i7-12700H Constant PL2 Throttling – Severe Performance Issues (Inspiron 7620)

Hi all,

I’m honestly a bit at a loss here and hope someone (maybe even Dell) can shed some light on this. 

Device:
Dell Inspiron 7620 Plus (i7-12700H), Service Tag: <To protect your privacy, all private information was removed from this public post. DELL-Admin>

~3 years old only, originally ~1600€ “premium” configuration, usually I run 1500-2000€ machines for 5 years+ easily! My first DELL btw, and maybe my last... 

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Issue:

For the past 2–3 weeks, my system has been heavily power throttling almost all the time (90–95%).

Performance is extremely poor – basic things like opening Explorer or a browser tab can take several seconds, sometimes even rendering UI elements step by step.

In ThrottleStop / Intel XTU I’m mostly seeing PL2 (power limit 2) as the limiting factor. Thermal throttling is not the issue, and what’s odd is that this often happens while the fans are barely spinning.

Also: CPU is reported as locked, no power limits adjustable.

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What I’ve already tried (pretty much everything I can think of):

• Fresh Windows install (on a brand new NVMe) → same issue immediately

• BIOS reset to factory defaults

• BIOS reflashed to latest version again (was already newest version)

• BIOS diagnostics → no errors

• AC adapter correctly detected (90W in BIOS)

• Different power setups:

  • 100W USB-C chargers

  • Dell monitor with PD

  • 130W barrel charger
    → no difference, same behavior even on battery

• Windows power plan = maximum performance

• BIOS performance mode = Ultra Performance

• Live Linux test → same issue

• Power draw at the wall: usually only ~35–40W under load

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Behavior:

Very rarely, the CPU suddenly behaves normally (40W+), and everything is fine. But after a few minutes it drops back down hard (~10W range). So it’s not completely broken, but almost always stuck in a severely limited state.

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My take:

At this point it really looks like some kind of power / EC / VRM-related limitation or control issue, not a software problem.

What’s a bit frustrating is that (from what I’ve read) Dell seems to be quite restrictive and opaque when it comes to power management / EC firmware behavior, and as a power user it’s hard to even understand what exactly is enforcing these limits.

I’m not trying to push the system beyond specs – I’d just like it to deliver the performance it’s clearly capable of (and briefly does sometimes).

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Questions:

• Any idea what could be triggering constant PL2 limiting like this?

• Anything else I can check or log to narrow this down further?

• Does this point to a known issue or possible hardware defect?

Would really appreciate any input – especially if someone from Dell has insights into how these limits are enforced.

Thanks!