Arch Linux

Munkhu

Member

Registered: 2025-05-03

Posts: 7

Laptop CPU stops turbo boost under heavy load.

Hello everyone,

My system is Acer Helios 300 ph315-54-760s. It has an RTX 3060 and I7-11800h. In Windows, both my GPU and CPU uses 105W(GPU) and CPU is constant ~4200MHz@45W. But in Linux the GPU was using 80W max.

So in /usr/lib/systemd/system/nvidia-powerd.service I put in

[Unit]
Description=NVIDIA Dynamic Boost Power Daemon
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=dbus
BusName=nvidia.powerd.server
ExecStart=/usr/bin/nvidia-powerd
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After doing so, the GPU properly uses 105W. But then under load, my CPU speed very rarely goes above 2.3GHz to 4.2GHz. I tried sudo cpupower frequency-set -d 3500MHz -u 3500MHz but it didn't help. Temperatures doesn't matter as i have an external cooler running full speed.

>cpupower frequency-info                                            
analyzing CPU 9:
  driver: intel_pstate
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 9
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 9
  energy performance preference: performance
  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 2.30 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: performance powersave
  current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 2.30 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency: 2.30 GHz (asserted by call to kernel)
  boost state support:
    Supported: yes
    Active: yes

>lscpu                                                              
Architecture:             x86_64
  CPU op-mode(s):         32-bit, 64-bit
  Address sizes:          39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  Byte Order:             Little Endian
CPU(s):                   16
  On-line CPU(s) list:    0-15
Vendor ID:                GenuineIntel
  Model name:             11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz
    CPU family:           6
    Model:                141
    Thread(s) per core:   2
    Core(s) per socket:   8
    Socket(s):            1
    Stepping:             1
    CPU(s) scaling MHz:   53%
    CPU max MHz:          4600.0000
    CPU min MHz:          800.0000
    BogoMIPS:             4608.00
    Flags:                fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp 
                          lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl 
                          vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowpre
                          fetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l2 cdp_l2 ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp ibrs_enhanced tpr_shadow flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep 
                          bmi2 erms invpcid rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap avx512ifma clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd sha_ni avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xge
                          tbv1 xsaves split_lock_detect user_shstk dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_pkg_req vnmi avx512vbmi umip pku ospke 
                          avx512_vbmi2 gfni vaes vpclmulqdq avx512_vnni avx512_bitalg avx512_vpopcntdq rdpid movdiri movdir64b fsrm avx512_vp2intersect md_clear ibt flush_l
                          1d arch_capabilities
Virtualization features:  
  Virtualization:         VT-x
Caches (sum of all):      
  L1d:                    384 KiB (8 instances)
  L1i:                    256 KiB (8 instances)
  L2:                     10 MiB (8 instances)
  L3:                     24 MiB (1 instance)
NUMA:                     
  NUMA node(s):           1
  NUMA node0 CPU(s):      0-15
Vulnerabilities:          
  Gather data sampling:   Mitigation; Microcode
  Ghostwrite:             Not affected
  Itlb multihit:          Not affected
  L1tf:                   Not affected
  Mds:                    Not affected
  Meltdown:               Not affected
  Mmio stale data:        Not affected
  Old microcode:          Not affected
  Reg file data sampling: Not affected
  Retbleed:               Not affected
  Spec rstack overflow:   Not affected
  Spec store bypass:      Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Spectre v1:             Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Spectre v2:             Mitigation; Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB conditional; PBRSB-eIBRS SW sequence; BHI SW loop, KVM SW loop
  Srbds:                  Not affected
  Tsx async abort:        Not affected

Current governor is set to performance. Please let me know if I missed any necessary info. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Last edited by Munkhu (2025-05-23 02:51:38)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,807

Re: Laptop CPU stops turbo boost under heavy load.

The general point of "turbo boost" is to boost while only a single/few cores are actively occupied because you can distribute heat more easily. If you run "load" that is heavily multithreaded you will fall back to "normal" speeds. So what is your load and how are you testing? If you e.g. just do a single threaded stress run, you should be able to see a single core boosting. If you're generally producing load on multiple cores you are not going to reach turbo speeds.

Munkhu

Member

Registered: 2025-05-03

Posts: 7

Re: Laptop CPU stops turbo boost under heavy load.

Thank you for your reply. I'm testing it by running Marvel Rivals. In Win11, I'm using MSI Afterburner to check the CPU clock speed. In Linux, I'm using Mangohud. I'm getting ~17 less fps in Linux than in Win11. Is it the games fault? I was getting constant 4.2GHz speed in Win11.

Last edited by Munkhu (2025-05-23 16:46:09)