i have acer nitro 5 ryzen 5 2500u, my cpu doesnt go beyond 1.6ghz while on battery need help?

24

Answers

  • Red_Sun
    Red_Sun Member Posts: 86 Fixer WiFi Icon
    Many here have this issue with the cpu locked ~1.5 on battery. The recent BIOS update from this past summer did not address.

    Guys, does Acer have a feedback link? Doubtful the engineers read these forums. Would like to communicate this and several other issues to their team.
  • Herman_Sol
    Herman_Sol Member Posts: 19 Troubleshooter
    Yeah I have the same thing happen to me, do any of you guys happen to also have audio problems? Like small stutters, youtube audio getting out of sync, and rare awful sound glitching? I have no audio problems on ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (although I did have to disable some features related to ACPI, C-states and RCU in the kernel 4.15 for linux to boot, could it be related?)
  • tonatiuhmira
    tonatiuhmira Member Posts: 1 New User
    Hi @ayushn212
    I'm sorry, I have completely forgot about it, I think they have disabled Turbo boost to preserve the battery life while in Battery mode, you can not also do much in BIOS settings as most of the laptops don't have Advanced settings enabled. I have run out of ideas but please wait for someone else to chime in.
    I think this is the right answer, this works the same way in linux so no driver update nor windows update will ever change this. BIOS update might allow it if it permits to "unlock" the CPU settings, but that seems remote on this hardware. I would like them to fix the buggy-as-hell IOMMU tables that has to be fixed on the kernel commandline in linux. BTW, that should also be present on Windows, but I don't think Windows is using anything of that so, maybe that's why nobody cares in Acer.
  • ayushn212
    ayushn212 Member Posts: 44 Devotee WiFi Icon
    guys i just replaced my laptop and the new one is having the same problem also i got bios update 1.09 from windows device manager >> firmware but the problem is still the same. and maybe now i am thinking that amd did this to extend battery life the thing is if this ryzen 5 2500u can use max 14 Watts but while on battery it is using nearly 3- 4 watts which clearly showing this cpu is giving better battery life
  • aditya_dope
    aditya_dope Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    I have the same laptop with same issue.
    Very poor utilization of otherwise a very promising processor.
    And I also sometimes face audio glitches,preserving battery and getting glitches is not the best way to go i think.

    And also even when completely idol the frequency doesn''t go below 1.5ghz,my previous laptop had an i7 which would hover to 0.1ghz when not being used I think that is much better for having good performance and nice battery life.
    Also to mention this laptop has ***** battery life.

    One think I observed is in safe mode of windows the processor runs fine easily goes to its boost clock.

    Poor engineering by AMD or ACER.
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  • aditya_dope
    aditya_dope Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    NO changes after 1.11,This is a very pressing issue.I have audio glitches,slow pointer and pure computing task suffer a lot especially those that run only on single core.
    It seems hp and dell dont have this issue..this is something ACER did.
  • Haxk200
    Haxk200 Member Posts: 4 New User
    The issue here is buggy BIOS because for whatever reason ACER locked the BIOS limit on 1.6ghz on battery. On Linux this can be ignored and then the CPU will go up to 3.6ghz as normal. But i woudlnt reccomend doing it because now after 2 months running with BIOS limit ignored in Linux the CPU will stay at 2.4ghz for a little while and then go to 3.6 ghz. IDK if they limit the CPU for some safety reason but that doesnt seem to be the case because when running it with ignore BIOS limit the CPU behaved the same way as it would with AC power. Its very much possible that the 2.4ghz lock for 10 seconds is just software issue in BIOS so i will have to unplug the battery from MB to test that but the issue here is acer limiting the clocks to even lower then base clock which is weird. It wont hurt the hardware to run it at 3.6ghz as on AC power since the CPU is max 20W and intel i5 version of this laptop has 45W and they dont limit the clocks of CPU there as far as i know.
    And please ACER if you are reading this explain WHY do you limit the CPU or its just bug in BIOS and also fix your IOMMU please !!!
  • Haxk200
    Haxk200 Member Posts: 4 New User
    In windows it seems you can ignore bios limit by booting in safe mode which basically ignores anything and handles everything on its own. This is actually really sad and poor use of this amazing CPU. This is gaming laptop which is supposed to be portable and can game without AC power even with poor battery life but this isnt the case at all and leaving the CPU stuck at 1.6ghz without AC power isnt good for games and you wont get even 30fps on games where with AC you are getting 60+. I hope they fix this issue in the next BIOS update.
  • Two versions of bios were released on very close dates, version 1.10 and 1.11! What version of bios is installed on your notebook?
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  • vkk
    vkk Member Posts: 82 Fixer WiFi Icon
    edited December 2018
    Did you update the BIOS device driver to 1.11 under device manager? I too need to check if this issue is present on mine
  • vkk
    vkk Member Posts: 82 Fixer WiFi Icon
    Same issue here CPU doesnt go above 1.6 on battery and doesnt go below 1.5 while idle 
  • Redfan
    Redfan Member Posts: 65 Devotee WiFi Icon
    1.08 is not the latest bios the day I purchased my nitro 5 I updated to the latest 1.11, you will notice the difference right away if you don't use the keyboard the light goes out... kinda hoping that in the next bios they make it 3 option the current 1.11 and the 1.08 light options on the keyboard because having it lit at night comes extremely useful 
  • marcelocintra
    marcelocintra Member Posts: 1 New User
    Thanks guys, thanks for the clarifications!
    curso de marcenaria
  • Redfan
    Redfan Member Posts: 65 Devotee WiFi Icon
    also don't freak out when you are playing youtube plugged in and your cpu while plugged is at 1.6ghz it does that so the extra power goes to the 8 Vega cores, if you use the vega 8 say watch a 8K youtube video, it will slow the cpu to give the vega8 power, for gaming just set the game to use the rx560x. also the adrenaline drivers for the 560x are kinda buggy so I would wait it out for acer to release one that is stable with the system, kind of getting impatient since those drivers are needed for the oculus and steam VR to properly check if you can use them, otherwise it only registers the vega8 on the crimson driver
  • gshaw
    gshaw Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer

