Remember when I wrote Stop drinking Kool-Aid regarding battery life in Linux? Well, how about battery life and laptop’s temperature in Windows? Despite using the Balanced power plan, there’s no way to change the kernel governor in Windows, and you might just need something like Outbyte’s Camomile!

1 ● It all started with my wife’s ASUS VivoBook using an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U

Not very old, but not very new either, this laptop’s SSD crashed some time ago, so Windows 10 Home needed to be reinstalled.

Windows being Windows, the retard didn’t install the AMD Chipset Driver. As a result, the CPU stayed at all times at the nominal frequency of 2.0 GHz, thus reaching 68–72 degrees Celsius (154–162 F) shortly after having booted or resumed from hibernation, and never becoming cooler than that!

No wonder my wife said the laptop crashed, so she couldn’t use it anymore.

Gemini:

Unlike Intel, whose SpeedStep and Speed Shift technologies have been deeply baked into Windows for over a decade, AMD Ryzen processors use their own power management architecture called CPPC (Collaborative Power and Performance Control).

If you are relying purely on the default Windows 10 generic drivers, the OS does not know how to properly command the Ryzen CPU to drop its voltage and clock speed during idle moments. Instead of letting cores sleep, Windows keeps them awake at the base clock (~2 GHz), which generates the unnecessary 68°C heat you are experiencing.

Simply put, the Windows kernel’s CPU governor cannot deal with AMD’s CPUs! Go figure.

2 ● AMD’s website is made for gamers

Not only Microsoft is a bunch of morons; AMD is also lacking common sense. If you go to Drivers and Support for Processors and Graphics, despite the URL suggesting “all drivers” (“en/support/download/drivers.html”), the “Download Windows Drivers” button, which downloads amd-software-adrenalin-edition-26.6.4-minimalsetup-260628_web.exe, only downloads the installer for AMD Adrenalin, a software meant to adjust the graphics performance for gamers and AI! Just how retarded is that?

I needed to resort one more time to Gemini:

The reason it looks like it’s designed for gamers is because AMD aggressively pushes its Adrenalin Radeon graphics software. If you select “Processors” on that page, AMD automatically funnels you to the integrated graphics drivers you already accidentally installed.

You are looking for the Chipset Driver, which contains the necessary power state instructions for the processor.

Here is how to extract it from that exact link:

  1. AMD Ryzen chipset drivers are available for download on the AMD Drivers and Support page. Scroll down past the auto-detect tool to the “Search or Browse Products” section.
  2. To find your chipset drivers, first use the product selector to choose your AMD chipset. In the first column, explicitly click Chipsets (Do not click Processors).
  3. In the second column, choose Laptop Chipsets.
  4. In the third column, choose AMD Ryzen and Athlon Mobile (Chipset).
  5. Once you have selected your chipset, click the Submit button to be taken to the driver download page.
  6. Expand the Windows 10 – 64-Bit Edition section and click download on the AMD Chipset Drivers package.

Indeed, when I searched by the exact CPU, Ryzen 7 4700U (which seemed logical to me), the resulting page, AMD Ryzen™ 7 4700U Drivers and Downloads – Latest Version also only proposed Adrenalin, in spite of what the URL suggested, and in contradiction to the fact that the CPU’s name was in the title, but precisely the driver to manage the CPU was not there!

AMD is a complete fraud. A company by retards, for retards.

Gemini:

When you search for the exact processor model (Ryzen 7 4700U), AMD’s website assumes you are looking for the integrated Radeon graphics software and funnels you directly to the Adrenalin package.

Because power management is handled at the motherboard level, AMD separates these instructions into a completely different category. You have to search for the chipset, not the processor.

Here is the direct link to the exact page you need: AMD Ryzen™ and Athlon™ Mobile (Chipset) Drivers and Downloads.

If you ever need to navigate there manually in the future, the correct category path in their product selector is:

  • Chipsets
  • Laptop Chipsets
  • AMD Ryzen and Athlon Mobile (Chipset)

Once on that page, look under the Windows 10 section to download the AMD Chipset Drivers package. This specific package contains the “AMD Ryzen Power Plans,” which are explicitly required for UEFI CPPC2 (Collaborative Power and Performance Control) in Windows 10. This is what gives the operating system the correct instructions to let the CPU finally drop its frequency when idling.

