Remove Clevo Control Center's CPU OC component completely (X170SM-G)

This guide has been created for those who want to enjoy Clevo Control Center's full functionality except for the buggy OC part which conflicts with other better third party applications and sometimes even causes BSODs and system crashes. It reduces the thermal throttle temperature for Core i9 10900K and even 10700K on X170SM-G instead of the regular 100 degrees Celsius and silently installs a buggy prehistoric copy of Intel XTU binaries and dll files that messes up the stability of Windows. Frequent XTU component crashes and ACPI driver BSODs are also observed while pushing the CPU under modest load. Here's how to clean up this mess. There are 2 parts of this guide. First is for those who are starting from fresh slate. Second is for those who have already installed the CCC using traditional method of running setup program and now want to clean it up.



Part 1 - Blank slate (Fresh Windows installation - Recommended):

1: Perform a fresh installation of Windows 10 (in my case it was PRO).
2: Disable hardware driver updates via windows updates by going to This PC -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> Hardware tab -> Device Installation Settings -> Select NO and hit Save Changes.
3: Check for windows updates and let it install all the non-driver updates.
4: Now install all drivers one by one but DO NOT INSTALL CCC setup and Intel DPTF drivers (DPTF drivers are optional to install. I don't like them for performance suppression reasons.) Here's what your device manager should look like (with these devices without drivers):






5: Install VMWare Workstation or VirtualBox on your machine and create a Windows 10 Virtual Machine (VM). Once ready, copy the entire CCC setup folder into the VM and execute it. When the installation finishes, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86) and copy ControlCenter folder. Now paste it on your host machine's Desktop folder (your main Windows installation running on your physical computer is your host machine, the one in which VMWare / VirtualBox is running). Once you copy this folder to your host machine, shut down your Windows 10 guest VM as it is no longer needed.

If you do not want to go through this hassle, you can download my ControlCenter folder copy from this link. Password for the downloaded ZIP archive is x170smg and is 100% virus free!

6: Now on the first 2 devices shown in step 4 above (CLV0001 and CLV0002), right click on them one by one in device manager and click Update Driver. Then browse to the ControlCenter folder that you just placed on your Desktop (keep the include subfolders box checked!). The devices will be installed as ACPI Bridge and ACPI Bridge 1 under System Devices. Now open the same ControlCenter folder and navigate to AppInstall folder inside it. In this folder, we only need the ones that have a tick mark against them. The ones that are crossed out, you can delete them.


7: Now open the folders that are ticked in red above one by one and start installing the apps. DO NOT FORGET to uncheck the checkbox which says "Launch when ready"!

Note: If you are on Windows 10 LTSC or LTSB and do not have app store installed, you will not be able to double click the apps to install them by default. You can follow this brief 3 command guide to enable installation of these packages in the below steps)

Follow these image guidelines below:


Do the above steps for installing all the apps in the ticked folders in step 6. REMEMBER TO NOT LAUNCH ANY OF THEM, JUST INSTALL AND DO NOT LAUNCH ANYTHING YET!

8: Once all the apps are installed one by one, now is the time for some linux fun. Download Linux Mint Cinnamon iso from here and create a bootable USB via rufus or some other tool of your choice (skipping details for this basic step). I am suggesting this as other builds give boot problems with the nvidia GPU however this will allow you to boot successfully when you select compatibility boot mode.

9: When you boot into linux, you will see it has listed all your windows drives in the side panel when you open the computer icon on Desktop. Find your Windows drive among them as the rest of the steps need to be done on your Windows drive from here onwards.

10: When on your windows drive root, search for the term CPUOC. There will be a directory at the top in search results named CPUOC. Now right click that and click "Open containing folder" as shown below:


11: Once there (FnKey folder), you will see all these files and folders. Now delete the folder and files enclosed in red squares below:



12: Now once again, go back to your Windows drive root and search for the term IntelOverclockingSDK.dll. When the search results are populated, delete this dll file if it is at the path highlighted with red rectangle shown in below image:


13: Our linux work is done here so reboot into your Windows OS. Open ControlCenter app from start menu. Go to Power Modes. Then select "Performance" mode and close it.

What it has done in the absence of all the files that we just deleted is, it has set the PROCHOT offset to 2 which means your CPU will now throttle at 98 degrees Celcius, however it will no longer force anything! I have found that it is easily correctable with ThrottleStop and as long as this setting is not re-applied, it does not change anything on subsequent reboots or even if you open the ControlCenter app for some reason (unless you re-apply the power mode).

Been verifying this mod for over a day now and after numerous reboots and hours of game play, it is working solid! Here is my ThrottleStop options page:

Here, I am specifying that CPU will not go beyond 99 degrees celcius as Windows can reboot on it's own if it stays at 100 degrees for too long. Also, the catch here is to never update the CCC app unless you want to do this all over again. And, we are done!











