Dell G7 - CPU stuck at 0.8 GHz on Battery

Thanks for the fast reply twopoint!

According to Dell Update, my drivers are up to date, should I still try to download the latest BIOS files I find on the website?

In my current BIOS options, the only setting regarding the CPU or the battery are all about charing preferences, so knowing that this may not me intended gives me some comfort.

Thank you once again!

Allrond 

Hi Allrond,

A low clock speed on battery is an interesting problem.  Is the latest BIOS installed?  If not, update the BIOS, reset to default settings, and reset the power plans to their default settings.  I found a tutorial on tenforums which may help with the reset process.

HTH,
Bob

Hi Allrond,

I had another thought on this issue, but first let me cover your question

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According to Dell Update, my drivers are up to date, should I still try to download the latest BIOS files I find on the website?

Yes, got to support.dell.com, punch in the service tag (located on the bottom of the laptop), and get the latest BIOS just to be sure, and reset to defaults.

Check the Dell Power Manager settings.  I forgot that comes pre-installed and may be the source of your woes.  I do not have it installed on my computer as the default Windows 10 does a pretty good job out of the box I get around 4.5 hours of battery life.

HTH,
Bob

Hey again!

Sorry for not replying for long, I couldn't reach the internet.

Sadly, the updated BIOS is identical to the one that's already on my computer. I tried checking Dell Power Management as well, but it's also identical to the BIOS settings. Do you have any suggestions?

I am having the same issues. Updated everything and every time I use my laptop (battery mode) everything is slowing down.

Hi Allrond,

I also have the same issue running the latest drivers. Were you able to figure out how to solve this?

Running into the same issue. Through some digging I noticed that when on battery life, the CPU package power limit is reduced to something around 15W, down from the 45W typical when you're on AC power. This is done somehow in the firmware / BIOS of the laptop and is not a configurable setting. As a result, if the CPU is hit with any load (and I do mean any, even light loads), all the cores drop to 800mhz and is power limit throttled like crazy.

On my old Dell Latitude laptop, the CPU could still draw 30W or more on battery, and the performance hit of being on battery was not very noticeable. The G7 goes from a very smooth and powerful machine on AC power, to a sluggish and very unusable machine on battery life.

I hope Dell can give us an answer if this is the intended behavior of this laptop, or if a fix will be implemented. 

Has anyone found a proper solution for this? I am facing the same issue on my Dell XPS 15 9560 with the i7-7700HQ, the core frequency is stuck at 0.8GHz no matter the power option, or load. I tried updating every driver, and have the latest BIOS update, I tried changing and resetting the C-state and UEFI options and nothing changed. The system is passing all the tests Dell and Intel utility tools can possibly run. I tried booting in Safe Mode and noticed that the core frequency went back to 2.81ghz, which is normal, it's just when I boot into windows normally that it gets stuck again. I tried disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it, as some suggested it may be to power delivery problems, but it was still stuck to the low frequency plugged or unplugged, and connected to the power or not.

The only work around for me was to try ThrottleStop, which many other threads recommended, and it's the only option that seemed to work. Specifically, you need to uncheck the BD PROCHOT option, BD PROCHOT stands for bi-directional processor hot. It is basically a signal line going to your Intel CPU. When a CPU receives a signal on this line, it is forced to immediately start throttling. It does this by dropping the CPU multiplier down to 8 so the CPU will be stuck at 800 MHz. It's a bad sensor in the motherboard apparently. If you uncheck the BD ProcHot option, you might see that the processor frequency will shoot up to the it's max all the time, so if you don't want that, you can check the Disable Turbo option, which will bring it down to it's regular base frequency, in my case 2.81ghz. 
I just wanted to see if more people are still facing this issue, and if it's truly a hardware issue relating to the sensor on the motherboard, or if some new update fixed anything. I hope Dell at least acknowledges us, because it's been very frustrating dealing with this issue personally, and seeing many others online facing the same problem.

I have this same problem on my G7 7588

I posted a new thread:

https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/MAJOR-issue-possibly-all-G5-G7-5588-7588-Laptops-8750H/m-p/6159878#M29761

where we can benchmark to see the difference between AC and power. Hopefully that gets dell's attention.

Anyone find a solution to this that doesn't involve third party software.? I just got this, and it's pretty disappointing that I can't even watch 720p youtube video on battery. 

For starters, I apologize for my bad English.

I had the same problem on my G7, but I managed to rescue it by booting the F12 boot from the USB port with Windows 10. Dell boot manager has suggested a system check for preinstallation and has done a recovery of old windows. And he solved my problem. I suppose it was a windows update problem. So put windows 10 on USB and try booting from it, and do Dell Recovery Windows. Good luck

I tried every configuration on Windows settings and I had the same exact problem on Ubuntu,  the CPU throttles down to a meager 0.8GHz with a TDP limit of ~15W. DELL needs to release a firmware/BIOS update SOON AS POSSIBLE, this makes even the general use cases of browsing, moving windows around, and opening folders a rather slow / choppy experience. I bought a notebook to be portable, if  I wanted to buy something that needs to be wall plugged always I rather choose to buy a Desktop.

XPS users already presented the same problem as us, G7 users. This topic have a solution for the XPS case, I will give a try and after I will leave a feedback.