Hi all, have you guys received your laptop yet? I got my x17 few days a ago, love it. It's definitely not perfect, have some flaws, but I can live with that for the look and the build quality I like (it's superb, guys). Anyway, I have been tinkering with x17 for a few days and come to check the sub. I saw someone still don't know, no idea, or haven't tried the undervolting yet (I will just call UV). So I think I should write something here. Show The idea of UV is that the out-of-the-box factory setting gives you too much gas (voltage) because all CPUs are not fabricated equally. Some need more power, some need less, some run hot, some run cool. So, they just feed the maximum voltage (you can go further beyond if you want) to make sure that these chips can operate at their spec. This results in high CPU temperature because your CPU doesn't need that much gas and the excess voltage is nothing but heat. So, UV allows your laptop to run cooler, more stable, longer battery life, and gives more temperature headroom for your heavy gaming. It's good to do UV early because it's a one-time setting that gives you permanent long-term benefits. It may sound advance and complicate, but it's actually not. Once you understand, it's pretty simple (unless you want to touch some deep configurations). Anyway, let's get started. UV can be done in few ways. One way is ThrottleStop which some people already talked about it (also MashIT). This post will talk about Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel® XTU), the latest version said it fixed the problem that it doesn't autostart properly and loses your settings (I know GizmoSlip and Dave2D use it). Just download from the link and install. The first page will greet you with your system information, skip the Basic Tuning because there is nothing interesting. Go to Advanced Tuning, there are a lot going on here. The Core Voltage Offset is where we will do UV. If you mess up something, drag your mouse to "!" to see the default value (or just load the default profile). If you are a naughty guy, you can also overclock here, there are some fine-grain per-core configurations as well 🤣 Benchmarking, for a quick test score Stress Test, for a longer test to see if it's stable, freeze, hang, crash, reboot, or not Profile, basically for saving/loading your different settings/configurations App-Profile Pairing, serious fine-tuning stuff that you can pair your profile/setting with any app If some apps need CPU power, you can OC it for more raw power If some apps need more GPU, you can even underclock to give more room for GPU For most people, UV should be more than enough and gives the most benefits. If you want to play more, you are an overclocker (you know what you are doing, buddy). Basically, you slide the Core Voltage Offset bar to the left to decrease the CPU voltage (Undervolt) by 1 or 2 steps at a time Apply your setting Go Benchmarking for your quick score Do some Stress Tests for a few minutes (5-10 minutes) to see if your CPU is too hot, throttle, hang, freeze, crash, system reboot, or not Repeat the steps again Until you find the spot you like that gives you the balance between temperature and performance :) Other benchmarks, like Cinebench, 3DMark, are also good tools to test your system. Don't forget to try them as well. It only takes your time once but really improves and optimizes your system for the long run 👍 Don't worry if your system crash, we don't do it every day. The machine is built that way, it's their default protection to restart when something happens. For example, my system: -0.120 V - reboot on the fly, on apply -0.110 V - reboot after Benchmarking -0.100 V - reboot after some long Serious Stress Tests So, I settled around -0.080 V (no overclocking), which already improve my x17 by a lot. It runs way cooler by almost 10C, rarely hit 90C, and never throttle. This doesn't mean you will get the same score, in fact, the performance is improved as well because your CPU doesn't throttle. CPU can boost and burst for longer and also leave more room for your GPU. Tip: don't go too extreme on either side (OC or UV). While UV is good and all but you don't want to UV too much because there are uncontrolled variables, environments that can swing or fluctuate. The resistance increases when the system is hot, that is why it crashes and need more power. So, you will need to leave some room for it as well.  Proper procedure is to start making small increments of 5 – 10 mV and testing each setting. Since we want to save time we are going to pick a start point based on our experience, and the experience of others online, where we know it should be safe to start with an offset of -0.050 (50 mV) on our Kaby Lake i5-7200u. Have a look online by googling your CPU model + ‘undervolt’ to see what levels others are achieving, then pick a starting point a few steps lower than theirs. As a generalization, many Skylake Core U-series mobile processors seem to find their upper limit between -0.060 to -0.080 volts (-60 to -80 mV), while Kaby Lake U-series is more around -0.070 to -0.100 (-70 to -100 mV). When it comes to quad-core processors, Skylake HQ/HK often achieves better undervolt levels than Kaby Lake HQ/HK. Begin your testing several steps below those levels. Now change to your starting offset using the arrow buttons or the dropdown list and hit apply. If your system hasn’t frozen then it has passed the first step — it is stable at idle. If your computer freezes at this stage and doesn’t restart automatically, then hold the power button to reset and boot back into Windows. Your computer will have managed to override the new offset you tried to set and will be back to default voltage, but as a matter of caution make sure your starting point is within a realm of possibility. It is time to test stability under load using the built-in CPU stress test. For our testing, we’re only going to set it to run for 10 minutes during these early stages. The reason for this is we want to quickly find the point where it is unstable under any load whatsoever, and 10 minutes is long enough to show this. Later, we will refine our settings and run a more extensive stress test to test stability properly. Keep repeating this process using increments of 0.005 or 0.010 volts (5 to 10 mV) until you find the level where the stress test fails, often shown by the system crashing and restarting itself. Once this happens, drop back 0.005 to 0.010 volts (5 to 10 mV) depending on your preference for how tight you want to squeeze the safety margin, and run the stress test for one to two hours. Those who run right on the knife's edge with undervolting or overclocking prefer to run software such as Prime95 or AIDA64 for half a day, but this is more than we need for our purpose.
