Seriously?? They really locked overclocking for predator helios neo 16

yeah… what if we wanted to underclock the CPU though?? the battery life on this is horrendous!

I have one method and works for me, not as good as undervolt but better than nothing.

step 1Predator Sense Power Plan Adjustment:

1. Access Predator Sense and change the power plan to FAST (level 3). This setting allows the laptop to utilize at least 160W of power, providing ample resources for gaming.

step 2 MSI Afterburner GPU Frequency Adjustment:

1. Utilize MSI Afterburner to modify the graphic card frequency curve. Fortunately, Acer does not restrict GPU voltage adjustments. A suggested configuration is 970mv - 2730mhz, which offers a balanced frequency suitable for RTX 4060 or even 4070. For more performance you can try 1v - 2820mhz.

step 3 Install XTU for CPU Power Management:

1. Install Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) to address CPU power management. Create a specific plan in XTU, named "gaming," and set PL1 power(turbo boost power max) to 50W, PL2(turbo boost short power max) to 80W, and PL2 time to 20 seconds. This tailored power configuration is sufficient for gaming needs.
2. Optimizing CPU Power Usage:
   • During gaming sessions, monitor GPU power, GPU usage, and CPU power. If GPU usage consistently reaches 95% or more, it indicates that the CPU is providing ample power under 50W. Experiment by limiting to 45W and observing if GPU usage remains above 95%.
   • After gaming, revert to default settings to enjoy the full power of your CPU.

If you get annoyed by the fan noise you can try BALANCE(level2) , or manually adjust fan speed. But BALANCE only utilize only 100w or power, not enough for games such as call of duty .

I am using 13500hx and 42w is good enough to support my rtx4050.

overclocking and downvolt are disabled, but changing tdp is allowed. You can either edit tdp in XTU, or try to edit cpu performance in windows power management. The truth is, most games does not need a 4-4.5ghz, 55w - 85w cpu. For rtx4050 and 4060, and even 4070, a 35w - 45w, 3-3.5ghz cpu is enough.

Another option is go to registry and open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\be337238-0d82-4146-a960-4f3749d470c7

find attribute value and change to 2, reboot. Then you can see some advanced options in your power plan such as: turbo boost option, max cpu performance, etc.

You can manually create your own power plan, try to limit the cpu p core to 3.5ghz, or even 2.7ghz for most games. I understand that your cpu is limited, but this can keep your cpu under 65c during gaming, with no performanec lost.

Hold down the left Fn+TAB key together and press the power button, when you do start a slightly fast 3 count and release the Fn+TAB keys at the end of it. Then start spamming the F2 key to enter bios. If done correctly this will unlock a hidden advanced tab within the advanced section of the standard bios. Within that you can go to the cpu config or cpu power config menus and unlock and set you PL1 and PL2 limits as well as core clock boost ratios on most Acer laptops. In the bottom of the cpu power menu there is usually a menu for "cpu unlock" as well as on the main section of the hidden advanced menu having a overclocking menu to select to enable overclocking on some laptops. The newest Helios Neo 16 they chose to grey out the option to unlock overclocking which ironically just limits undervolting and Voltage setting changes. You can still set power limits and most of the setting XTU allows right in the bios without software running in windows.

Alternate method is to open cmd and type "powercfg /Qh" and it will llist all the windows registry options you can change to manually limit processor power percentage as well as P and E core frequency minimum and maximum. If you limit your max P and E core frequencies it effectively limits your max boost power. It will show you all the core park and turbo algorithm options as well. If you open regedit and search for each key then change the value of the "attributes" field from 1 to a 2 it will then show those options in the advanced power plan settings right in windows under the processor management settings. Look up the settings before you change thethem as I am not responsible for your choices.