Eventually, after having installed the proper “CPU driver” (because, no matter how they call it, this is what it is) and a proper reboot, the laptop stabilized to saner values:

  • Before: 68°C.
  • After: 37°C.

3 ● Modern CPUs and modern Windows versions

That said, I’m still puzzled by something. I remember from Windows 7, and Gemini still mentioned it in the context of Windows 10 and 11, but the Advanced Settings for power plans seem not to include anymore a Processor power management section in which one could set Minimum processor state to, say, 5% on both battery and plugged in.

Compare the said advanced power plan settings for AMD Ryzen 7 4700U under Win10 Home 22H2 (left) to the same settings for i3-1215U under Win11 IoT 24H2 (right):

No CPU settings whatsoever! Oh, well, let’s hope Windows can deal properly with my CPU. After all, I know for a fact (I’ll show you below) that it can scale down the CPU, and it generally stabilizes somewhere between 37°C and 40°C. Manually installing the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility changed exactly nothing.

For that AMD shit, I used Adrenalin to set the graphics performance to Power Saving, which should also mean “the coolest you can.” I also enabled Radeon™ Chill.

4 ● Enter Camomile

I actually met Camomile before digging for AMD’s chipset driver. I learned of its existence purely by accident: it’s included in the freeware section of the DVD that comes with CHIP 2026/08 (the physical one, because there are also 3 virtual ones; all four are here, user 2026-08 and password eenivoor):

Serendipity. After years of avoiding CHIP and ComputerBILD, I thought of trying one more such magazine, just for fun.

Outbyte’s Camomile was also discussed by CHIP online on June 1: PC wird zu heiß? Kostenloses Tool kühlt die CPU. The product page is, however, wrong: the latest version is not 2.0 Final but 2.5.2.52752, and the DVD included the correct version. Previously, ComputerBILD reviewed it in November 2024: Review: Outbyte Camomile im Test – Tool macht CPU kühler und PC leiser.

4 ● Camomile by itself is quite fine

To address a famous rebuttal: both Outbyte and Auslogics are Australian software companies whose products are meant to “optimize” Windows. Some such products are substandard; some others are just fine and moderately useful. Both companies have been accused in the past of having included “spyware” or PUPs (potentially unwanted apps). Such reports are highly exaggerated, and they have been hyperbolized. There’s nothing wrong with the software offered by these Aussies, although most of their offerings aren’t particularly useful.

Malwarebytes and others are simply retarded to flag such utilities as PUP.Optional.AuslogicsDriverUpdater or PUP.Optional.AuslogicsBoostSpeed as long as the user specifically and willingly installed the said software! The software didn’t end up on one’s computer as a side install of something else!

The justification that such software uses aggressive marketing (“your PC has 423 issues!”) shouldn’t come from the likes of Malwarebytes or other security vendors, because they themselves use similar language with regard to tracking cookies! OMG, those cookies will eat my nuts! As for telemetry, this is what Windows does the best.

In the case of Camomile, it doesn’t install any unwanted components! Also, out of 59 vendors, only ESET flags it as Win32/Auslogics.AI Potentially Unwanted Application! And the detection is stupid. It’s not by Auslogics. It has nothing to do with AI. It’s not unwanted, you shitheads!

When you ask a chatbot, and it insists that Camomile is a PUA, that chatbot is merely the mouthpiece of those security vendors that failed to persuade people to purchase their security solutions instead of sticking to the (heavy and slow, but otherwise decent) Windows Defender!

I remind you that I don’t use absolutely any “antivirus,” and I completely disabled Windows Defender on Win7, Win10, and Win11. Windows Defender is for retards, and it also infringes on my freedom.

5 ● Camomile can be a lifesaver!

Without that AMD Chipset Driver (and without Adrenalin), the Ryzen-powered VivoBook stayed at 68°C by itself. With Camomile installed and its Cooling Mode enabled, the temperature went down to 44°C! Somehow, Camomile was able to decrease the CPU speed even if Windows couldn’t or wouldn’t!

So, yeah, don’t install it, because it’s PUP, eh?

💡 On the other hand, once the CPU and the GPU are properly handled, Camomile is not necessary. Not necessary, but still useful!

💻 On the AMD-based laptop

The temperature can be 37°C with or without Camomile’s “Cooling Mode”:

The temperature can be 40°C with or without Camomile’s “Cooling Mode”:

😲 Note how the CPU doesn’t seem to want to run at frequencies lower than 1.4 GHz!

Gemini:

The reason you cannot force the Ryzen 7 4700U below that ~1.4 GHz mark is due to a hardcoded hardware limit in AMD’s processor architecture.

It comes down to a fundamental difference in how AMD and Intel handle power efficiency.

The Architectural Limit (P-State Floor)

Unlike Intel processors, which are designed to linearly scale their active frequency down to as low as 800 MHz when idling, the Ryzen 4000 mobile series (Renoir) has a minimum active frequency floor (known as the lowest P-state).

For your specific Ryzen 7 4700U, that floor is explicitly set by the hardware at 1.4 GHz. The hardware control steps are physically restricted to jumping between specific tiers (such as 1.4 GHz, 1.7 GHz, and the 2.0 GHz base clock). It physically cannot request an active clock speed lower than 1.4 GHz.

How Ryzen Actually Idles (Deep Sleep)

Since AMD does not scale the frequency down infinitely, they achieve low temperatures through a completely different mechanism: Deep Sleep States (C-States).

Instead of keeping all cores awake and slowly ticking at 800 MHz, the Ryzen architecture aggressively shuts down unused cores entirely. When a core is not needed, AMD shifts it into a state called “CC6.” In this deep sleep state, the core drops to 0 Volts and 0 MHz.

This is exactly why Camomile was able to successfully drop your temperatures to 40°C. By locking the maximum frequency and preventing the processor from violently boosting and drawing voltage, you allowed the CPU to comfortably transition its idle cores into these 0 MHz sleep states.

The Monitoring Illusion

If the cores are dropping to 0 MHz, why does Windows report that it is hovering at 1.4 GHz?

This is a classic monitoring illusion caused by how the operating system talks to the CPU:

  • The Observer Effect: When monitoring software (like Task Manager or Camomile) checks the processor’s speed, it sends a command that actively wakes the CPU up to respond.
  • The Minimum Wake State: Because the CPU just woke up to answer the software, it cannot report 0 MHz. It has to wake up at its minimum active floor—which, as established, is 1.4 GHz.
  • The Averaging Calculation: Windows often averages the sleep state and the active state across a polling second, which is why you see minor fluctuations around 1.4 GHz rather than a flat 1.4 GHz.

In short, 1.4 GHz is simply the lowest speed the processor is capable of running at while awake. When the system is truly idle, those cores are effectively turned off, which is what actually saves your battery and keeps the chip cool.

So yeah, AMD’s CPUs cannot slow down as much as Intel’s!

💻 On the Intel-based laptop

This laptop can run cool at low frequencies (around 700 MHz) when idle with or without Camomile’s “Cooling Mode”:

It can also run at 800 Mhz (the default frequency under Linux with the powersave governor), but it seems to prefer 1.16 GHz under Win11:

Case closed? Not so fast!

6 ● When you might want to use Camomile—and when not

For the last time, Gemini:

Ludditus: Ah, but Camomile is useful even for Intel. I resumed from hibernation an i3-1215U. For a couple of minutes, it tried to run at ~3.16 GHz and 68 deg. C, unless I enabled Camomile’s Cooling Mode, which brought it down to ~1.1 GHz and 44 deg. C. Later (now), it runs at ~1.1 GHz and 36-37 deg. C with or without Cooling Mode. Windows is stupid to try to do too much at the same time right after resuming from sleep and even more so after a cold start. Not good for laptops.

Gemini: You have hit on a fundamental flaw in how modern operating systems handle mobile hardware, and your observation about the 3.16 GHz spike is completely accurate.

