Thermal Issues - Medion Deputy P10 (Voltage & Fan Control Locked)

[Bindlestiff]

Hi guys,

I took delivery of a Medion Deputy P10 (Core i5-10300H, 16GB, 512GB SSD,15.6", GeForce GTX 1660 Ti) back in March and although it is a fantastic laptop I've been dogged by thermal issues, with loud fans running almost constantly even when the laptop is just idling on the Windows desktop.

In an attempt to try to control the temperatures, I've looked to try to reduce the amount of voltage being pushed to the CPU and GPU. The BIOS is extremely limited / basic and no option seems to exist to do this. Within Windows itself, I have tried to use a number of programs but none of them have access to voltage controls or affect the thermals in any way. The Nvidia control panel power management options do nothing; Throttlestop has controls for CPU voltage that are locked and inaccessible; and MSI Afterburner has controls for GPU voltage which are again locked and inaccessible. I also tried to use Argus Monitor to monitor and control the fans, but again this had no access to the fan controls and can't monitor them either.

Basically, the laptop that I've paid a large (to me) amount of money for is completely unable to be customised in any way to improve thermals (via undervolting), improve sound levels (which should improve with better thermals anyway, but also to just control with a more relevant fan curve), and I would go so far as to say that the laptop is borderline not merchantable quality.

Does anyone have any suggestions or remedies for this? Is there an unlocked or updated BIOS that will allow me access to settings that should be available anyway? 

[sweetpoison]

Hi @Bindlestiff , welcome to the forum

Some additional info might help locate the problem  ( info like the temperature of CPU/GPU on idle desktop mode and fan noise, same during gaming, stuttering if happens in gaming, power management plan used by windows).

Although I own a different laptop model I can say a temperature of CPU around 40°C is normal on windows start and lowering to about 30°C on idle Also fan noise dropping down. All in terms where I have no background programs running except those which are essential for running windows (no tweaks, no monitoring, not even nvidia experience. That's about idle state and desktop mode usage.

For gaming on the other hand I had to customize a lot in order to keep a decent gameplay experience mostly in terms of heat management. 

First step was to place the laptop above a cooling pad (helped on temperature control and fan noise).

Second and most important was to avoid "punishing the machine" technics. As example, if a game can run at full details at >140 FPS I run it at 30 FPS since I see no difference between 30 FPS and 60FPS or above. In terms of temperatures it means lowering CPU/GPU from 84°C/84°C to 60°C/57°C (I use FPS control under nvidia control panel for that). Still to improve (a lot actually) the image quality I use post process plugins which most of the time add about 7°C to CPU temperature.

Overall, factory lock of voltage, frequency and fan speed are there to protect your machine. A desktop CU makes noise as well unless the airflow management is great and require a low speed fans. But that cannot be apply to laptops where you have all components packed into a 3cm thickness case. 

Like I said at the beginning, please provide additional info regarding the issues.

Cheers

[Bindlestiff]

Hi Sweetpoison, thanks for the reply. Let me try and provide a clearer picture of what is going on, and I'll split by CPU and GPU (though I'd imagine the two are somewhat linked as they share the cooling solution?). All the below is based on the "super power saving" profile, with the laptop being placed on top of an angled, 5 fan laptop cooling pad. In terms of resolution, its 1920x1080 of course, at 144hz. There is no option, either in the display adapter monitor properties or via Nvidia Control panel, to select any other refresh rate. I am aware that most games these days allow specification of a frame rate that differs from those listed on the desktop.

For the CPU, when the laptop boots and loads into the desktop, I see a typical temp of about 40°C (aligns with your comment) but that never comes back down and in fact settles around 50-55°C. Furthermore, using the frankly awful Control Center / ARES_CENTER puts the reported RPM for the CPU fan at around 3000. Additionally, the CPU never truly idles, going no lower than 30% (again, reported via Control Center and HWInfo64) which is clearly not right. There are no updates happening to any software, no monitoring programs (that are set to start on boot), and the only processes that never seem to settle are GameSet, PHotkey and a bunch of Service Hosts. 

For the GPU, the Geforce drivers are installed using NVCleanstall and like you I do not have the bloated telemetry or experience components. The version is currently 466.27. Fan RPM seems to be more or less the same as the CPU fan RPM (not sure if they are actually the same fan, or just linked) at idle despite the GPU only using 3-6%, with temperature hovering anywhere from 45-55°C.

For normal desktop tasks the temperatures somewhat stay in check but depends largely on what software is being used. General browsing is ok, Edge causes less spikes than Chrome, continuously watching YouTube or Twitch sees temps creep up and never come back down, and of course that is then accompanied by fans ramping up to (try to) compensate.

If we then switch to gaming, taking COD: Warzone and Fortnite as examples, limiting the FPS to 60 in both cases, then the CPU and GPU temps steadily climb, the fans report (again via CC / AR since they don't show up on HWInfo64 or anything else for that matter) that they have ramped up and are going anywhere from 4000-6000RPM and temps anywhere from 80-99°C. The games are still playable with infrequent stuttering, but FPS noticeably drops which I attribute to thermal throttling.

Going backt to my original post and your response, I'm well aware of the fact that the amount of tech in such a small form factor will produce a lot of heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. I am also aware of the fact that what works within a desktop scenario won't always work the same way on a laptop. I also understand that not everyone who uses PCs / laptops are tech savvy, so options to protect those users should always be present. But they shouldn't prevent everyone from tweaking and configuring the system. The problem of thermals for both CPU and GPU can be aided via undervolting, and this applies both for desktops and laptops. Other than the "plundervolt" exploit and protecting from overvolting, which could be covered via disclaimers and options, I see no other reasons to lock this out completely.

To be clear, I am not trying to overclock this laptop; I have no reason to. I am more than happy with stock speeds, stock performance, I just don't see why those two have to also come with out of control thermals and (subjectively) loud fans when I know I can tweak things to not only be thermally superior than the stock curve / voltage, but also audibly superior in my use cases.

[sweetpoison]

Thanks for info share, I have now a clear picture about what is going on.

As side note, the screen refresh rate is dictate by the screen type and have low impact on temperatures except the games which have set V-Sync ON.

All I can recommend is to use a balanced power plan under windows, that will reduce the CPU load while under youtube or other video website since both chrome and edge use hardware acceleration when available (on power save mode for web browning only CPU is on use). Same improvement might be notice in gaming as well. 

About stuttering while GPU/CPU gets above 90°C, yes that is the thermal protection kicking in. 

At any case, if balanced power plan does nothing I think you should consider calling for Medion technical help while under warranty. If a game with capped FPS (from nvidia CP) at 60 still gets the CPU and/or CPU at >90°C is better to solve the problem before it gets worse (because it will get worse). 

As for voltage control from experience I can say it only makes things worse by making the system unstable or lowering the performances too much to make this as valid solution. 

Try to contact Medion technical support and see what are the options. I hope you will solve the problem soon.

Cheers

[Bindlestiff]

Thanks again. Do you happen to have the contact details for support (or a preferred means of contacting them at least)?

Bindle.

[sweetpoison]

Sorry, I don't have. 

On medion.com after register your product, you can find a phone number in "contact" tab.

Sorry if I can't provide more help.