    It's not a bug, it is a feature, as confirmed by Acer support. I have an Acer Aspire A515-41 with A12-9720P and an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 with Ryzen 5 2500U, both with exactly the same issue. It is hard locked from the manufacturer for increased battery life, and nothing will change it.
  • vkk
    vkk Member Posts: 82 Fixer WiFi Icon
    gshaw said:
    It's not a bug, it is a feature, as confirmed by Acer support. I have an Acer Aspire A515-41 with A12-9720P and an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 with Ryzen 5 2500U, both with exactly the same issue. It is hard locked from the manufacturer for increased battery life, and nothing will change it.
    Strange ; if battery  life is the concern why doesnt CPU go below 1.6 ? Sounds like buggy engineering  
  • bansalg43
    bansalg43 Member Posts: 1 New User
    @ayushn212
    brother i am suffering for same problem in my Acer Nitro 5 amd ryzen 2500u mobile processer with rx506x graphics
    plz tell me if you get any solution
  • Haxk200
    Haxk200 Member Posts: 4 New User
    edited January 2019
    Increased battery life ? Im wondering why they dont limit Intel CPUs tho. If i disable BIOS limit on my linux and run it that way the CPU goes normally max to 2.6Ghz and that doesnt make much difference in battery. Dell laptops with Ryzen 5 2500U have the same "feature". But their BIOS is muuuuuuuuch better but sadly they dont offer laptop with RX560X too otherwise i woudlnt mind giving 100$ more or less for dell. No issues with IOMMU because they did it the proper way. Instead we have to debug the entire BIOS and make workarounds in Linux drivers so that it works properly. Im pretty sure the Windows drivers in source code are just terrible. I would be muuuuuch more happy if acer released an BIOS update with Advanced menu (Proper advanced menu where i can control what happens and not disable virtualization) and add option to disable BIOS limiting in BIOS. Gaming laptop and i cant even overclock it within BIOS. WHAT IS THIS ????? And the way acer support denies that there is advanced menu but its locked is just funny. First they ask support if there is advanced menu. ACER denies it totally. People modify BIOS and unlock advanced menu on their own ACER still denies People post picture of it. ACER says that its hidden for a reason. HAHAHAHAHA At least give us the access to advanced menu so that we can disable this "Feature" from BIOS and not OS.
  • Haxk200
    Haxk200 Member Posts: 4 New User
    vkk said:
    gshaw said:
    It's not a bug, it is a feature, as confirmed by Acer support. I have an Acer Aspire A515-41 with A12-9720P and an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 with Ryzen 5 2500U, both with exactly the same issue. It is hard locked from the manufacturer for increased battery life, and nothing will change it.
    Strange ; if battery  life is the concern why doesnt CPU go below 1.6 ? Sounds like buggy engineering  
    Exactly. Every programmer says its not a bug its a feature when they cant fix a bug, So they make it a feature. I know because im C programmer for 8 years now and it isnt my first time saying "Its not a bug its a feature". Acer please tell me then if its not bug why dont you limit Intel CPUs to 1.6Ghz ? Hmmmm let me guess. Intel BIOS doesnt have this issue that you cant fix and so its not limited ? Im guessing you used the same BIOS as intel on AMD CPUs and modified a little to work with it but somehow its broken in some ways. Like IOMMU, CPU, GPU clocks are broken on battery power.