I purchased a PC recently and faced a peculiar issue with the CPU speed. In Task Manager, it initially showed a base speed of 0.8 GHz, but the actual speed is locked around 0.5 GHz. The specs of my system are as follows: Intel Core i7-4771 CPU, ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 motherboard, 24GB DDR3 RAM, Quadro K620 2GB GPU, and a 650W PSU. I've adjusted the BIOS settings, changing from the default Normal profile to ASUS Optimal, which correctly shows a base speed of 3.5 GHz, but the actual speed remains stuck between 0.68 to 0.69 GHz despite various workload tests. I've also disabled Intel SpeedStep and C-States in BIOS, and I'm using a High Performance power plan in Windows. I'm really confused as to what might be causing this throttling issue. Has anyone dealt with something similar or have any suggestions?
2 Answers
Have you checked your CPU temperatures? Sometimes overheating can cause throttling even if things seem okay. Just curious if you've monitored temps with something like HWiNFO64.
If I were you, I'd consider doing a clean install of Windows 10 LTSC IOT 2021, as it provides security patches until 2032. Regular Windows 10 support is ending soon. Alternatively, trying out a Linux distro like Linux Mint could be a good debugging step.
I want to try out some other possible solutions before resorting to reinstalling Windows.
Yeah, I checked the temps; they're around 64-69°C. No signs of thermal throttling, and power limits aren’t exceeded, but the CPU is still locked at around 0.68 GHz.