Why does my handheld drop clocks in handheld mode but jumps up when docked?

[Carter Parker]

So I’ve been running the same three games on my T239-based handheld both docked and in battery mode, and the difference is honestly crazy. In docked mode I’m getting steady 60fps in AAA titles with the APU pegging around 1.6-1.8 GHz, but the second I pop it out of the dock and play on battery the clocks just crawl to like 0.9-1.1 GHz and I lose 20-30 fps overnight. I know there’s some power budget thing going on, but I want to actually understand WHY the system throttles so hard in handheld mode. Is it just the TDP ceiling, or is memory bandwidth also getting cut? And what’s the deal with the DVFS curves between the two modes? I’ve seen people tweak the power profile in the D-Balancer and custom fan curves but I don’t even know where to start.

I’m mostly trying to figure out if there’s a way to push more headroom in handheld mode without melting the battery in five minutes, or if I should just accept docked = real performance. Anyone who’s dug into how the clock and voltage scaling actually differs between profiles?

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