@syedwafihasan (Wafi Hasan) posted a new topic, subject "CPU governor randomly switching to Powersave, thus heavily limiting performance". It read:

   Good day, everyone. I have a small, low power laptop with a Pentium N3710 processor @ 2.56 GHz. Recently I've been facing an issue where the CPU governor changes randomly to Powersave, thus bringing the core clock speed from 2560 MHz to 480 MHz. As you can imagine, this heavily limits performance on an already low end CPU.
    
    I tried `cpupower-gui` from the AUR (I think) and it failed to make any changes whatsoever. The frequency was locked to 480 MHz, despite manually adjusting it or explicitly setting CPU governor as performance. Only a reboot solves it. I also tried installing the 5.10 LTS kernel, but it only made the problem worse.
    
    I don't know how to reproduce this bug either. It just happens on its own. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
    
    System specifications :  
    Intel Pentium N3710 @ 2.56 GHz  
    4 GB RAM  
    Manjaro KDE (all updates applied as of writing)  
    Kernel 4.19 LTS
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

To which @Wollie replied

    Welcome here, @syedwafihasan
    
    Have you tried to switch the governor to **performance** as described here:
    
    High CPU usage since a few days Laptop
    
    > Welcome here, @sixtyfive In your case I would try to use cpupower command to change CPU governor from powersave to performance: First check status: cpupower frequency-info Then check available governors by: cpupower frequency-info -g I guess, performance will be in the list being provided. Then switch to performance governor: sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance 
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

After which, @pobrn added

    Isn't it possible that `tlp` makes the change?
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

Then @syedwafihasan (Wafi Hasan) said

    This is actually the first link I followed, after a quick Google search. None of the methods here worked. It seemed like the CPU locked itself down for some reason. Neither the command line nor the GUI could make the frequency rise up again.
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

After which, @Wollie added

    Have you tried other kernels?
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

So @syedwafihasan (Wafi Hasan) replied

    I'm not entirely convinced of that, because the issue happens at random, and not after any kind of power input change from AC to battery or vice versa.  
    Manually setting `tlp` to AC mode also didn't help.
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

To which @syedwafihasan (Wafi Hasan) replied

    Only 4.19 and 5.10.
    
    The issue started after I explicitly installed 5.10, so I naturally assumed that the bug was related to the kernel. But downgrading it back to 4.19 didn't eradicate the issue. It certainly did make it extremely less frequent, as compared to 5.10, but it is still there.
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

So @Wollie replied

    Try 5.4 & 4.14 as well.
    
    Also in trying to solve it it could be theoretically that you have unwillingly changed some settings which now make it difficult to solve the issue. To find out if this could be an issue you could make a fresh user account and start with fresh settings.
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

So @syedwafihasan (Wafi Hasan) replied

    Okay sir (please correct me if I'm wrong). I will install both kernels if the problem resurfaces. Will update as it goes.  
    Edit : Sorry, didn't see the user thingy earlier. Will do.
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

@nikgnomic (nikgnomic) replied

    Package `cpupower` includes a systemd service to set the CPU governor at system boot, but the service is not active on Manjaro and has to be configured for the correct governor
    
    Open the configuration file in a text editor  
    (other text editors are available, but nano is usually installed on any version of Manjaro)
    [code] 
        sudo nano /etc/default/cpupower
        
    [/code]
    
    add the setting for the performance governor
    [code] 
        # Define CPUs governor
        # valid governors: ondemand, performance, powersave, conservative, userspace.
        #governor='ondemand'
        governor='performance'
        
    [/code]
    
    Use `Ctrl` \+ `O` to save the file and `Ctrl` \+ ` X` to exit nano
    
    Then enable and start the systemd service
    [code] 
        systemctl enable --now cpupower.service
        
    [/code]
      *[VC]: Virtual Console

After which, @linux-aarhus added

    *[VC]: Virtual Console


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