaker setup; i5-13450HX and RTX 4050), and I’m running into the same thermal issues.

You could try undervolting, but chances are it’s blocked in Intel XTU because of undervolt protection on the “HX” CPUs. Might not be the case for your i9 though. Here’s some of the undervolting shenanigans I found on Reddit:

r/intel/comments/10slejm/intel_blocks_undervolting_the_whole_story (couldn't put the link through, copy it)

Also, there might be some factory slip-ups with the liquid metal, such it getting pushed to the sides instead of actually covering the CPU die properly.

LMK
-Scyronex

dragosdv

Hello,

Yes indeed undervolting is locked from BIOS, there is no way to undervolt this machine.

Regarding the reddit post, I updated already

dragosdv

++ I updated the microcode to 12F . This update actually does not stop the CPU from getting hot, but it's some sort of protection of the CPU hardware when it gets too hot ( this was my understanding)

A way to reduce the heat of the CPU in simple tasks is to use "Nvidia GPU only" all the time. The GPU will run all time but it will put less stress on the CPU for video tasks. This works for me.

scyronex

I actually made a post about the internals of the PHN71-16 and its cooling system here:

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/725364/interesting-thing-ive-stumbled-upon-the-cooling-system-of-the-phn-71-16-predator-helios-neo-16

While digging around, I also came across something called the “pooling effect” with liquid metal, which might explain the high temps some of us are seeing. It’s where the LM gathers unevenly (usually pushed to the sides), leaving parts of the die poorly covered. Could totally be a factory application issue.

Either that pooling effect or the LM dried out.

I haven’t opened up my CPU-GPU heatsink yet, but I’m planning to do that maybe next month or so to check things out myself.

Anw, how long have you owned your unit?

LMK
-Scyronex