not much to it, undervolt CPU/GPU/cache in small increments (like, -75 mV at a time) until it starts to freeze or reboot, back off a bit, test for a day or two then set and forget. usually -150 mV is achievable and that makes a significant difference for the battery, coupled with turning turbo off for intel_pstate driver. if it doesn't work, bad luck with the silicon lottery and also them models are what 8 years old at this point, so there's also wear and tear in the form of electron migration.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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This guy’s right on the money. That’s about as far as I got with my T470. Be sure to stress test it with some hot, CPU-heavy action to make sure it doesn’t freeze. I was able to get mine down to about -120 mV, but raising that a little bit made it more stable.
I haven't played with undervolting on Linux yet, but I do recall that there was the Plundervolt vulnerability a while back, to which OEMs responded with BIOS updates that disabled undervolting.