P15 Gen1 Overheating
Hi,
I have a P15 Gen 1, and under full load without a TDP lock, my CPU constantly hits the 100°C thermal limit. With a 60W TDP limit, it hovers around 95°C, but that doesn't seem healthy to me, and I'm losing performance because of it. The CPU downclocks to around 3.76 GHz and stays there with the 60W limit. I’d really like to hit at least 4 GHz, but that’s impossible with these temperatures. My fans don't really spin up high either; the CPU fan doesn't go above 3500 RPM, even using the ThinkPad Fan Control tool. I’ve applied MX-4 thermal paste and the mounting pressure is correct—I’ve checked it multiple times. The GPU runs at around 85°C under full load, so everything is fine on that front. It wasn't always like this with the CPU; the issue started at some point—I suspect after a Lenovo Vantage update, though I can't say for sure since I usually just let updates run without paying close attention to exactly what’s being updated. I’m running Windows 10 IoT LTSC and have no unnecessary background processes running. Right now, with 3 tabs and Signal Desktop open, the CPU is at 49°C, drawing about 5 watts at 3 GHz.
Is there an undervolting solution available yet?
If I can't do anything about it, I’m considering getting a P52, since I’ve read that you can mod the BIOS using a hardware flasher. Alternatively, I might get a Dell Precision 7530, as you can easily get MXM cards for them and they’re supposedly very moddable.
However, I’m a huge ThinkPad fan and it really bums me out that my P15 is giving me so much trouble, because I think it’s a great laptop.
Specs:
i7-10850U
32GB DDR4-3200
RTX 3000
2x 1TB NVMe