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13113
Latitude 5591 with TB16 Dual Monitor Temperature Throttling
I have a 2 month old Latitude 5591 with i7 8850H and Nvidia MX130 with a TB16 Thunderbolt docking station. I have dual 4k monitors hooked to the TB16. Since day 1 I noticed a strange processor clock cycle condition where the Proc Clock would be fine then go to 80mHz during a load. I see this most often when I bring up a video from youtube or twitch.
After a month of investigating and experimenting with Throttlestop and Intel XTU trying to find a setting that would allow for performance without the clock throttling crash, here is what I have found. I have been using HWiNFO and HWMonitor to view system performance and data along with Resource Monitor and CAM.
Undervolting in Throttlestop helps some with processor temp if you run a stress test like Cinebench but under normal usage processor temperature and GPU temperature is never an issue. Temps almost always stay below 80*C processor temp.
Turning on Speed Shift helps with performance but does nothing for the clock throttling down to 800mHz that I see.
Windows Power setting affect the system normally. I see the processor clock and fan speed cycle up and down as load increases and drops. This is not the clock throttle crash I see with the video.
The clock throttling appears to be temperature related. If I monitor the Temp0 sensor in HWiNFO the proc clock throttle usually kicks in when the sensor hits the 75*C range. Sometimes it is 77*C sometime it is 73*C. This sensor is obviously not the sensor triggering the throttle, but it is close to it. When the system drops the clock rate to 800mHz the temp sensors all drop off and the clock will return to normal 4000mHz range plus or minus for a while. Again, if watching a video after a minute or so the temperature will creep back up and the system throttles again.
So Temperature related...I have put the laptop on a fan board that blows air up into the case. This helped about 50% but the system still throttles.
If I disable Turbo, it helps a ton with the temperature and I dont see the total clock throttle happen especially while watching videos, but doing this effectively drops my proc from a 4000mHz to a 2600mHz speed....YUCK! Video is more consistent but I can do nothing else on the laptop while the video is playing.
In my situation, I have not seen an issue when undocked and just using the built in monitor. This appears to be a docking station dual monitor system power heat problem. I have a USB docking station ordered to see if it acts like the TB16 setup does.
Questions:
How can we fix this issue of overheating when I am doing nothing more that watching a video on an external monitor?
Will an external GPU fix the issue pulling enough load off the onboard chips and reducing heat while I am docked with dual monitors?
Will there be a hardware recall to correct the cooling issue?
Will there be a firmware or BIOS update to fix the throttling which is obviously happening under normal usage and not even under a stress test.
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
1
April 1st, 2019 06:00
Update - Dell Engineering asked me to send screen shots of the per core utilization and clock rate when the units crash throttle. I sent that off last week. I am not sure why they are still asking me for info when they have our first 2 units that behave the same way as the 2 new units, but I am happy to help if a solution can be found. No word from them on what metric is causing the crash throttling down to 800Mhz. ALL the units do crash throttle that I have tested which is 4 5591s at this point. Some do it more frequently than others. Some do it with eGPU connected and some do not, but all of them do exhibit the same behavior eventually. With the current units, if I open 2 video streams on 2 4k monitors regardless of how they are connected, the unit almost always crash throttles with in a minute or 2 and will continue to crash throttle every minutes or 2 until I close the web browsers. Gaming will also cause this and with the new units even with an external GPU.
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2019 07:00
ZeroAviation
25 Posts
0
April 3rd, 2019 07:00
Thanks for the update HllCntryHrrcane!
I really hope they come up with a solution soon!
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
0
April 5th, 2019 13:00
ZeroAviation
25 Posts
0
April 9th, 2019 05:00
Can't see it... or maybe turning a blind eye. This is definitely a problem, that haunts me every day.
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
1
April 18th, 2019 07:00
On thursday, the backend engineering team asked me to send them a log from HwINFO during a series of crash throttles. I did that both with the TB16 setup and my external GPU setup. BINGO! The engineering team can now see the crash throttles and apparently what is causing all the issues. They are working on a BIOS fix that should be in BETA shortly. Hopefully, I will get a copy of that BETA and can report back. Essentially, the processors in certain situations are throttling all the way down to 800Mhz instead of to the level they should. The processors throttle correctly in a benchmark load test, but when it is video and CPU load related such as gaming or watching streams they do not. Hopefully I will have more info to share soon with the new BIOS update.
ZeroAviation
25 Posts
0
April 19th, 2019 04:00
Thanks for the update!
numsu
4 Posts
0
April 25th, 2019 04:00
Hey, I was struggling with the same issue with Latitude 5591 and TB16.
This issue decreased my work efficiency drastically. I finally managed to solve it by installing ThrottleStop (https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop) and decreasing core voltages.
My stable numbers on i7-8850H and Intel UHD Graphics 630
CPU Core: -160mv
CPU cache: -160mv
Intel GPU: -40mv
No throttling anymore while having three displays (FHD + 2x QHD) connected to the TB16. Change the core voltages at your own risk of course.
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
0
April 25th, 2019 06:00
New update. The backend engineers have a Beta BIOS for us to test. I downloaded and installed it last night. Will do some video testing this morning. If all is good they will be releasing this as a public update fix. Apparently there is a bug in the power behavior of these units that we were able to make them see. Undervolting can mask the problem by simply not letting the power usage hit the throttle point. I have played with throttlestop and XTU both. I never was able to drop the voltage enough but if you limit the turbo clocking it would drop the power usage enough to stay away from the crash throttle. Again this was just a work around for the core behavior issue.
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
0
April 25th, 2019 07:00
Testing with a TB16 and dual 4k Monitors at 60Hz.
Testing with 1 twitch stream running:
On the Optimized Power Setting , I am seeing some very strange behavior now. The various cores are all dropping to 800Mhz at different times. It appear to be random and not all do it at the same time. It is almost like the random cylinder drops we do on racecars on the rev limiter. The performance on this setting is pretty rough.
On Ultra Performance power setting, I see the clock rate drop to 3.4 to 3.5GHz almost immediately on all cores with some dips down to 3.2GHz. When the stream is stopped, the clocks go to 3.9 to 4.0GHz. This is not too bad.
I switched back to Optimized Power Setting after testing on Ultra Performance and the behavior basically stays the same as Ultra Performance. Clock rate drops to 3.5 to 3.3GHz on all cores. This was pretty strange. Maybe the Power setting was bugged with the BIOS update and needed to be changed 1 time to clear out? Temps are the same on this setting as Ultra as well. Is there any difference in these settings? Laptop looks pretty much the same on both.
On Quiet Power setting, the clock rate drops to 1.8GHz to 1.9GHz. 1 video is usable, but not great.
On Cool Power Setting, the clock rate drops to 800Mhz and stays there. This setting is totally unusable with 1 video stream.
Testing With 2 streams running:
On Ultra Performance, the clock rate drops to 3.2GHz and the video gets pretty choppy at times.
On Optimized Power Setting, The clock rate drops to 3.2GHz same as Performance. I do not see any temp differences either.
On Quiet Power Setting, the clock drops to 1.8GHz and stays. Video getting more choppy and is barely usable. Temps definitely drop on this mode from Ultra and Optimized levels.
On Cool Power Setting, again, unusable.
I will report back this afternoon after some power soak on Ultra Performance setting throughout the day. I will test with the eGPU next week, but the TB16 has historically been the most problematic setup so I want to flog it on this config for a while.
In general, temperatures would regularly hit high 90s with the previous BIOS even when nothing was really being taxed. This BIOS even on the Ultra power level with 2 streams running has much cooler temps. Peaks are now in the mid to low 70s. I assume this is because the CPU is now down throttling correctly from 4GHz.
Zero.989
2 Posts
0
April 25th, 2019 14:00
A new BIOS was posted yesterday that brings down pch temperatures by about 4c to 5c.
Zero.989
2 Posts
0
April 25th, 2019 14:00
The cpus clock has 0 ties to the pch temperature
My pch sits at 42c no matter what if I'm at 3ghz or 4.4ghz all cores with my CPU at 90c.
Running multiple screens is too taxing on the Intel uhd630 it requires dual channel memory to really have a chance at one 4k screen.
Dell also doesnt update their drivers. It helps to stay on the latest Intel which is 6607 or something
giftedpenguin
1 Message
0
May 9th, 2019 06:00
Where can you download Beta BIOS? I would like to try this out, experiencing the same throttling with a WD15.
HllCntryHrrcane
45 Posts
0
May 9th, 2019 12:00
It is not available for public download and it still has bugs. It fixed some of the issues but not all. Ultra Performance mode is still crash throttling with the eGPU. I have sent a recent HWiNFO log to them last week but my Dell contact tells me that the underlying issue was not fixed in the Beta BIOS update. The backend engineers are digging trying to figure out what is going on as their bandaid fix was not successful.
numsu
4 Posts
0
May 9th, 2019 23:00