Current Limit on HP Spectre Laptop

[jwang2351]

Hey, I'm currently trying to find out why my GPU is running less than optimal. I don't play PC games often but was trying to play VALORANT with two friends. I found via HWINFO there is apparently a GPU Current Limit. Any way I can resolve that? Can it be related to the fan, since apparently, it's not on? On a similar note, I'm surprised the GPU isn't bottlenecked thermally. (Not sure if my laptop even has a GPU fan or not.)

Laptop: hp spectre x360 2-in-1 laptop 16-f2xxx (unfortunately I can't find any official HP page on this laptop, which I got from Best Buy)
CPU: Intel i7-1360P
GPU: Intel Arc A370M

 

[Martin]

It's not a problem of the fan. The PL4 limit is triggered when your system isn't able to provide more power (electrical current) to the GPU.
Plugging the notebook into the charger instead of running only on the battery might help.

 

[Dalai]

Keep in mind that there's always some limit to all chips (CPU and GPU), either temperature, current, voltage, clocks or because the GPU isn't doing anything (idle).

For Laptops there's one more thing to consider: manufacturers can configure the chips to a certain power budget to avoid overloading the cooling solution (too much). This means that the same model of CPU/GPU might perform vastly different across various manufacturers.

Also, some vendors allow the user to configure the CPU/GPU wattage via their software, but only within certain limits; other vendors may choose to block that possibility.

Regards
Dalai

 

[jwang2351]

It's not a problem of the fan. The PL4 limit is triggered when your system isn't able to provide more power (electrical current) to the GPU.
Plugging the notebook into the charger instead of running only on the battery might help.

It was charging when I ran the game. Also question: the PL1 and PL2 power limits weren't reached when I had current throttling issues. Do these power limits represent how much power the laptop manufacturer designed the GPU to receive? What else does it mean if not?

 

[jwang2351]

Keep in mind that there's always some limit to all chips (CPU and GPU), either temperature, current, voltage, clocks or because the GPU isn't doing anything (idle).

For Laptops there's one more thing to consider: manufacturers can configure the chips to a certain power budget to avoid overloading the cooling solution (too much). This means that the same model of CPU/GPU might perform vastly different across various manufacturers.

Also, some vendors allow the user to configure the CPU/GPU wattage via their software, but only within certain limits; other vendors may choose to block that possibility.

Regards
Dalai

Yep I get that manufacturers can limit the chips as well. I just wish I knew a more concrete way to tell that it's a hardware limit and not a software limit I can toggle on or off easily.

 

[Martin]

PL1 and PL2 are limiting other scenarios over a (relatively) longer period. PL4 on the other hand is to prevent an instant overcurrent peak in the power supply (AC or DC).
Per Intel's definition:

The power controller (Punit) will preemptively throttle the operating frequency of the device when the instantaneous power exceeds this limit. The limit is known as PL4. It expresses the maximum power that can be drawn from the power supply.

 

[jwang2351]

That sucks. Sounds like my laptop is current throttled by hardware.