i5-8250u not boosting properly on Linux

[Histole]

Hello all, my sincere apologies if this is not the right place for this.

I have an "old" laptop that has been starting to struggle on W11, it's an ASUS UX430UAR, has an i5-8250u, 8GB DDR3 ram, and a 256GB SSD.
Originally I was thinking of install Debian with XFCE, but realized this hardware can probably run Debian with KDE Plasma 6 just fine.

To preface, my goals with this machine is for development work for school and my own projects, through VSCode. I have my main desktop at home with W11 that I use for gaming.

Now I am quite nit picky about certain things and I do make sure everything is running as it should be, so here are some preliminary findings after installing Deb 12 with KDE.

Idle ram usage around 1GB measured through htop, I would like to get this under 1GB if possible. Though the GUI KDE performance monitor shows 1.7GB, not sure what that discrepancy is. (W10 1703 Stripped down still used about 2.4Gb)
Idle battery drain is roughly 2.5w-3.5w measured through auto-cpufreq. An improvemnt from windows, which was 4-5w (on an old 1703 W10 build that is stripped down).

Everything else works fine, haven't figure out how to get the fingerprint sensor working yet but thats for another day. My main issue as of now is the boosting algorithm that Linux is using.

So on windows, if I fire up a Cinebench benchmark, the CPU will boost to 3.4 Ghz using the short duration 28w PL which will slowly taper off to the long term 15w PL. Once it reaches the 15w PL it will settle around 2.4 Ghz. This is not modifiable as it is enforced by the embedded ASUS Chip. This is all measured through hwinfo.

On Linux however, no matter if I used TLP, or PPD, or auto-cpufreq, when testing with stress-ng, it will stay at 3.4 Ghz for quite literally, one second, then instantly drop down to 1.8 Ghz - 2.0 Ghz. This is obviously very different from what I have experienced on windows. Measured through i7z.

If anyone has any similar issues, or any experience with this model laptop I would greatly appreciate if anyone has a solution.

This was all done with the charger plugged in.

Thank you all!

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Idle ram usage around 1GB measured through htop, I would like to get this under 1GB if possible. Though the GUI KDE performance monitor shows 1.7GB, not sure what that discrepancy is. (W10 1703 Stripped down still used about 2.4Gb)

You can't get it lower than 1.2 GiB, that's minimum, I know because I'm using Debian 12 with Plasma 5.

On Linux however, no matter if I used TLP, or PPD, or auto-cpufreq, when testing with stress-ng, it will stay at 3.4 Ghz for quite literally, one second, then instantly drop down to 1.8 Ghz - 2.0 Ghz. This is obviously very different from what I have experienced on windows. Measured through i7z.

I'd suggest to enable the following in your BIOS:

• Intel Speed Shift Technology
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology - EIST

These options should be available in overclocking menu under CPU features.

Also suggested to install the following drivers:

# If using Intel CPU
sudo apt install firmware-intel-misc

# If using NVidia driver
sudo apt install firmware-nvidia-graphics

 

[Histole]

You can't get it lower than 1.2 GiB, that's minimum, I know because I'm using Debian 12 with Plasma 5.


I'd suggest to enable the following in your BIOS:

• Intel Speed Shift Technology
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology - EIST

These options should be available in overclocking menu under CPU features.

Also suggested to install the following drivers:

# If using Intel CPU
sudo apt install firmware-intel-misc

# If using NVidia driver
sudo apt install firmware-nvidia-graphics

Those bios settings were unchanged, same setting as in windows.

I will try the drivers, thank you.

 

[Histole]

You can't get it lower than 1.2 GiB, that's minimum, I know because I'm using Debian 12 with Plasma 5.


I'd suggest to enable the following in your BIOS:

• Intel Speed Shift Technology
• Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology - EIST

These options should be available in overclocking menu under CPU features.

Also suggested to install the following drivers:

# If using Intel CPU
sudo apt install firmware-intel-misc

# If using NVidia driver
sudo apt install firmware-nvidia-graphics

Hey so an update, I didn't get a chance to test out the driver install on Debian12 + KDE, though it looks like everything works out of the box correctly on Kubuntu, Xbuntu, Lubuntu. I was going to switch to XFCE or LXQt for better usage of system resources, but it looks like the swiping gestures for the touchpad when in a browser to go back a page or forward a page doesn't work properly unless its KDE. Not sure if I am missing something there.