Gaming laptops have become really powerful in the last few years, stuffing desktop-grade performance into a small portable package. However, these improvements in GPU and CPU performance come at the cost of increased heat output. If you've ever monitored the temperature of a gaming laptop while playing games, you may have noticed that the numbers are unreasonably high. The good news is that there is a quick workaround that involves undervolting your laptop's processor. Here, we'll explain how you can easily undervolt your gaming laptop using a free tool called Intel XTU. What Is Undervolting?Before we go ahead with the how-tos, it's important to understand what undervolting is. Simply put, it's the process of lowering the voltage supplied to the CPU. If you aren't aware, the higher the voltage supplied, the higher the heat output. Therefore, by lowering the voltage supplied to the CPU, you can lower its temperature. Most laptops coming out of the factory don't have the best stock voltage values possible. Manufacturers often play safe and use higher stock voltages than necessary to avoid crashes and blue screens. This is why undervolting is usually considered a quick and easy fix, especially if you don't want to pry it open and replace the thermal paste. How to Undervolt Your Laptop With Intel XTUNormally you need to enter your BIOS to undervolt your CPU. This would mean that you'd need to reboot your laptop every time you wanted to adjust the voltage values. Fortunately, thanks to this free software called Intel XTU, you can change the values without restarting. This means you can spend more time tweaking the values and less time staring at your PC's BIOS screen. To get started with Intel XTU:
Try to play games and see if you experience any crashes or blue screens. If not, you can lower the voltage offset further to -0.100V and try again. Slowly keep lowering the voltage until your laptop crashes, and then go back to the previous voltage value where your laptop was stable. Right after applying your new voltage settings, you'll notice the CPU package temperature values drop in the graph. There's no perfect core voltage offset for everybody since it varies from laptop to laptop. You'll need to follow the good old trial and error method to find the ideal values for your machine. Regardless, a -0.050V offset is a safe starting point for most laptops. However, we want to quickly point out that Intel XTU only works with Intel processors. If you have a gaming laptop with a Ryzen CPU, you can use AMD's Ryzen Master software to achieve the same results. Alternate Ways to Lower Laptop TemperaturesAn overheating laptop is a nightmare for gaming, as thermal throttling will prevent it from getting anywhere close to its advertised performance. While undervolting is a quick fix in most cases, you can further lower temperatures by using other methods. For instance, you can undervolt your GPU in a similar way using a program like MSI Afterburner within seconds. This reduces the voltage supplied to the GPU which should further reduce the overall heat output of your laptop.
If you own an aging laptop, blow out all the dust stuck in the air vents since the lack of adequate airflow can raise the temperature too. There's also a good chance that the pre-applied thermal paste on the CPU and GPU dried up over time and needs replacement. In such cases, using a brand new thermal paste will significantly improve the thermals while gaming. Find the Perfect Voltage for Your CPU With UndervoltingUndervolting will help you find the best possible voltage values for powering your CPU. You don't need to keep the voltages set by your laptop manufacturer, so set the voltage as low as you possibly can without encountering instability and BSODs. The lower voltages will also lower your PC's power consumption, too.
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