Part 2: Existing installation cleanup (Clevo Control Center already installed and needs to be tamed)



If you already have Clevo Control Center installed on your computer and you don't want to remove everything else just to correct this issue, this part of the guide is for you. It is a good idea to take a full backup of your Windows partition at this time. I recommend CloneZilla live USB for this purpose. You can burn the file that I have linked to your USB using rufus and boot via the USB. Rest of the backup steps should be self explanatory and are out of the scope of this guide, but you can use anything you want. So let's begin:

1: In Device Manager, you can see software components installed by CCC's XTU instance for all your CPU cores.


2: Now we will get rid of this stupidity. For that purpose, we will boot via a live linux USB (details mentioned in step 8 of Part 1 of this guide above).

3: Once linux boots up, navigate to file explorer and identify your partition that holds your Windows installation. Navigate to Program Files (x86)\Intel\ and DELETE Intel(R) Extreme Tuning Utility folder.

4: Now we will search for these terms in the root of your windows partition and delete all the files that pop up in search results. Proceed in top to bottom order wise format for the below screenshots to avoid any confusions and inconsistencies:







For the below search, only delete the selected files/folders that have been highlighted. DO NOT DELETE THE NON-HIGHLIGHTED FILES/FOLDERS!


5: Now follow steps 10, 11, 12 from Part 1 of this guide above. Then, linux part is done. Now let's reboot back into Windows. Once logged in, open device manager again and take a look at the software components part. UNINSTALL all of these XTU software components and select "Delete Driver" when uninstalling so that they are completely removed.


6: Reboot again and open device manager again. Now you will see some generic components here. Right click each and everyone of them and click "Disable Device". After disabling all of them, jump to the next step.


7: Now comes the registry cleanup part. Open regedit as administrator and delete the following registry keys (These are for 10900K. If you have a different CPU, change the keys accordingly while navigating. If you get a permission error while deleting a registry key, change ownership to your own username and assign Full Control to your account before attempting to delete. I am assuming that details for this step are known or can be found easily online so skipping it from the guide):

• Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Intel\XTU
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\1EA799BEA63B68647AD27E8A8C29C7B1
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\39A1357C1A11FBC4283E2C5548EA748F
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\60CCC05EB7DA53B439EF2DDFFE4EFC83
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/System32/drivers/iocbios2.sys
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/Common.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/HardwareAccess.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/HardwareAccessInterfaces.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/HardwareServiceInterfaces.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/HardwareServices.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/ICCLib_v1.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/ICCLib_v2.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/IntelBenchmarkSDK.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/IntelOverclockingSDK.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/Interop.IccProxy.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/Microsoft.Practices.Unity.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/msvcp110.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/msvcr110.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/PerfTuneAppMutex.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/PlatformDetection.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/ProfileHelperModel.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/XtuApplication.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/XtuApplicationInterfaces.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/XtuCoreServer.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/XtuInterface.dll
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\PnpLockdownFiles\%SystemRoot%/SysWOW64/XtuService.exe
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_1\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_2\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_3\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_4\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_5\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_6\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_7\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_8\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_9\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_a\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_b\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_c\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_d\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_e\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\_f\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\10\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\11\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\12\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\13\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\ACPI\GenuineIntel_-_Intel64_Family_6_Model_165_-_Intel(R)_Core(TM)_i9-10900K_CPU_@_3.70GHz\14\Devices\{d6711452-0dd6-4aeb-a58e-803dba73bf69}#XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\XTU3SERVICE
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\XtuAcpiDriver
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\XTUComponent
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\XTU3SERVICE
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\XtuAcpiDriver
• Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\XTUComponent

8: Now delete all files and folders in C:\Windows\Prefetch\. Don't worry if it refuses to delete a few of them as they might be freshly created and under use right now. If bulk of them are removed, that's good enough.

9: Reboot and then follow step 13 of Part 1 of this guide above. Once done, enjoy a clean snappy system. If you want to install Intel DPTF, you can install it but I prefer running without it. Here's my X170SM-G at 99 degrees celcius during an intense benchmark session as compared to 87 degrees celcius throttle before doing this (External monitor):




Tips to avoid BSODs in Windows 10 on this machine:



Do the same as in above picture for your WiFi card as well if you have it. I have removed it.


Feel free to share this if you want. Hope this helps someone from unnecessary frustrations.

Edit 3: Finally both parts of the guide are working and tested.

