Vyper III 15 Power Efficiency Diagnostic: ASPM disabled due to hardware incompatibility

[TheMash]

Hi all!
I've just got my Vyper III last week and it's an amazing and powerful machine.
I'm in the middle of optimizing it as I think there's more headroom for better efficiency in terms of heat and power consumption.
Using ThrottleStop to track down any potential driver, software or hardware issues/incompatibility, I managed to run a Power Efficiency Diagnostic, a tool integrated already in Windows 10.
Unfortunately, there are some issues which, in my opinion, are the cause of bad energy management, causing potential power consumption while in stand by or during normal light usage, draining even more the battery.

I've attached a screenshot describing the problem.

I report it here for any reference.
Anyone with experience with this kind of issues is very welcome.
Should I contact PC Specialist? Seems an ODM related problem to me.
Thank you in advance for any help!

Edit:I've sent a message in my admin area to PCS support, hopefully they will reply me back about this severe issue.

Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report

Computer Name	VYPER
Scan Time	2020-09-01T21:26:46Z
Scan Duration	60 seconds
System Manufacturer	Standard
System Product Name	Standard
BIOS Date	07/09/2020
BIOS Version	N.1.06
OS Build	19041
Platform Role	PlatformRoleMobile
Plugged In	false
Process Count	160
Thread Count	1735
Report GUID	{3c1bb9c9-1e51-465a-9356-e29738211b8d}

Analysis Results
Errors
USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	USB Composite Device
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_06ED
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 20, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_048D&PID_CE00
Port Path	6

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	Realtek USB 3.0 Card Reader
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_06ED
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 20, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_0BDA&PID_0316
Port Path	18

Platform Power Management Capabilities: PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) Disabled
PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) has been disabled due to a known incompatibility with the hardware in this computer.
Warnings
Platform Timer Resolution: Platform Timer Resolution
The default platform timer resolution is 15.6 ms (15625000 ns) and should be used whenever the system is idle. If the timer resolution is increased, processor power management technologies may not be effective. The timer resolution may be increased due to multimedia playback or graphical animations.

Current Timer Resolution (100 ns units)	156211
Maximum Timer Period (100 ns units)	156250

Laptop Specs​

Chassis & Display
Vyper Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 10875H (2.3GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3200MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor
1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Vyper Series Integrated 62WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + THX Spatial Audio
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT + 3 x USB 3.1 PORTS
Keyboard Language
VYPER SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

 

[RaduTomy]

I'm getting identical results on my Vyper 17. Let us know if the admins reply.

 

[ubuysa]

What power options plan are you using (balanced, high performance, etc.)?

In your power options plan the PCI Express setting controls ASPM (off, moderate power savings, maximum power savings), and the USB Settings controls USB Selective Suspend (on or off). Have you checked those?

It would seem that ASPM hardware support amongst all the major laptop vendors is patchy. You'll find Lenovo, Sony and Dell users reporting this issue. If the hardware and/or BIOS doesn't support ASPM there's not much that anyone can do....

 

[RaduTomy]

balanced plan for me. link state management set to maximum power savings. usb selective suspend setting set to "enabled"

for the record, i'm a pretty advanced user and i wrestled intel cpus in the past.
i've tried everything in the book (inc limiting cpu turbo boost and power draw, setting speed shift, etc) to make this puppy get over 4h of battery time when i'm just browsing the web at 50% screen brightness, but i don't really get past that mark. something is definetely drawing more power than it should.

Chassis & Display	Vyper Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i7 Eight Core Processor 10875H (2.3GHz, 5.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card	NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 SUPER - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive	512GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader	Integrated Micro-SD Memory Card Reader
AC Adaptor	1 x 230W AC Adaptor
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery	Vyper Series Integrated 91WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste	ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card	2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless	GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options	1 x THUNDERBOLT 3 PORT + 3 x USB 3.1 PORTS
Keyboard Language	VYPER 17 SERIES RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System	NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language	United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media	NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software	FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus	NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser	Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Notebook Mouse	INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam	INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty	3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
Build Time	Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Promotional Item
Welcome Book	PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland

 

[RaduTomy]

@TheMash is your laptop very warm to the touch in the area just under the space bar? that's where the battery is and i don't really see why it's warming up so much when i just have the laptop sat on a table doing nothing.

 

[ubuysa]

balanced plan for me. link state management set to maximum power savings. usb selective suspend setting set to "enabled"

for the record, i'm a pretty advanced user and i wrestled intel cpus in the past.
i've tried everything in the book (inc limiting cpu turbo boost and power draw, setting speed shift, etc) to make this puppy get over 4h of battery time when i'm just browsing the web at 50% screen brightness, but i don't really get past that mark. something is definetely drawing more power than it should.

It would be handy if you posted the full specs so we all know what sort of build we're looking at.

 

[RaduTomy]

Full specs added above ^

 

[ubuysa]

Are you sure you're not running the dGPU all the time? For things like web browsing you should be using the iGPU to save power. There should be some 'tool' to select which GPU to use - years ago Intel called it Optimus but I've no idea what they call it now...

 

[TheMash]

I'm getting identical results on my Vyper 17. Let us know if the admins reply.

