throttled

Fix Intel CPU Throttling on Linux

Workaround for Linux throttling issues on Lenovo T480 / T480s / X1C6 notebooks as described here.

This script forces the CPU package power limit (PL1/2) to 44 W (29 W on battery) and the temperature trip point to 97 'C (85 'C on battery) by overriding default values in MSR and MCHBAR every 5 seconds (30 on battery) to block the Embedded Controller from resetting these values to default.

Tested and working also for T580!

Undervolt:

The script now also supports undervolting the CPU by configuring voltage offsets for CPU, cache, GPU, System Agent and Analog I/O planes. The script will re-apply undervolt on resume from standby and hibernate by listening to DBus signals.

Requirements

The python module python-periphery is used for accessing the MCHBAR register by memory mapped I/O. You also need dbus and gobject python bindings for listening to dbus signals on resume from sleep/hibernate.

Secure Boot:

Right now it is mandatory to disable Secure Boot (in BIOS) in order to avoid Kernel Lockdown. In particular Lockdown restricts access to MSR and PCI BAR (via /dev/mem) which are required by this script.

Update:

The scripts is now running with Python3 by default (tested w/ 3.6) and a virtualenv is automatically created in /opt/lenovo_fix. Python2 should probably still work.

Installation

sudo apt install git virtualenv build-essential python3-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgirepository1.0-dev libcairo2-dev
git clone https://github.com/erpalma/lenovo-throttling-fix.git
sudo ./install.sh

Configuration

The configuration has moved to /etc/lenovo_fix.conf. Makefile does not overwrite your previous config file, so you need to manually check for differences in config file structure when updating the tool. If you want to overwrite the config with new defaults just issue sudo cp etc/lenovo_fix.conf /etc. There exist two profiles AC and BATTERY and the script can be totally disabled by setting Enabled: False in the GENERAL section. Undervolt is applied if any voltage plane in the config file (section UNDERVOLT) was set. Notice that the offset is in mV and only undervolting (i.e. negative values) is supported.
All fields accept floating point values as well as integers.

My T480s with i7-8550u is stable with:

[UNDERVOLT]
# CPU core voltage offset (mV)
CORE: -110
# Integrated GPU voltage offset (mV)
GPU: -90
# CPU cache voltage offset (mV)
CACHE: -110
# System Agent voltage offset (mV)
UNCORE: -90
# Analog I/O voltage offset (mV)
ANALOGIO: 0

Disclaimer

This script overrides the default values set by Lenovo. I'm using it without any problem, but it is still experimental so use it at your own risk. This script can be probably adapted/used on other notebooks too.