HP Pavilion laptop CPU not responding at 0.40ghz while connected to power
HP Pavilion laptop CPU not responding at 0.40ghz while connected to power
She recently received her laptop from a repair shop and the CPU no longer boosts when connected to a power source. When unplugged, it works normally. In Fortnite it could reach up to 3.2GHz, but plugging it back drops the speed to just 0.4GHz, making it useless. I've adjusted power settings, updated BIOS/drivers, swapped the charging port, and even used a different Windows installation from another drive. It still runs fine with a Ryzen CPU. Some suggest turning off Intel Turbo Boost, while others think a faulty charging brick might be the issue. My concern is whether the problem lies in hardware or software. If it's software-related, I'd look for fixes there; if hardware, I want to know before spending more on a low-end gaming machine.
If this were an Intel laptop... experiencing a CPU stuck at 0.78GHz, I’d upgrade the management engine driver and the chipset driver. I’d also attempt to install any available optional updates from Windows Update.
Chipset drivers and windows are both up to date. I've done all I can for it so I'm just having her use it until she gets frustrated and gets something newer.
Does that cover optional updates? As @ahuckphin mentioned, Microsoft has released several "hot fixes" that won’t install automatically—you’ll need to install them yourself. I own a Pavilion (2500U) and it experiences a sleep + power issue; changing its plug state while asleep can lock the CPU at low speed. Software fixes that force constant boost won’t help because the problem lies in power limits: the CPU thinks it can’t get more power than necessary. I’ve updated some HP firmware (the bloatware helped) and applied MS hotfixes intended to resolve it, but I’m not confident they were perfect. Usually, simply re-plugging or restarting while connected works.