BDProcHot throttling

====== BDProcHot throttling ======
Created Thursday 15 September 2022


Author:  KCDMZ
‎02-28-2022 07:20 AM

Thank you to everyone who saw this post, read it, and didn't just throw some guess as a reply. I truly appreciate that, and it tells me from the number of views and lack of replies that this is a systemic problem. So, here's the solution I'm using. Anything beyond this point is "follow at your own discretion."

The problem seems to come down to the intelppm.sys driver. For whatever silly reason, when your laptop is unplugged, this driver seems to go nuts with the BDProcHot register. This is the bidirectional process hot, and allows components other than the CPU heat sensor to throttle your processor. It is not the same as ProcHot. There's a plausible explanation for why this is so, but the reality of it existing is that your new laptop runs like a 486 when on battery power. I found lots of folks throwing garbage warnings about your motherboard burning up, which brings me back to "thank you for not just throwing nonsense guesses as a reply." You still have the ProcHot sensor which actually monitors CPU temperature, and can turn off your system if it deems it necessary. I have not seen any actual temperature issues while actively monitoring CPU temperature and running on battery with BDProcHot disabled. I'm not mining crypto or playing games that make the CPU smoke, so again, "follow at your own discretion." If someone knows more about this technically, I'd love to learn more (and please be kind in your post).

Basically, it seems like there are 2 ways to disable this bit of faulty control programming. The first is to go into your registry and disable the intelppm.sys driver by setting it's start value to 4 (disabled). That key is here for me: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\intelppm.

The second way is to leverage a program such as ThrottleStop and simply disable the DBProcHot sensor. In case you don't know, this is a CPU tuning tool and is a great way to truly cause some damage, unless you are sure you know what you're doing. If you go down this path, make sure to follow instructions and maybe don't change anything  except the DBProcHot. If you search for "BDProcHot throttling" you'll find a lot of hits and lively discussion. I found this succinct set of instructions here for both methods: https://www.wintips.org/fix-cpu-not-running-at-full-speed-in-windows-10/#method-3. Many thanks to the author.

I find that running on battery my laptop still boots like a 486 (who does the UAT testing before they sell a $1000 laptop anyway? How did you miss this?) Once I get logged in, suddenly everything runs normally. I even get the fan kicking on as expected while running on battery. I can also work from a coffee shop or airport and do not have to wait 45 seconds to over a minute every time I try to launch a program. Also, as much as I'd like to vent my anger on HP for selling me a booby trapped, expensive laptop, they are only partially to blame. This seems to be an issue with all machines using the intelppm.sys (ASUS ROG group has a lot of conversation about this problem too.). This also seems to be a problem that many have known about for years, at least back to Win 10 original upgrade, and manufacturers have done NOTHING about it.

I still blame HP for moving forward with a machine designed to run on battery power that is almost useless when running on batter power. I'm seriously disappointed, just in case any HP rep with authority to fix stuff gets this far in the post. It is pointless to try and use support or customer service to get feedback up the chain; that message dies in an overseas call center. There really is no customer service once they deposit your money, which sadly is a new and disappointing experience for me with HP. Good luck to all of you who can no longer return your laptops, I hope this helps. Shame on you, HP, for letting this go unaddressed for so long.