Latitude 5431, random CPU performance issues

The only way the motherboard replacement will resolve the issue is if it ships with BIOS 1.2.2 or can be downgraded to 1.2.2.  BIOS 1.7 introduced the problem and 1.8.1 hasn't resolved it.  You also cannot downgrade from 1.8.1 which is most unfortunate for those that are.

The issue needs to be brought to their engineering team as the BIOS code has caused the issue.  I tried to report it to support but they weren't understanding and kept asking if I'd run the diagnostic, which I just didn't have time to get into.

If you can get onto BIOS 1.2.2 until they resolve it, then that's the solution.

Same problem here using i7 1270P, and its frustrating as anything. It grinds my laptop to a halt and I can't do anything.

I have found that if I remove the USB-C power cable then the CPU's start to equal out and the system comes back to life.

It mostly happens for me when I'm on a Zoom or Teams call.

BIOS 1.7.0, but when I try and go down to 1.2.2 it then seems to reinstall 1.7.0 BIOS again and jumps back up. Not sure why that's happening, if its an automatic thing or not. In Device Manager the "System Firmware" shows 1.7.0 with waiting to reboot asterix when I am on 1.2.2

I will try removing the power supply tomorrow.  

To keep the BIOS from upgrading back to 1.7, uninstall the driver from device manager and then downgrade. 

Hi to ALL with the same issue.

Tech case created a week ago. Today status is "Completed". What it means: nothing. No new BIOS release published

Please report tech cases as much as you can to push DELL engineering.

I noticed the same thing when removing power. A couple of the devices I worked on responded to this. I believe this was due to the power profile being changed, which made some type of switch and kicked the cores back into gear. This seemed to work for awhile, until it would park the cores again and start running on 1 core.

So, I've been researching this more from the CPU level with the newer 12th gen Intel CPUs with p and e cores.  Can anyone access the Bios on one of these devices and see if you can disable the e-core (efficiency) cores and see if that makes a difference? I won't have access to one until Monday to test, so if anyone can try that I'd appreciate it.

So unfortunately there isn't an option in bios for disabling the e-cores.  But I did take a video capture of one of the Latitude 5431 running on bios version 1.2.2 where I can see the enabled and parked cores changing value and the device is running correctly.  I then upgraded the bios to 1.8.1 through Dell Command update, it updated, rebooted into Windows and immediately began having the problem.  So I now have a bit of before and after proof that I just sent into Dell on the ticket we have in with them.

I'll still be troubleshooting on myside as well to see if disabling any of the Intel specific tech within the bios resolves the issue or not.

in my country, the other user said "1.8.1 downgrade to 1.7.0 and you can downgrade to 1.2.2"

share the information for upgrade to 1.8.1 owner.

I just worked with a Dell tech and after having my run SupportAssist on the 3 example devices I had for him. After SupportAssist didn't fix the issue, he advised I send the devices into their support center for them to take a further look...

I posted on Twitter and tagged Dell and Intel and linked this thread. If anyone wants to jump in on that, that would be great - https://twitter.com/intrepid32043/status/1602735354959826946

Hi, we have issues with these devices also. However there is temporary fix by disabling Core Parking function in Windows. 

You have to fid in registry all values with name "0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318584" and set ValueMax to "0" 

Then reboot your device, it should be much better, however on some machines this fix helps only temporary.

For example:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318584
"ValueMax"=dword:00000000
"ValueMin"=dword:00000000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\ea062031-0e34-4ff1-9b6d-eb1059334028
"ValueMax"=dword:00000000
"ValueMin"=dword:00000000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\ea062031-0e34-4ff1-9b6d-eb1059334029
"ValueMax"=dword:00000000
"ValueMin"=dword:00000000

Yeah, this didn't work for us. I tried this on 7 different computers.  If you install QuickCPU you can monitor the CPU parking. What ever Dell has integrated into the Bios doesn't respect the Windows CPU parking settings.  Even with Windows core parking completely disabled the computer will restart, run with 16 cores, and then something kicks in and begins managing them, which tends to look like parking a large number of them.

which device to uninstall?

The platform team is aware of the issues and is currently testing a new BIOS. When we know more, we will post.

Dell think they’re developing some alpha version of indie game, not a laptop for a professional work. So let’s just roll out untested bios, and then fix it after 2 months. Just imagine for a sec what would be if Apple have made it’s latest macbook pro use only single core.