HP Laptop Stuttering and CPU Speed Fluctuation

[Gerowen]

My wife has had an HP Pavilion 15-cs3075wm laptop for a year or so now.  It has an Intel Core i7 1065G7 CPU and we've had some weird issues since we got it with performance such as stuttering, inconsistent clock speeds, etc.  It shipped with Windows 10, but right now it's running Debian Linux, but the issues have existed in both operating systems.  She experienced them in Windows before switching, and I even re-installed Windows again to verify that it wasn't something specific to Linux.

 

Basically, the laptop seems to mostly run fine, but it will randomly take spells where it will just randomly start stuttering hard.  Even Minecraft Java edition is basically unplayable because it'll be running great, and then just out of the blue it'll literally just freeze for like half a second, and once it starts it never really stops.  Even Stardew Valley has stutters, Slime Rancher, etc.

 

I've tried locking the CPU to "performance" mode in both Windows and Linux to try and lock it at its max base clock, thinking that perhaps the cause of the stuttering was the clock speed jumping up and down all the time based on the current load, but that didn't seem to work.  I'm just not sure what the problem seems to be.  I just ran Prime95 and Unigine Superposition both simultaneously to try and stress all parts of the die, and I did notice that when I first started Prime95 (just a minute or so after stopping a previous run) the CPU temps shot from 50ish up to 95 Celsius for a few moments before the fans actually kicked in, so that might be it.  It could be getting crazy hot under load spikes and then thermal throttling until the fans catch up.  I also ran a script that would log the current CPU temps and clock speeds once every second while the benchmarks were running, and I've noticed some oddities.  There were moments where the clock speeds were at 1.9-2 Ghz while the reported core temps were 80+ Celsius, and then there were moments where the core temps were down in the 60s because the clock speeds dropped to and stayed at or just below 1 Ghz.

 

So in stress test I just ran, in the second immediately prior to throttling, here's the reported temps and clock speeds:

Package id 0:  +76.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:        +71.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:        +76.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:        +69.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:        +74.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

cpu MHz        : 1955.652
cpu MHz        : 1955.761
cpu MHz        : 1955.768
cpu MHz        : 1955.669
cpu MHz        : 1955.652
cpu MHz        : 1955.757
cpu MHz        : 1955.762
cpu MHz        : 1955.665

 

In the very next entry in the log file, here's the same readings:

Package id 0:  +76.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:        +72.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:        +76.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:        +69.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:        +74.0°C  (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

cpu MHz        : 1200.000
cpu MHz        : 1200.000
cpu MHz        : 1199.999
cpu MHz        : 1200.000
cpu MHz        : 1200.000
cpu MHz        : 1199.999
cpu MHz        : 1199.999
cpu MHz        : 1199.999

 

The entry after that it dropped even lower to 1 Ghz even, and it stayed there for 24 seconds before it made it back up to 1.9 Ghz, despite the temperatures immediately dropping to well within acceptable limits.  I just don't know why it's throttling so hard.  Is it temps?  Is it possibly a power budget issue where the motherboard isn't properly spec'd to keep an i7 fed for long periods?  I'm just at a loss.

 

For the record, my kids' laptops also have 10th gen Intel chips and this doesn't seem to affect them, though I think they're i3 and i5 variants respectively, and my laptop is a Lenovo with a Ryzen 5 2500U that also doesn't have any issues.  Her laptop is the newest one in the house.

[spacelordmaster]

I have a brand new HP Pavillion laptop. Had it on last night, was working perfectly fine. I went to bed and next morning noticed it was off so I pushed the "on" button and now its not turning on at all. It is and has been plugged in. I even tried another outlet and charger. Same deal. I have tried everything you can think off. i don't know what else to do. It is getting power as the AC light turn on when I plug it on the laptop so I have no idea what's going on. Its only 5 months old. 

 

Any suggestions?

[Gerowen]

On 20/07/2022 at 01:52, spacelordmaster said:

I have a brand new HP Pavillion laptop. Had it on last night, was working perfectly fine. I went to bed and next morning noticed it was off so I pushed the "on" button and now its not turning on at all. It is and has been plugged in. I even tried another outlet and charger. Same deal. I have tried everything you can think off. i don't know what else to do. It is getting power as the AC light turn on when I plug it on the laptop so I have no idea what's going on. Its only 5 months old. 

 

Any suggestions?

I had that happen once with one of my kids' HP laptops.  I fixed it by taking it apart (well I took the bottom off anyway), unplugging the battery, waiting 30 seconds, then plugging it back in and putting it back together.  No idea what happened, but that fixed it for me.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

If the problem is occurring under both Linux and Windows, I am thinking it is either firmware or hardware issues.  For the former, get a bare-bones installation of Windows installed, then visit Hewlett-Packard's support website and download and install all of the firmware updates for it.  Usually this means the UEFI (BIOS) firmware, but there may be separate firmware updates for the Management Engine (ME), video card (GPU) and network controller.  All of these devices can have firmware and may have updates.  If there is no change after those, I would suggest disassembling the unit, cleaning all the dust and debris from inside, especially on the fan blades, and replacing all of the thermal paste and pads (if any).  Remember, using too much thermal paste is as bad as using too little. 

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[Gerowen]

On 20/07/2022 at 02:14, goretsky said:

Hello,

If the problem is occurring under both Linux and Windows, I am thinking it is either firmware or hardware issues.  For the former, get a bare-bones installation of Windows installed, then visit Hewlett-Packard's support website and download and install all of the firmware updates for it.  Usually this means the UEFI (BIOS) firmware, but there may be separate firmware updates for the Management Engine (ME), video card (GPU) and network controller.  All of these devices can have firmware and may have updates.  If there is no change after those, I would suggest disassembling the unit, cleaning all the dust and debris from inside, especially on the fan blades, and replacing all of the thermal paste and pads (if any).  Remember, using too much thermal paste is as bad as using too little. 

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

I was just looking at a BIOS update on their website.  I've got a 250GB USB stick I could install Windows to and boot from long enough to do that and a few other things.  Tried doing it from inside Hiren's Boot PE but it wouldn't work.  I did enable the "Fan Always On" option in the BIOS, but I don't see how that would do anything other than shorten battery life and make the idle temps slightly lower, but I figured since they were taking a while to ramp up, it couldn't hurt.  It's been very well taken care of and I don't see any dust when peering into the vent holes, but I can take it apart and double check.  It's done this since we got it though, so I don't think it's an issue of dirt or restricted airflow.  Hopefully updating all the BIOS/firmware and such fixes it because if it doesn't, I'll probably just restore the Windows image, gift it to somebody and buy her a new one with an AMD chip in it, or at the very least, one that doesn't have an i7 crammed into too thin of a chassis.