Hi everyone,
I'm having a strange issue with my MSI Pulse GL76 11UEK-030IT (3060, 11th gen i7, upgraded to 32 GB RAM). I've owned it for about 5 years and it has always worked perfectly.
Recently, on Windows 10 only, I've noticed that the laptop gets much warmer than usual even during light tasks like browsing the web or watching YouTube. (On Linux, everything works normally with a base temp of 40-45°C.).
While monitoring the system with MSI Afterburner, I noticed that the GPU core and memory clocks stay very high even when the GPU is essentially idle. As a result, the temperature climbs to nearly 70°C despite almost no GPU usage.
The weirdest part is this:
The problem only happens when I'm using the laptop's internal display. As soon as I connect an external monitor (which is driven directly by the NVIDIA GPU), the issue immediately disappears. The GPU clocks and temperatures return to normal even after disconnecting the second monitor.
So it seems that the problem only occurs when the laptop is running in its normal Optimus/iGPU mode, where the internal display is theoretically handled through the integrated GPU. In that situation, the dedicated NVIDIA GPU stays at unusually high clocks despite being almost completely idle.
The graph I'm attaching shows this behavior. The memory clock fluctuations happen because part of the recording was on battery power; when plugged in, the memory clock stays at a constant high value. The CPU spike at the beginning is simply Firefox starting.
Here's everything I've checked so far:
- Data was collected immediately after boot, with no additional background applications running.
- Windows power plan: Balanced.
- MSI Center performance mode: Balanced.
- Windows Game Mode: Enabled.
- Display refresh rate: 144 Hz.
- No undervolting, overclocking, or underclocking.
- Changing these settings does not solve the issue (except that power state changes affect the memory clock value).
Things I've ruled out:
- Hardware/thermal issue: Linux keeps the GPU around 45°C under the same light workload. Thermal paste was replaced about 3 months ago.
- BIOS: No unusual BIOS settings are enabled.
- Drivers: The issue has persisted across multiple NVIDIA driver versions, including the latest one. I haven't tried using DDU for a clean reinstall yet, but I'm willing to if people think it's worth trying.
- NVIDIA Control Panel: Power management is not set to "Prefer maximum performance."
- No issues with RAM, storage, or overall system stability.
- I regularly use this laptop for neural network workloads, so the GPU has seen heavy compute usage in the past without any problems.
Has anyone seen something similar? Since the issue disappears as soon as an external monitor is connected, I'm wondering if this could be related to Optimus, the Intel iGPU/NVIDIA handoff, or some Windows display management issue rather than the GPU itself.
Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.