Plundervolt and OEM knee-jerk reactions

Warning: this is a rant. I'm outraged because ASUS and Intel downgraded my laptop CPU speed to 2.3 GHz because of a not-so-widely-known vulnerability. Now I can´t keep 30 FPS in P3D4. Consider this line as a TL;DR.

Now, the long version: as I may have explained (and possibly preached) before, I set up my laptop CPU (an i5-8300H, other specs in signature) with ThrottleStop, in order to limit Turbo Boost to 3.6 GHz instead of 4.0 GHz, and I also undervolted it. Thus, I can limit temperatures to 75°C in either FS9, FSX or P3D while keeping 30 FPS in these sims (using RTSS). I could have my cake and eat it too.

Yesterday I had some sound issues. Since reinstalling driver didn't work, I tried downloading a new one, and also I updated my BIOS. BIG FAT MISTAKE!!!

After fixing the issue via System Restore, I realized something was wrong when I flew between SKBG (Sierrasim) and SKBO (own made AFCAD) in the Aerosoft Airbus in P3D4, and I saw CPU temperatures peaking around 91°C. I checked CPU speeds, and were at 3.9 GHz. I went to ThrottleStop, and I found I could not set the Turbo Ratio Limits as I used to. After searching and realizing this happens because it was now locked in BIOS, I tried downgrading it, but WinFlash didn't allow me to install an older version.

I can´t keep Turbo Boost enabled in these conditions, so I had to disable it. CPU speed fell then to 2.3 GHz, and now I can only manage to get 22-24 FPS (landing the PMDG 777 at KMIA, my test scenario), with no locks at all. So low for my liking that I don't care my CPU does not go over 61°C now.

After searching for solutions, I found some similar cases like this one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/fr0j8v/xps_15_7590_psa_undervolting_gone_in_bios_160/

This pointed me to something called Plundervolt Vulnerability. More info is available at https://plundervolt.com/. I don't know what does it do, I'm too angry to care, but all I know is that the only contention Intel was able to come up with was just to disable undervolting and require OEMs to roll out BIOS updates for doing so. ASUS BIOS update didn't only lock me out of undervolting, but also out of underclocking. So stupid and knee-jerk... I mean, I'm just a home user. Really????

Next one that suggests me to update BIOS or Windows, get ready to be told off. In the meantime, I could force a BIOS version downgrade and I was able to recover control of these items. Let's hope it works. 

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by Luis Hernandez