Computer runs slowly despite minimal activity, CPU stays cool, and only half of the storage is used.
Computer runs slowly despite minimal activity, CPU stays cool, and only half of the storage is used.
Hello, I own an HP 17 Pavilion (17-ar050wm) equipped with an AMD A10-9620P APU. It's roughly four years old, and I recently swapped out the HDD for an SSD about a year ago. I placed the old drive in the second port, which holds a CDROM drive with a caddy. I’m aware I shouldn’t expect much performance from this setup, and honestly I don’t. But I’m puzzled by the inconsistency. I enjoy playing games like Rocket League, and sometimes it runs smoothly at around 40 FPS, while other times it drops to an unplayable 5–20 FPS. I checked the Task Manager, and CPU, RAM, GPU, and disk stats are either near half or very low. Then I opened hwinfo—my CPU temperature stays between 60–63°C. Sometimes I restart the whole machine or just the game a few times to see if it crashes, but after rebooting, the issue still lingers. For my APU, I looked up its maximum temperature and found it’s around 90°C. Since 60 is well below that, I think my PC isn’t overheating and isn’t throttling. I’ve lowered game settings to “below minimum” so the graphics stay smooth. I’ve read about possible causes like temp files, dust, cooling issues, browser cache, etc. I suspect maybe the 90°C limit applies only to desktops, not my laptop. I’m curious: (1) Is this a type of thermal throttling I’m missing? It seems the core temperature never exceeds 60–63°C. (2) Should I replace the thermal paste on the CPU after four years? (3) Why does performance slow down over time even when temperatures and hardware stats look fine? Thanks for your help—I’ve done a lot of research but still need someone more experienced to guide me.
Uncertain about that APU but I’m aware my Ryzen 2500U throttles heavily after roughly ten minutes at 60°C. Same issue, I expect a smooth 60fps initially, then after ten minutes it stutters severely as power drops despite the thermal readings looking normal. From what I understand, there’s nothing I can do about it—it’s a hard limit the maker set in the BIOS for some unclear reason. My guess is they didn’t adequately cool the VRMs, so even though the APU works, the laptop can’t sustain full power beyond ten minutes.
Fascinating... I hadn't thought about a BIOS temperature cap before. That makes a lot of sense if it's accurate. I checked your CPU specs and it lists a maximum of 105°C, so locking at 60 should be safe based on performance expectations. It's reassuring to know this isn't an isolated problem. Thanks for the info—I'll keep the thread open for anyone with more insights.
Receiving that laptop really frustrated me because I was eager to explore its capabilities, only to have it removed from my hands.