I have been having thermal throttling issues also.
I have the i7-1185G7 and when under load I see the cpu cycles drop from 42000 to 400 for about 30sec. It was doing this when just playing YouTube.
I redid the thermal paste on the cooling fins. And it helped a little. But it will still thermal throttle when high cpu activity (playing games)
Running win11 just updated the bios a week ago, and did the latest batch of windows drivers.
One fix… more bandaid than fix. In power management I set max cpu to 99%. Cpu cycle won’t go over 3000. Things run smooth but it irks me that I have to do this.
Cpu cores would hit 100 when the throttling happens.
The Framework laptop is designed to boost for up to 28 seconds (Intel default), up to 60W TDP. During those 28 seconds, it is expected to thermal throttle. That’s just how it is, by design.
In your case, the question really is: Is it thermal throttling without even boosting?
In the case of the Framework laptop with i7-1185G7, ‘boosting’ means the processor is temporarily running with TDP higher than 28W.
Just to give you a base line (I also have an i7-1185G7 Framework):
It’s able to run sustainably at 28W for a continuous period of 12 hours without throttling (stress test).
in this image, it’s throttling well under 28W. or, it was like two second earlier. I wasn’t looking at hwinfo constantly, but i’m relatively confident it never went above 28. I was holding the laptop off the desk while taking this.
What would you describe your usage environment like? Ambient, chilled, hot? It’s entirely possible that even bad air quality can be the issue here, especially if you live by a busy road etc.
Do you have general OS issues, like your taskbar dissapearing etc, flickering. If so try the following commands while connected to the internet and with an Administrator Command Prompt Open, you can do this by typing in ‘cmd’ in your WIndows Search bar, then right clicking and “Run as Administrator”. The commands are as follows:
Additionally, is the firmware for your ‘Cannibalized’ Hardware up to date? Did you reinstall Windows at all after installing it? If not, try and do a fresh re-install (I understand this can be a pain in the bollocks but it can solve issues such as this). There is the option to retain your data in the during the process. You may find the following useful in this case: Resetting a desktop PC | Microsoft Docs
As mentioned previously by the mods (Not tagging bc they probs get enough notifications as is), ensure you got the driver pack saved somewhere and give the support line a ring if ya have not done already.
Cinebench will pin your cpu at 100% causing throttling. Wattage consumption literally fluctuates constantly as the cpu cycles through different voltages to maintain stability of the required clock speed and doesn’t stay the same. Discord is vram heavy. Web browsers are ram and cpu heavy depending on the pages that’re open. Spotify uses cpu. Combine them together you’re pushing the system the fact it’s heating up is unsurprising and totally normal imo for say a system with 8gb of ram or 1 stick of 16gb with no external gpu. Personally not seen anything to worry about here. Solutions with such a system; others have suggested ways to ease the burden by allowing it to breath etc I’d also maybe check that the heatsink and fan are fitted correctly and functioning. The battery will drain faster under high usage. Hope this helps, maybe swot up on vrms and power phases and voltage ripple for more understanding.
Another note: Thermal throttling IS expected on the Framework Laptop…but only when the laptop goes above around 34-36W. The laptop is expected to be capable of running at 28W sustained load (assuming reasonable operating environment / ambient temperature / good air flow…etc). When the processor runs beyond around 34W, the CPU will reach a thermal throttling state.
Here’s the characteristic of the thermal solution in the Framework Laptop that you can expect from a ‘healthy’ unit. (Somewhat of a checklist):
At idle, in Windows, your processor, plugged in, not charging, with Performance profile, should not consume more than 0.8W average. (Idle power consumption baseline)
If the system has been idling for 5 minutes in an environment with ambient temperature of around 20-22c, the CPU temperature should be no higher than 32-34c. (Idle thermal baseline)
At this point. Start the Cinebench R23 application, but don’t start the rendering / benchmarking. Start HWInfo64 as well, specifically pay attention to the CPU Package Power related columns later on.
Leave it idle for 2 minutes, let the processor cool back down to 32-34c…and let tau replenish.
Start the rendering benchmark.
Within 20 seconds, the processor would have reached its peak TDP that’s capable with your particular unit. The maximum TDP is expected to be between 54-60W. If you see anything lower than this, say, 48-52W TDP max, then maybe you can ask them to send you some thermal paste for reapplication of it.
Historically, in the forum, we’ve seen two main root causes for low performance / premature thermal throttling:
Fan / airflow blockage by internal fluff in the fan compartment.
I hit the “reset min/max/average” button about 10 seconds before taking this screenshot. I’m not sure what the temp is but if the laptop was idling 12 degrees above ambient it would be 38 degrees and it’s definitely not that hot. Ambient is 25 at most.
as you can see above, it’s idling at ~50C.
It’s not cooling back down and i don’t know what Tau is, but i have now waited two minutes. still idling at 50C.
[edit: forgot to insert this quote]
here it is after ~2 minutes. CPU package power is only 27W. it jumped to 95C after like two seconds.
Close Firefox, close task manager. Close everything that you can find an Exit / Quit button on, except HWInfo64 and those in the system tray that can’t be closed.
Let’s get to that first baseline, power consumption at idle. By closing apps / processes that are not required.
Also, I see that Windows Update is running? Let that do its thing…till its done.
For reference / comparison, here’s my unit at 5minute idle:
