How to fix CPU frequency spikes on ASRock H310CM-ITX/ac?
Whenever the flashy sword effects kick in, my frame rate tanks from 60 FPS down to 32 FPS, making the combat feel completely clunky and unresponsive. I dug into the logs and found that the default power-saving mode on the ASRock H310CM-ITX/ac has a massive response lag of 120-160ms when hitting transient loads, causing the CPU clock to bounce wildly between 2.4GHz and 3.6GHz. I first tried the Windows High Performance plan, but that was a joke—I gained maybe 5 FPS on average, but the micro-stutters actually got worse, which was incredibly frustrating. I eventually went into the BIOS, disabled C-States entirely, and locked the power management to High Performance. Monitoring with HWiNFO showed the core clock finally pinned at 3.6GHz, and my frame times tightened up from a messy 15-30ms to a consistent 12-16ms. I did hit a snag where my idle power draw jumped by 12W after disabling power saving, but I managed to balance it out by applying a -0.050V voltage offset. Now the board stays between 48-55℃ and the gameplay is buttery smooth. I verified the frequency curve is finally flat, with frame times locked at 12-16ms.