So I think I will be going back to deb12 with KDE, as its slightly less bloated than Kubuntu and doesn't force snap if that is correct. Will try the firmware on deb and see if it fixes the boosting algorithm.

Also, the firmware you listed could not be found on Kubuntu or Xbuntu, not that it needed it, but "sudo apt install
firmware-intel-misc" just returned a package not found error.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Also, the firmware you listed could not be found on Kubuntu or Xbuntu, not that it needed it, but "sudo apt install
firmware-intel-misc" just returned a package not found error.

You need to enable non-free firmware repository:

sudo add-apt-repository non-free-firmware
sudo apt update

Then try again.

So I think I will be going back to deb12 with KDE, as its slightly less bloated than Kubuntu

If you want unbloated DE then don't install any DE, just install minimal system with "standard system utilities".
This is done with net installer netinst.iso, expert install option.

Then on next boot login to text mode and install from CLI:

sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop # Minimal desktop meta package
sudo systemctl start sddm

 

[Histole]

You need to enable non-free firmware repository:

sudo add-apt-repository non-free-firmware
sudo apt update

Then try again.


If you want unbloated DE then don't install any DE, just install minimal system with "standard system utilities".
This is done with net installer netinst.iso, expert install option.

Then on next boot login to text mode and install from CLI:

sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop # Minimal desktop meta package
sudo systemctl start sddm

Going to try this way, thank you, will update if I have any issues.

 

[Histole]

You need to enable non-free firmware repository:

sudo add-apt-repository non-free-firmware
sudo apt update

Then try again.


If you want unbloated DE then don't install any DE, just install minimal system with "standard system utilities".
This is done with net installer netinst.iso, expert install option.

Then on next boot login to text mode and install from CLI:

sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop # Minimal desktop meta package
sudo systemctl start sddm

So I have gotten into the DE through installation via CLI, though it seems the firmware package is still missing.

I have ran:

sudo apt update
sudo add-apt-repository non-free-firmware
sudo apt update
sudo apt install firmware-intel-misc

Though it still says "Unable to locate package"

Regardless, are you able to decipher based on what I have said about the CPU boosting properly on the Ubuntu flavour distros rather than the Debian+KDE enviorment that it is indeed this package that potentially comes pre installed on Ubuntu flavours?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Though it still says "Unable to locate package"

I'm not sure but you can try adding the rest of repositories:

sudo add-apt-repository contrib
sudo add-apt-repository non-free
sudo apt update
# Try again installing firmware

Regardless, are you able to decipher based on what I have said about the CPU boosting properly on the Ubuntu flavour distros rather than the Debian+KDE enviorment that it is indeed this package that potentially comes pre installed on Ubuntu flavours?

I don't know sorry, I'm not even sure what the problem is in regard to CPU.
It works just fine here, firmware may solve it.

 

[Histole]

I'm not sure but you can try adding the rest of repositories:

sudo add-apt-repository contrib
sudo add-apt-repository non-free
sudo apt update
# Try again installing firmware

I don't know sorry, I'm not even sure what the problem is in regard to CPU.
It works just fine here, firmware may solve it.

Still unable to locate the package... Oh well, if you're out of ideas I suppose I just have to run a Kubuntu or something as the boosting logic works on there.

Thank you for all your help regardless.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Still unable to locate the package... Oh well, if you're out of ideas I suppose I just have to run a Kubuntu or something as the boosting logic works on there.

Thank you for all your help regardless.

Strange because I run Debian with Intel CPU and don't have these problems.
You're welcome.

 

[Histole]

Strange because I run Debian with Intel CPU and don't have these problems.
You're welcome.

Yes it is quite odd, I think it has to do with the turbo boost logic... On debian it will max clock at 2 Ghz, fans barely spin and temperatures are in the 50s. If I run the same stress-ng test on Kubuntu, it holds 3 Ghz+, temps get into the 90s, which is similar to how it acted on windows.

Tried TLP, PPD, etc. Nothing worked.

I know every machine is different, and I'm somewhat new to Linux as a daily machine so maybe in time I will figure it out haha.