Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo low CPU frequency and performance during high processor usage (Debian 12)
 

Hello, my notebook is an Asus Zenbook 14 Pro Duo UX8402ZA and the problem I have is that there seems to be a mechanism that prevents full use of the processor. When I'm not doing anything that requires a high percentage of CPU usage it seems the frequency remains between 1.5GHz and 2.4GHz, but when processing is required the frequency drops to less than 1GHz even though the percentage of CPU usage be very high.

I have a Debian 12 minimal installed that I was customizing so maybe some power management utility is missing but I have already tried several things, including using cpufrequtils, cpupower, changing the kernel parameters, etc. nothing works

I clarify that it is not a temperature problem, in Windows when I play a high frequency is used, the processor is at maximum and the coolers increase their speed, staying below 65°, however in Debian it seems that the coolers are always at a minimum, The frequency regulates itself and I can never take advantage of the 4.7GHz that is indicated to me as the maximum allowed.

The BIOS of this notebook is super simple even in advanced mode, it does not have any power management section.

Finally, I clarify that the driver I use is intel_pstate, it only allows me to use the performance and powersave governor, but if I change to performance the entire system starts to run too slow compared to powersave. I also tried to change the driver to aspci_cpufreq but doing so sets the hardware limit maximum of 2.7GHz, while with intel_pstate it's set to a maximum of 4.7GHz

If there is any alternative or solution that I can implement, I would be very grateful if you could help me, I cannot take advantage of a notebook that cost too much money because of this problem. Thank you

Hello, viewport & welcome to LQ.

In the linux kernel, there are four 'governors' which control the cpu speed/power saving functions. I suggest you read up on them and how to change from one to the other. If battery life is not a concern, you might use the 'performance' governor. Most folks opt for the 'ondemand governor. Another good thing to do is to google how to check the current speed, which varies.

You ideally want low cpu speed & temp until you start caning it. Then you should get boost performance until the temperature gets in the way.