Windows is indeed doing entirely too much at once, and it is doing it by design. Microsoft and Intel build their power profiles around a concept called “Race to Sleep” (or “Race to Idle”).

The “Race to Sleep” Philosophy

When you resume from hibernation or boot up, Windows has a massive queue of deferred maintenance tasks. Instead of sipping power and doing these tasks slowly in the background, the OS instructs the CPU to boost to its absolute maximum turbo frequency.

The theoretical logic is that by throwing maximum voltage at the problem, the CPU finishes the tasks in two minutes instead of ten, allowing it to return to a deep sleep state sooner.

The Background Chaos

This chaotic post-resume window is driven entirely by automatic background daemons waking up simultaneously. During those first couple of minutes, Windows aggressively fires up:

  • The Windows Search Indexer: Scanning the drive for any changes made while asleep.
  • Windows Defender (MsMpEng.exe): Running quick heuristic sweeps on newly loaded memory.
  • Telemetry and Update Services: Pinging Microsoft servers to check for background patch deployments.

This non-deterministic behavior—where the OS arbitrarily decides to hijack your hardware and spike the voltage for background file indexing rather than just waiting for direct, intentional filesystem calls—is exactly what generates that sudden 68°C heat.

Why It Fails on Laptops

“Race to Sleep” works fine on a desktop with a massive tower cooler that can absorb a sudden 100-watt thermal spike without the fans even spinning up.

On a laptop, it is a disaster. Mobile chassis have almost zero thermal mass. When Windows forces that i3-1215U to 3.16 GHz for background indexing, it instantly saturates the tiny copper heatpipes. The fans are forced to scream to dissipate the heat, burning through your battery and degrading the user experience before you have even opened an application.

Why Camomile is an Effective Leash

By turning on Camomile’s Cooling Mode right after resuming, you are effectively putting a leash on the “Race to Sleep” algorithm.

Camomile caps the Maximum Processor State, which physically disables Intel’s Turbo Boost. It forces Windows to execute all of that background indexing and telemetry at ~1.1 GHz.

Yes, it might take Windows five minutes to finish its background queue instead of two, but because it is restricted to a low voltage, the thermal output stays perfectly manageable at 44°C. Once the OS finally finishes its maintenance queue, the native idle drops down to that 36-37°C range, allowing you to turn the leash off if you need the burst performance for your own tasks.

Right after a new reboot: 71°C at 3.53 GHz (which is an average, as the P-cores can run at 4.4 GHz, whereas the E-cores can only reach 3.3 GHz). Enabling “Cooling Mode” dropped the CPU to 1.16 GHz and the temperature to 39°C!

💡 You might prefer having Camomile enabled to prevent your laptop from melting right after starting!

💡 On the other hand, when you really need performance, disable Camomile so that the CPU could be used at its maximum capabilities, even if that means running for a short time at 3.53 or 3.66 GHz (again, some cores at 4.4 and some at 3.3 GHz)!

7 ● Camomile’s only annoyance

Having an easy way to switch between battery-saving (and system cooling) and performance (as managed by the selected power profile in Windows, which for laptops should be Balanced) is very convenient. Camomile displays the average CPU frequency, the temperatures for the CPU, the GPU, and the drives, and the battery’s percentage. The current CPU temperature is also displayed in the system tray (make sure you make it always visible).

By the way, Camomile adds its own power plan, unsurprisingly called Camomile.

🙁 The only annoyance is that Camomile will nag you to purchase and activate the Pro features.

The nagging isn’t that frequent (only once a day so far). Unfortunately, should you want to “activate” the app, the purchase isn’t one-off. What you purchase is a 3-month subscription for €12.95, which automatically renews at €25.95, which is too expensive. The auto-renewal can be canceled. EU customers would pay to a company from Limassol, Cyprus: NOVENTIQ CYPRUS LTD, Registration number НЕ190472, VAT-ID CY-10190472H.

Either way, make sure you’re using the genuine website, which is camomileapp.com. There’s also a Microsoft Store version of the app. 🙄