u/InvalidLength

Big thanks to u/izzieboopers, who solved this properly and made a kernel module for it:

https://github.com/IzzieBoopers/5080-Unlock_Linux/

This follows up on my previous post about the HP OMEN Max 16 RTX 5080 being stuck at 80W on Linux.

The issue was exactly what was suspected: the BIOS needs the OMEN-specific WMI boost / GPU thermal commands before nvidia-powerd can actually raise the GPU power budget. Without that, the GPU stays capped around 80W even though the hardware can do much more.

u/izzieboopers wrote a small kernel module, omen_wmi_boost, which sends the missing WMI calls and exposes the boost state through sysfs.

With this fix, the full 175W GPU power target is possible on the OMEN Max 16 RTX 5080, instead of being stuck at the 80W Linux cap.

Another user also confirmed that this is not only useful for the OMEN Max 16 / board 8D41:

>This fix is working also for board HP Omen 14-fb0xxx (board 8C58). I was capped at 50w even with nvidia-powerd on, with your service installed now I get the full 65 watts.

I’m on CachyOS, kernel:

7.0.9-1-cachyos

The important CachyOS-specific correction is that the CachyOS kernel is built with Clang, so the module must also be built with Clang/LLVM. Plain GCC build/install can fail.

These are the steps that worked for me.

Install dependencies:

sudo pacman -S linux-cachyos-headers clang lld llvm

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/IzzieBoopers/5080-Unlock_Linux.git
cd ~/5080-Unlock_Linux

Run the installer with Clang/LLVM:

sudo env LLVM=1 CC=clang LD=ld.lld ./install.sh

Load the module:

sudo modprobe omen_wmi_boost

Enable performance mode:

sudo modprobe -r omen_wmi_boost
sudo modprobe omen_wmi_boost boot_mode=performance auto_boost=1 persist=1

Verify that it loaded:

lsmod | grep omen
modinfo omen_wmi_boost

Check the module state:

ls -la /sys/kernel/omen_wmi_boost
cat /sys/kernel/omen_wmi_boost/gpu_state
cat /sys/kernel/omen_wmi_boost/last_error

For testing with Unigine Superposition, make sure it runs on the NVIDIA GPU and not the iGPU:

prime-run ./Superposition

Monitor power/clocks:

nvtop
nvidia-smi
watch -n1 'nvidia-smi --query-gpu=power.draw,power.limit,clocks.gr,clocks.mem,pstate,temperature.gpu --format=csv'

After switching to performance mode, idle usage was still only around 6W for me in nvtop, probably because NVIDIA PRIME/offload still lets the dGPU idle low. So performance mode does not seem to force the GPU to pull high wattage constantly; it mainly enables the higher boost path under load.

So the actual solution is: install omen_wmi_boost from u/izzieboopers’ repo, and on CachyOS run the installer with:

sudo env LLVM=1 CC=clang LD=ld.lld ./install.sh

Again, huge thanks to u/izzieboopers for solving this and publishing the fix.

Hi, posting this partly as a PSA for other OMEN Max 16 users on CachyOS and partly to share what I found after going pretty deep on this.

The problem

No matter what you do, the RTX 5080 in the OMEN Max 16 is permanently capped at 80W on Linux. The GPU can do 175W, does 175W on Windows with OMEN Gaming Hub, but on Linux it just sits at 80W forever. nvidia-smi -pl doesn't work (expected on Blackwell laptop GPUs, direct overrides are locked by design).

nvidia-powerd runs fine and connects over DBus, but then immediately logs:

ERROR! Client (presumably SBIOS) has requested to
disable Dynamic Boost DC controller

...and then does absolutely nothing. Requested Power Limit stays N/A.

Why it might happens

After digging through hp-wmi.c in the kernel source I found the issue. Our board (DMI name: 8D41) was added to the driver as a crash-prevention placeholder, not a full implementation. It uses omen_v1_no_ec_thermal_params which disables EC register access entirely.

On Windows, OMEN Gaming Hub sends two WMI commands when you switch to performance mode:

1. Set thermal profile to 0x31 (performance) -- the Linux driver does send this
2. HPWMI_SET_GPU_THERMAL_MODES_QUERY with ctgp_enable=1, ppab_enable=1 -- this is what actually tells the BIOS to unlock GPU TGP

The Linux driver skips command 2 for our board. Without it the BIOS never raises the NvPCF power budget that nvidia-powerd reads, so it gets the "disable Dynamic Boost" signal and gives up.

What I've tried

• nvidia-powerd enabled and running (v2.0) -- running fine but ineffective
• nvidia-smi -pl -- blocked by design on Blackwell, not a bug
• powerprofilesctl set performance -- sets the thermal profile but doesn't trigger the GPU unlock
• OmenCore on Linux -- sets performance mode but same result, still 80W
• driver 595.71.05 (latest) -- no change

Current status

I've filed a bug report with the Linux kernel platform-driver-x86 mailing list and a suggested fix pointing at the exact functions in hp-wmi.c that need changing.

This affects all OMEN Max 16 variants (RTX 5070 Ti users report the same thing). It's not CachyOS specific -- reproducible on Ubuntu, Arch, anything.

Workaround

There isn't a clean one yet. OmenCore (https://github.com/theantipopau/omencore) is the closest thing -- it can invoke the WMI commands directly on some boards but EC access is disabled for 8D41 so it falls back to the safe WMI path which still doesn't fully unlock TGP.

TL;DR -- hp-wmi kernel driver has an incomplete entry for our board and never sends the WMI command that unlocks GPU TGP.