 

Excellent. Thank you so much, Brother @S.K

FWIW... I am running POP!_OS with NVIDIA drivers integrated by System76 and it works perfectly on the X170. I hate Unity desktop environment, so I installed Cinnamon and in almost all respects it is the same experience as the amazing Linux Mint.

 

Edit: Merged into the first post.

 

Thank you. That's a good option for folks that haven't installed CCC if they are using a version of Windows 10 with the Store available.

Too bad these are UWP app trash. Would be so much better if they were ordinary applications that did not rely on Micro$lop Store cancer. Then LTSC users could enjoy using the fan and keyboard controls.

 

You can use DriverStore Explorer to forcefully remove any pesky drivers. https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer/releases/

 

I followed all the steps until step 3 (Using Win 10 Pro). Unfortunately, Windows update does install drivers anyway (see screenshots below). Can you please advice how to stop this? Thank you in advance






*EDIT*: I just tried to disable driver updates using Microsoft group policy settings as described below. This worked better, no drivers were installed but one, which was a Bluetooth driver. Now I will try to disable drivers via registry editing, hope this prevents all device drivers being installed by microsoft update, including the Bluetooth driver.

I followed this tutorial:
Step 1. Windows logo key + R --> gpedit.msc --> Local Group Policy Editor.
Step 2. Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.
Step 3. Double click "Do not include drivers with Windows Update"
Step 4. Enable it.

*EDIT2*: I set the value SearchOrderConfig to in "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching" and then restarted the PC. This did not stop the drivers from being installed via Windows Update.

Please advice what the best way is to proceed. Thanks !
FYI: I connect the to the internet only once I disabled the driver updates. So there shouldn't any drivers be downloaded before I tested any of the above methods.

 

1: Disconnect your internet.
2: Open Services dialog by pressing Windows Key + R and typing services.msc in the Run box.
3: Stop and disable both the Update Orchestrator service and Windows Update service.
4: Stop the Windows Update Medic Service.
5: Disable and delete Windows Update Medic Service as it keeps restarting Windows updates without user consent and crap gets installed. To delete it:
5a: Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WaaSMedicSvc in regedit.
5b: Set value of REG_DWORD value named Start to 4 and reboot.
5c: After reboot, again go into regedit to the same key, right click on the Key -> click Permissions > select your username from "Group and user names" section and check "Full Control" checkbox below in permissions -> hit OK. Now you can right click the key again and click delete and it's gone!

6: Now you can enable your internet connection. Leave both Update Orchestrator and Windows Update services disabled for now.
7: Download Windows Update Hide Tool from Microsoft:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-updates-5df410a1-90f7-b744-0682-43be9c8fa17c

8: Now set both Update Orchestrator and Windows Update services to manual mode. DO NOT START THEM YET!
9: Run the Windows Update Hide tool and it will show you all the updates that are currently available.
10: Check mark the updates that you do not want to show up in Windows Updates when you are checking for updates and hide them. This tool will hide them permanently. Do this to permanently hide all the driver updates and other updates that you do not want to be installed from Windows when it is checking for updates. Just be aware that it will download any newer version that comes later on which is not hidden so it is a good practice to remove Windows Update Medic Service entirely as mentioned in above steps and disable Windows Update and Update Orchestrator services until you want to run the update. When you do, turn them to Manual mode and run the Windows Update Hide tool again to see if there is any crap that is a candidate for installation and hide it before it slips through.

 

Thank you very much for the detailed instructions!! I will try it later today!

 

Really appreciate this information. Thanks.

 

So I'll definitely be reinstalling the windows to test the difference.

I'm quite new to overclocking, I have a PB51 Clevo laptop with a i9-9980HK and just started tuning the CPU to get some faster 3D rendering times.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Schen...F-G-Laptop-Review-Fun-and-games.454260.0.html
At the moment I'm using TS on top of CC to OC, but I am reading from your post it's not a particularly good practice, I wonder why is that exactly, TS seems to override just fine the settings CC/XTU starts-up with.
I basically have two scenarios in which I need all the CPU juice. So I've configured it this way:

Long 4-5 hours of production renders.
4.2 Ghz - 107W - 80°

Short-bursts of 1-3 minutes quick render preview - which I want to further improve.
4.5 Ghz - 160W - 90°



As you can see the temperatures are ok and I don't mind running at 95°. Because the chassis stays cold and only need 1-3 minutes short-burst.
But my main concern and dilemma is about the 160W CPU Wattage being pulled, and especially the 207W Total System Power Draw, considering that the laptop brick is a 230W one.
From your experience, do you consider this wattage safe for such a laptop? Do laptop motherboards have any sort of safety in this regard? Can I try going 4.7 all core at 180W+? How do I know when I reach the motherboards limit of CPU wattage?
I am only concerned of it's longevity and not "frying" it or who knows what.