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How to Undervolt Your Laptop With Intel XTU

Cómo desvelar su computadora portátil con Intel XTU

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Gaming laptops have become really powerful in the last few years, stuffing desktop-grade performance into a small portable package. However, these improvements in GPU and CPU performance come at the cost of increased heat output. If you’ve ever monitored the temperature of a gaming laptop while playing games, you may have noticed that the numbers are unreasonably high.

The good news is that there is a quick workaround that involves undervolting your laptop’s processor. Here, we’ll explain how you can easily undervolt your gaming laptop using a free tool called Intel XTU.

What Is Undervolting?

Before we go ahead with the how-tos, it’s important to understand what undervolting is. Simply put, it’s the process of lowering the voltage supplied to the CPU. If you aren’t aware, the higher the voltage supplied, the higher the heat output. Therefore, by lowering the voltage supplied to the CPU, you can lower its temperature.

Most laptops coming out of the factory don’t have the best stock voltage values possible. Manufacturers often play safe and use higher stock voltages than necessary to avoid crashes and blue screens. This is why undervolting is usually considered a quick and easy fix, especially if you don’t want to pry it open and replace the thermal paste.

How to Undervolt Your Laptop With Intel XTU

Normally you need to enter your BIOS to undervolt your CPU. This would mean that you’d need to reboot your laptop every time you wanted to adjust the voltage values.

Fortunately, thanks to this free software called Intel XTU, you can change the values without restarting. This means you can spend more time tweaking the values and less time staring at your PC’s BIOS screen.

To get started with Intel XTU:

  1. Download and install Intel Extreme Tuning Utility on your Windows computer.
  2. Launch the program and locate the Core Voltage Offset slider. Now, drag the slider a little to the left. You’ll notice that the voltage value is lowered. Start with a -0.050V core voltage offset, and then click on Apply to save your changes.
Undervolting laptop with Intel XTU

Try to play games and see if you experience any crashes or blue screens. If not, you can lower the voltage offset further to -0.100V and try again. Slowly keep lowering the voltage until your laptop crashes, and then go back to the previous voltage value where your laptop was stable.

Right after applying your new voltage settings, you’ll notice the CPU package temperature values drop in the graph. There’s no perfect core voltage offset for everybody since it varies from laptop to laptop. You’ll need to follow the good old trial and error method to find the ideal values for your machine. Regardless, a -0.050V offset is a safe starting point for most laptops.

However, we want to quickly point out that Intel XTU only works with Intel processors. If you have a gaming laptop with a Ryzen CPU, you can use AMD’s Ryzen Master software to achieve the same results.

Alternate Ways to Lower Laptop Temperatures

An overheating laptop is a nightmare for gaming, as thermal throttling will prevent it from getting anywhere close to its advertised performance. While undervolting is a quick fix in most cases, you can further lower temperatures by using other methods.

For instance, you can undervolt your GPU in a similar way using a program like MSI Afterburner within seconds. This reduces the voltage supplied to the GPU which should further reduce the overall heat output of your laptop.

Related: How to Overclock Your Graphics Card

If you own an aging laptop, blow out all the dust stuck in the air vents since the lack of adequate airflow can raise the temperature too. There’s also a good chance that the pre-applied thermal paste on the CPU and GPU dried up over time and needs replacement. In such cases, using a brand new thermal paste will significantly improve the thermals while gaming.

Find the Perfect Voltage for Your CPU With Undervolting

Undervolting will help you find the best possible voltage values for powering your CPU. You don’t need to keep the voltages set by your laptop manufacturer, so set the voltage as low as you possibly can without encountering instability and BSODs. The lower voltages will also lower your PC’s power consumption, too.

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