Hey, does my computer's graphics card only use up to 30 watts? I can't see it going higher than that.
Hey, does my computer's graphics card only use up to 30 watts? I can't see it going higher than that.
I bought a new Dell G15 laptop with an i5-12500H and an RTX 3050 card two weeks ago. Now I'm having trouble because when I play games, the GPU uses about 95 watts right away, but after ten minutes it drops down to just 30 watts and won't go higher. This makes my games run slower and lowers the frame rate. I called Dell and they said there is no problem with their parts so we can't give it back. Even though I have pictures of the issue on video, they aren't fixing it for me. In MSI Afterburner and GPU-Z software, it says the performance cap or limit reason is because of temperature and power. But the temps are way too low; 80 degrees feels normal when you're playing games in a laptop. I'm not sure if this is just a BIOS problem or something else. Then I found a community group on Reddit so I can ask for help from everyone there. Every option has been set to maximum performance, including the power switch and selecting the max performance option from the NVIDIA control panel.
I don't like how Nvidia numbers the TGP version. For example, an RTX 3050M has a rated power between 1057MHz and 1740MHz depending on what your boost clock is set to. Your Dell says it's running at 1695MHz boost but shows up as 95w TGP in the software. In reality, many laptop makers can cut down the actual boost clock just based on how much heat their cooling system can handle, no matter which GPU model is inside. The software might be calculating power differently than usual, or maybe your card is running at lower speeds because of heat sensors that aren't what the computer thinks they are reading. How fast do you see it go when playing games after ten minutes? Usually with Dell laptops, newer BIOS updates make fans spin up and get louder to keep things cool. I don't know if they always guess wrong about real heat levels or just want to trick people into buying a new laptop a few years later as part of their normal routine. But my experience is that these machines are very quiet when they come out of the box. Maybe in your case, the company kept performance low just so it stays silent for now.
Here is the boost clock I received right before the 10-minute time limit, even though there was a 30-watt cap in place. After I finished the game and switched back to my desktop computer, here is the link to the folder with all the screenshots. Link to the folder
If it won't go back to normal speeds no matter how long it sits idle and actually needs a restart just like that, then it's likely a BIOS problem. Only the Dell guys can probably fix it. Sometimes it's not the temperature itself but how fast it changes that triggers the heat protection. Try lowering the boost clock even under 1695MHz to see if this behavior stops, since 1905MHz seems way too high.