I’m running Fedora 35 (KDE Flavoud) on a Framework Laptop with Core i7-1185G7.
During video calls, I would get sudden cpu percentage spikes and audio/video would be degraded heavily for about a minute.
Using system monitor, I realized this is because CPU clock slows down to 400MHz during these episodes. Adding thermal monitor, I realized My CPU is constantly around 95 degrees Celsius. During slowdowns, it would rapidly cool down to about 60. I guessed that thermal throttling is the cause of the behaviour.
I use a 4k external monitor and an external webcam. The Cpu usage was changing between 10-25 in normal (non-throttled) times.
Next step was to set the power profile to “Power Save” during video calls. That increased the cpu usage percentage to about 40%, but CPU temperature was much lower, about 65 degrees, and no throttling ever happened. Video calls are totally fine, but the system is less responsive to user interaction in general.
So my theory is: CPU is using a very high-performance mode during the video call, which is both harmful and not necessary. I wish I could somehow set my cpu to not switch to these “Turbo” modes, or the operating system to less aggressively request such states.
Is there such a solution in Fedora, Framework’s BIOS, or a third-party software?
Is there a way to have fedora prefer lower clock frequencies in Balanced power profile, especially for a long running process that can live with 15% cpu usage?
