r/zbook

HP ZBook Fury 17 G8, i9-11950H + RTX A3000. Fully repasted both CPU and GPU with PTM7950 (proper break-in cycles too), fans are clean and running at full speed with strong airflow, room is AC'd. Still, GPU hits thermal throttle ("Thrm") at only 40-60W out of its 80W TGP budget, at 86-88°C, clocks drop to ~1000-1300MHz. CPU sits at 94-99°C on just 41-49W. Isolated CPU load (capped it hard) and GPU behavior didn't change at all, so it's not CPU heat bleeding into the GPU. GPU-Z Hot Spot delta is normal (~7°C) so it's not a bad die contact either. Compared it to benchmark videos of weaker laptops (Dell Precision w/ older Quadro RTX 3000) sustaining full 78-80W at only 67°C. Anyone seen this on a ZBook Fury G8 / RTX A-series before? What am I missing?

Do NOT rollback your bios guys, at least not too much. I had a 2025 bios and was rolling back to s92 01.04.01 (2021 bios) to possibly be able to unlock processor undervolting lock (cfg lock) in grub. I had rollback policy selected to "unrestricted rollback to older bios" and eberything and got the bios from official hp ftp, but still the bios partially rolled back and intel management engine failed to downdate and left my laptop is this state with older bios and new me, they must be of the same time to boot. I couldnt get into bios setup or anything it was a total wreck, and zbooks with sure start dont allow flashing by usb either so it was so use.

Sure start should've recovered the previous bios but i guess it didnt detect a problem because it doesnt check anything about intel ME, and the problem existed at all because intel ME didnt rollback. I had to go to repair shops where they constructed a working model of bios + intel me on their own systems before cleaning the bios chip and externally programming it on the chip, it took 3 failed attempts before a version worked. They took their sweet money too.

So again, do NOT rollback bios its crazy, intel management engine is not happy with rollbacks at all and flashing with usb is simply not available on notebooks with sure start so you'll be COOKED. If you're also in it for disabling cfg lock to underclock your processor, just replace your thermal paste and deal with what you got man, it's extremely messy otherwise. These are business laptops, they take their security a little too seriously.