I use Endeavor on a Razer Blade laptop (with nvidia GPU) and most of the time at work i’m plugged in a 100W USB-C Dock with Power Delivery.
Unfortunately, the default behavior seems to prioritize the battery to be constantly charging or at least maintained at the cost of losing performance. Even if i’m at a 100% battery and plugged in the PD dock, my laptop will feel sluggish until i unplug.
To reach maximum performance, the laptop uses more than 100W, but I can only achieve this by :
plugging the main charger
running on battery power
The last option is the most frustrating, since i lose battery (obviously) + i’m unable to access the monitor and peripherals plugged in the Dock.
So my question is : is there a way to change the behavior of endeavor when plugged in to a usb c Power Delivery Dock ?
I’d love to be able to be able to be plugged in, yet allow my laptop to reach full performance even if that might drain the battery a little.
I hope this isn’t a duplicate, i couldn’t find any info on this topic online, especially on linux.
USB PD 3.0 Limit: The original and most widespread USB PD 3.0 standard has a hard limit of 100W (20V/5A). To get higher wattage, both your laptop and charger must support the newer Extended Power Range (EPR) specification, which allows up to 240W.
Have you checked your hardware? Is the laptop, charger and cable EPR compliant?
Edit: Have you checked if there is any newer Bios versions for the laptop and also firmware updates for the Dock?
Edit: Check journalctl for any errors related to USB, ACPI, power, or Thunderbolt when the dock is connected.
Edit:
Adjust CPU Power Management (CPU Governor)
Your system might be defaulting to a low-power CPU performance profile when it detects a power source via the dock, especially if power negotiation is failing.
Install cpupower if you don’t have it: sudo pacman -S cpupower.
Force the CPU governor to performance mode: sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance.
If this resolves the issue, you can enable the cpupower.service to make it permanent: sudo systemctl enable cpupower.service.
I wish my laptop was compatible with EPR but it’s not, i had checked.
The dock is up to date.
Next week i’ll check for errors and try out cpupower as suggested. Does it behave independently from the “Power Profile” slider in the KDE status bar ?
Check power supply: Ensure the power brick for your dock/laptop provides sufficient wattage. An underpowered supply can cause performance throttling, especially if the device is trying to charge and run at full performance simultaneously.
Disable power-saving features: Power management settings can cause network adapters or USB ports to enter power-saving mode, leading to performance issues. Use a tool like powertop to inspect and disable USB autosuspend settings.
Review power profiles: In desktop environments like KDE or Gnome, check the power profile settings and ensure they are not set to a “Power Save” mode when plugged in.
Inspect system logs: Use journalctl or dmesg to look for errors related to ACPI, power events, or kernel issues when the dock is connected.
Check for file indexers: Sometimes file indexers (like baloo for KDE or tracker for Gnome) can cause high CPU or disk usage, which might be triggered by a docking event.
Thank you so much for your suggestions. Here’s what i can say to them
HP G5. It happens when i’m plugged in the dock, which allows PD & access to USB devices & monitors.
Yes this is exactly what i’m describing. My laptop’s power brick is 230W, and the dock is 100W. The dock’s power supply is underpowered, therefore my CPU (and GPU probably) throttle.
What i’m looking for is a way to still reach max performance by allowing the battery to discharge when plugged in an underpowered dock.
I’ve checked and saw nothing that look out of the ordinary
Even in “Performance” mode, the issue persists. I’ve tried with cpupower and it didn’t help either.
For some reason, lately the problem hasn’t been as noticeable as before. I can’t quite replicate it well enough to give you more information, but it still happens often enough for it to be annoying.
So i’m still looking for a surefire way to prevent the dock from throttling even if that means allowing the battery to discharge while plugged in. I’m starting to think it isn’t possible
Does it behave independently from the “Power Profile” slider in the KDE status bar ?