Summer is here, and some strange hardware and software problems are starting to appear again. Recently, a friend gave me feedback that after the laptop resumed from hibernation mode, the CPU frequency was locked at 0.39GHz and stayed at that frequency regardless of whether it was plugged in or not, causing the system to lag unbearably! How do I fix this? Actually, it has to do with the Windows power policy.
When it detects that the battery is low, Windows will force the system to shut down. But at the same time, Windows also preempts the shutdown and writes the current memory data to the hard disk so that it can be restored the next time you turn on the computer without losing your work progress. In fact, the system enters a hibernation state rather than a full shutdown.
When writing data to the hard drive, the system may control the CPU frequency at a relatively low frequency to reduce energy consumption and ensure that the process of writing data is completed, in order to prevent sudden power loss resulting in write failure.
In addition, when the laptop is overheating, it may also trigger a forced CPU downgrade, locking the CPU frequency to a lower frequency, which is more commonly 0.39GHz or 0.78GHz. After triggering a CPU downgrade, the system may also force the system to hibernate, writing memory data to the hard drive and then entering a hibernation state.
Win10 and Win11 both have similar mechanisms. However, the problem is that this mechanism of entering hibernation after CPU downclocking may be buggy, and when the computer comes back from hibernation, the CPU frequency may not be restored, but still remains at a low frequency of 0.39GHz or something like that! This leads to the situation that the CPU frequency is locked at 0.39GHz as mentioned at the beginning of the article, and the whole system is slow and laggy and cannot be used normally. In this case, even restarting the computer may not be able to solve the problem, because restarting is a hot start, which will not detect the hardware and reload the data. If Win10 and Win11 save some state data before shutdown, it is likely that even the CPU lock state will continue to be maintained after restarting.
How to solve this problem? Here are two solutions you can try.
Press and hold the power button to force shutdown and reboot
The system resumes with the state data before hibernation, which may be the cause of CPU lockup. If there is a lockup, we can try to solve it by forcing the system to shut down by long pressing the power button.
When you press and hold the power button to force shutdown, the computer will not save any data before shutdown and will also clean out some settings related to the system state. When the computer is turned on again, it will be a cold boot, the CPU lock settings will be cleared, and the frequency will be back to normal.
If you don’t want to restart your computer, you can try to fix it with ThrottleStop, a small tool developed by TechPowerUp, a famous hardware review site for DIY gamers, to monitor CPU and set some CPU-related options. In ThrottleStop, you can find the item BD PROCHOT, uncheck it to remove the CPU overheat protection, save it and the CPU frequency will probably be back to normal.
If you encounter a similar situation, you may want to try the methods in this article, and I hope Microsoft can fix this problem as soon as possible!
