Solved Power plan will not stay on Balanced

I'm not sure when this started, but a few days ago I noticed that my CPU was not throttling down like it used to. It turned out to be because my Power Plan setting was on High Performance. I swapped it to Balanced, saw the CPU throttle properly, and forgot it for a few days. Then I noticed it doing the same thing. Same issue, I switched to Balanced and it worked properly. But about 5 seconds later, it switched back to High Performance.

I also tried just changing advanced settings so that the High Power plan matched the Balanced plan. While I was able to do that, it did not help and the CPU still does not throttle down properly.

I am not overclocking, and just to be certain I have reset my BIOS to default settings and the problem persists. I am not running any software or apps that have the ability to change that setting as far as I know. I tried using GPEdit to set the power plan to balanced, and it didn't help. Still changed back to High Performance. It seems I can't find any way to keep it from setting itself to High Performance, and I have no idea why it's doing it. At this point I have no idea what else to check and am hoping someone here might have an idea or two I can try.

Thanks in advance!


MSI Z590-A
I5-11400
32 Gb Corsair ram

Windows 11 build 22000.348 co_release

try this-in search box type troubleshoot-click 'other troubleshooters'-find power in the list and run its troubleshooter
restart your computer and use one of the methods in Brink's tutorial HERE to select a plan

If per chance you find your power plans are missing see this tutorial HERE.

Like the new red text message @glasskuter

glasskuter said:

try this-in search box type troubleshoot-click 'other troubleshooters'-find power in the list and run its troubleshooter
restart your computer and use one of the methods in Brink's tutorial HERE to select a plan

If per chance you find your power plans are missing see this tutorial HERE.

Click to expand...

Glasskuter, thanks for the suggestions. I ran the troubleshooter and it determined that I was on the High Performance plan and recommended choosing Balanced. I chose Balanced and it changed it. By the time I opened Control Panel to check, it was back on High Performance.

Same thing doing it by command prompt. I used the tutorial to set it to Balanced, it changed right back to High Performance. I'm stumped.

Richj44 said:

Glasskuter, thanks for the suggestions. I ran the troubleshooter and it determined that I was on the High Performance plan and recommended choosing Balanced. I chose Balanced and it changed it. By the time I opened Control Panel to check, it was back on High Performance.

Same thing doing it by command prompt. I used the tutorial to set it to Balanced, it changed right back to High Performance. I'm stumped.

Click to expand...

Is there any MSI utilities running? If there is... it/they may be calling home to MSI and MSI may be changing the power plan.

Windows Updates will sometimes change the power plan as well.

Updating a chipset driver can change the power plans also.

I had this problem also. It took me a while to fix it.
I can't remember exactly what it was that fixed it.

Maybe it was a complete reset.

There are a few suggestions on this site

Or maybe try this (at your own risk) and you will loose any customised plan

1. Launch Command Prompt (Admin) > type powercfg –restoredefaultschemes >hit Enter to reset the power plan settings to default.
2. Exit command prompt to remove all customized power plans.
3. Create a new power plan and customize it according to your needs.

There must be some application running at startup, llogin, or whaever that is changing the power plan. You will have to ferret it out.

Ghot said:

Is there any MSI utilities running? If there is... it/they may be calling home to MSI and MSI may be changing the power plan.

Click to expand...

Thank you! Yes, I had installed MSI Center and some of the associated items. My first thought was the MSI DPC Latency Tuner so I got rid of it, but no change. Then I uninstalled something called MSI Center SDK. Not even sure where it came from, I think it installed automatically when I installed MSI Center. Regardless, that seems to have done the trick. At least for the last 30 minutes and through a couple of reboots, I'm still sitting on Balanced.

Thanks much for the suggestion, it seems pretty obvious in retrospect but I would never have thought of it...obviously :)

And thanks to everyone else who offered suggestions as well, I really appreciate the response.

@Richj44 Fingers crossed it stays on balanced. Glad to help / offer suggestions. There are some really clever and helpful people on here