Loadline Calibration on Helios Predator? PH18-71

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MikeyTaylor1991
MikeyTaylor1991 Member Posts: 1 New User

Good afternoon,

To start, i would like to say that I have purchased this laptop brand new a few days and I know it will be out of warranty as it's a 2023 model, so I'm someone can help me with this despite it being a BIOS request, and I'm sure it's been asked many times before at this point…

I have recently purchased a PH18-71 laptop and although I love it, it has very poor thermal control and regularly thermal throttles under any kind of load, meaning it can't reach the CPUs designed output before reaching the TDP value.

I have read hundreds of reports on how this laptop has undervolt potential locked down under ACERs firmware, even going as far as to add EFI_WRITE_PROTECTION, even though there's an undervolt protection toggle in the BIOS! So I guess I'm out of luck with that option... (Though ACER do allow overclocking which would cause way, way more problems and any undervolt would anyway!)

Fortunately after days of researching, I have found a way to access the second Advanced BIOS menu, and although all undervolt options are blocked the AC_LL value can be changed. After adjusting it from 1.7mΩ to 0.8mΩ the voltage drop caused temperatures to drop significantly without effecting the power output too much and almost stop thermal throttling.

The improvement is quite noticeable with thermals, and performance is somewhat varying. E.G

Stock Settings:

  • Final Fantasy 14 benchmark - 28,400 points with 20% Average Thermal Throttling over the test.
  • Cinebench R23 - 27,850 points with 2% Average Thermal Throttling over the test (this always happened between passes, when a new render started, temps seemed quite stable between)

With AC_LL Turned down to 0.8mΩ:

  • Final Fantasy 14 benchmark 27,770 point score and only hit the thermal throttle for a second later in the run (Average 0%)
  • Cinebench R23 - 26,300 with no thermal throttling (this was only 2 passes however so likely will be lower when I do a 10 minute test)

These results seem pretty good, with only a slight reduction in multicore performance (forgot to check average clock speeds over both runs). I'll probably try reducing it a little further, but reducing AC_LL to 0.6mΩ may have been too much as Cinebench only scored 22,000 which is a significant reduction. Or, it's CEP interfering which I also can't see an option to change in the BIOS Core IA/VR settings. I think it does have some kind of CEP though, as the Core VR Fast Vmode can only be adjusted if CEP is active according to the description box at the RHS of the settings.

To make the most of this option though, I need to know if this laptop has a Loadline Calibration (LLC) setting? I would like to try and adjust this setting to lower VDroop, which would allow me to reduce the AC_LL slightly further without the droop causing stability problems?

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I have attached a screenshot of the Core IA/VR settings screen where loadline resides, but if you could advise me on where to find the LLC setting I'd be greatly appreciative.

Also, I don't know if anyone from ACER actually reads these posts and I know this is an unlikely request, but there are a LOT of people online struggling with thermals on this 2 year old laptop. We would love for the undervolt protection to be unlocked on this model so that we can safely adjust voltages to maximise the performance of the CPU.

Can you please advise on how we can get undervolt protection unlocked correctly and safely? It makes no sense to allow overclocking of this laptop as the CPU will be damaged rapidly, but allowing undervolting would give us longevity and performance. I don't want to think this is a purposeful design to shorten the lifespan of the laptop, but the lack of help on this subject is really hard to ignore!

Thanks for any help you can provide,
Mikey Taylor