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X220 throttling, is it generally resolved?

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 6:09 am
by FragrantHead
When the X220 first came out, there apparently was a problem where the CPU would throttle down, in some cases getting permanently stuck at 800MHz. This was even reported at Notebookcheck.

I'm looking into getting an X220 with the i7 CPU in order to get USB3, which only comes with that CPU selection. This is still the case, right?

The current i7 CPU has had a 100MHz speed bump since the machine was released. May an X220 with that CPU have throttling issues, or have they all been resolved?

From what I've read it wasn't entirely clear whether this, in fact, happened due to heat related issues at all. Still, there were some posts which, perhaps erroneously, implicated the i7 CPU in particular along with, possibly, using 8GB (two sticks of) RAM, as far as I remember. Is there anything to this?

Re: X220 throttling, is it generally resolved?

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:59 pm
by erik
this was fixed in a BIOS update about six revisions back.   from what i recall there haven't been any complaints of throttling in over half a year, possibly longer.   all that's out there seems to be speculation or questions asking if it's been fixed rather than actual complaints like before.

while i'm not a gamer (and this mostly appears to be a game-centric issue), i've never once had an X220 throttle while using any CAD or 3D solid modeling apps and large assemblies while both CPU and GPU were stressed.   this is with both the 65W and 90W adapters (and i typically use the 65W).

if you're pushing your X220 to such extremes where both CPU and GPU are leveraged for long periods at 100% then a 90W AC adapter is probably a wise choice even if things work fine with the 65W.   it's always best to run a power supply at a portion of its load rating rather than 100%.