Hi everyone,
I recently got a Lenovo Legion 7i 2025 laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (Arrow Lake) CPU.
I’m running Manjaro Linux (kernel 6.17) and noticed that when compiling large projects (like AOSP or the Linux kernel), my CPU clocks stay around 1.6–1.8 GHz, far below the expected boost frequencies.
On Bechmarks, it is the same. On Windows with the latest drivers from Lenovo site, the CPU is performing as expected.
My understanding so far
The CPU supports Intel’s new Arrow Lake architecture, and I suspect that:
Kernel 6.17 may not yet include full support for Intel Arrow Lake power/thermal management (intel_pstate or HWP),
Or, Manjaro’s power profile daemon / governor settings might not fully enable boost under these workloads.
What I’ve already tried
- Set power mode to Performance:
sudo bash -c 'for f in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/energy_performance_preference; do echo performance > $f; done'
Also confirmed Manjaro KDE power settings are set to Performance.
- Checked turbo state:
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo
→ Output: 0 (so turbo is enabled)
- Confirmed CPU governor settings:
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor
Shows “performance”, but frequencies remain low (~1.7GHz average) during make -j$(nproc).
- Monitored real-time frequency using:
watch -n 1 “grep ‘cpu MHz’ /proc/cpuinfo”
→ rarely exceeds 2.0GHz while compiling, though all cores are active.
-
Thermals are fine:
CPU temps stay around 55°C, no thermal throttling. -
Tried BIOS tweaks:
My BIOS is quite minimal (Lenovo Legion firmware).
Could not find explicit Performance or Extreme modes in BIOS.
-
BIOS is up to date (latest version from Lenovo).
-
Verified kernel driver:
dmesg | grep intel
→ Shows intel_pstate loaded, but not much detail about Arrow Lake.
- Manjaro Kernel 6.18 (from “testing” branch), but I only took the Kernel
Nothing actually improved
Environment
OS: Manjaro Linux (latest)
Kernel: 6.17
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (Arrow Lake)
Laptop: Lenovo Legion 7i 2025
Governor: performance
Power mode: performance
BIOS: latest Lenovo firmware
Symptoms: Low sustained CPU frequency (~1.7GHz) during compilation workloads, full boost only in Windows 11.
What I’d like help with
Is this a kernel / intel_pstate compatibility issue with Arrow Lake?
Any way to force HWP turbo boost or disable energy bias in Linux for this CPU?
Any BIOS or firmware-level workaround to stop the CPU from downclocking under high thread count loads?