Hi @RaduTomy, I've got another user on another forum posting the same issue.
I suspect there's some fine tuning to do, but if it's on driver or firmware level it's beyond my knowledge.
I've just got a message from PCS (quite fast to be honest!), which I've already replied to, we're in the early stages. I'll let you know when I'll get more details.

@TheMash is your laptop very warm to the touch in the area just under the space bar? that's where the battery is and i don't really see why it's warming up so much when i just have the laptop sat on a table doing nothing.

My laptop could get very hot, especially above the keyboard area, as it's where the CPU is lives (and the GPU is near there).
Having a metal chassis it tends to propagate the heat, and it's quite normal, as it works as heatsink as well.
This is a thin chassis, so when the CPU starts to ramp up, the generated heat is there.
Fan spins a lot and they're loud sometimes.
But the power is there and also the cooling capabilities.
I'm in the middle of fine tuning the power management and I'm getting much cooler temperatures and less heat in general.

Use the Office mode with Eco mode when plugged in. You have 8 cores working for you, you don't need the full power always.

After that the best way to lower temperatures is to undervolt CPU and iGPU. I managed a stable undervolt with -100mV on the CPU and CPU Cache as well as -25mV on the iGPU.
Disabled the turbo mode as well when don't need the full power during office tasks.
And you have to make your CPU enter C6,C7,C8 power states when idle.

I've managed to obtain a power consumption of just 0.6W on the CPU Package, while having a perfectly usable system, which allows you to reach even 5-6 hours of battery life when doing office tasks, web browsing, and youtube.
Temperatures lowered a lot.
The laptop is a power house, it needs just some fine tuning in my opinion 🙃

What power options plan are you using (balanced, high performance, etc.)?

In your power options plan the PCI Express setting controls ASPM (off, moderate power savings, maximum power savings), and the USB Settings controls USB Selective Suspend (on or off). Have you checked those?

It would seem that ASPM hardware support amongst all the major laptop vendors is patchy. You'll find Lenovo, Sony and Dell users reporting this issue. If the hardware and/or BIOS doesn't support ASPM there's not much that anyone can do....

Hi @ubuysa,
thank you very much for your prompt reply!

The PCI Express options, Balanced Power Plan and the USB Selective Suspend are respectively set to Maximum Power Savings and to On.

Yeah, I've been reading around the forums about this issue, it's pretty common with most of the brands nowadays, but in my opinion it should be addressed. Maybe not on every laptop but in the higher end should be implemented correctly as it causes power efficiency problems.
As we know laptop relies on battery power to work: this kind of half implementation affects the product experience and ROI in my opinion.
As you said of course if it's a hardware/bios not supporting that feature there isn't very much we can do, but we can put some pressure on manufacturers, to give more attention to this kind of issues and make them aware there's an interest by customers in a correct specific feature implementation.

 

[TheMash]

Are you sure you're not running the dGPU all the time? For things like web browsing you should be using the iGPU to save power. There should be some 'tool' to select which GPU to use - years ago Intel called it Optimus but I've no idea what they call it now...

It's implemented in the Nvidia Control Panel, and you're right, it's called Nvidia Optimus.
It's app specific by the way, unless you choose the specific option in the BIOS to run the dGPU only, in that case Optimus is disabled.

In the bios: MsHybrid=Optimus.

 

[RaduTomy]

Are you sure you're not running the dGPU all the time? For things like web browsing you should be using the iGPU to save power. There should be some 'tool' to select which GPU to use - years ago Intel called it Optimus but I've no idea what they call it now...

Running NVidia Optimus....

 

[ubuysa]

Running NVidia Optimus....

And have you made certain the dGPU is used only for applications that need it?

 

[RaduTomy]

Yes, I've been monitoring with HwInfo64 and the GPU switch works as expected.

I've discovered that the processor never enters C6, C7 or C8 states... it's stuck in C2 >70% of the time (even when idle). Fresh Windows 10 install, with nothing running in the background, and all the drivers from PCSpecialist installed.

 

[TheMash]

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	USB Composite Device
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_06ED
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 20, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_048D&PID_CE00
Port Path	6

I've managed to fix this error. Can't find what kind of device it is. Looking on the web about VID I've found the vendor is Integrated Technology Express inc., although couldn't find the associated product PID CE00.
Opened regedit and located the relative key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_048D&PID_CE00\5&2e7ab3c0&0&6\Device Parameters

The following key wasn't present, I've read on the web it's responsible for enabling Selective suspend, so I've added it (screenshot attached to this post):

SelectiveSuspendEnabled = 1 (DWORD 32bit, exadecimal)
In addition, DeviceSelectiveSuspended = 1 should be present (and it was present) so I didn't add it.

There are two more similar key that must be edited, with the following in addition at the end: &MI_00 and &MI_01.
After modifying the registry reboot the system and run again powercfg /energy. The warning about the USB composite device should disappear!
Unfortunately this tweak didn't work for the integrated Realtek USB 3.0 Card Reader, which I've decided to disable in device manager.

Optional update
After checking the optional updates I've found an optional update related to PCIe Controller (screen attached to this post) although it's a bit old in terms of date. I wanted to give it a try, to see if it would have fixed the ASPM issue.
After rebooting the system unfortunately it didn't fix the ASPM disabled issue.
Probably we need a fix at firmware/bios level :-\