If you often work with a laptop on the go, you may enjoy the laptop to be a bit cooler when it is in your lap.

One simple way to achieve this is by limiting the maximum frequency of the CPU, and for this to happen, you do not have to go into the BIOS or to search for some advanced settings, it’s very easy. And there’s no need to reboot the machine — you can change the setting at any time!

A bit of backstory

All modern Intel CPU’s are using Intel Turbo Boost Technology.

When on a battery, if you set the “Maximum processor state” in Power Options to be 99% instead of the default 100%, the CPU will work in its standard clock range and will not make the extra “turbo boost jump” when an application requires more processing power — instead it will reach only the standard maximum clock. Some people claim that it is bad to disable the “extra boost” clock option of the CPU but in my opinion, it is absolutely fine when:

• you’re not playing games on your laptop,
• you’re not doing some critically important CPU-intensive work,
• and you want to trade some extra CPU clocks for more comfortably cool laptop surfaces.

How?

All you need to do is to open Power Options and do a little tweak there. Steps (on Windows 10 Pro):

1. Press the Windows button and search for “Edit power plan”, then open it.

2. The “Change settings for the plan: Power saver” (or whatever power plan you’re currently using) will open. Press “Change advanced power settings” in this window.

3. “Power Options” will open. Look for “Processor power management” at the end of the list.

4. Change the “Maximum processor state” → “On battery (%)” from the default “100” to “99”. Press Apply. (Note: Leave the “Plugged in (%)” at the default “100”.)

That’s it!

Now if (for example) your Intel CPU has a standard max clock of 3.3 GHz and a max Turbo Frequency of 4.4 GHz, the CPU will stop at 3.3 GHz when you are using your laptop on battery. When the laptop is on AC power, it will reach 4.4 GHz since you left the other setting at “100”.

This will lead to slightly lower temperatures of the bottom of the laptop as well as of its keyboard, even when you do some more CPU-intensive work on the laptop.

If at any moment you want max performance again — follow the same set of steps, and change the “99” to “100” for the “On battery” setting, done!