Mini S13 CPU limited at 750 MHz instead of 1 GHz

IJustShartedAKraken · 2026-09-07T11:12:49+00:00

Hi, I have a Beelink Mini S13 which I got mainly for hardware transcoding with Intel Quicksync. I’ve been rather disappointed with the performances until recently where I found out the integrated GPU seems to be limited at 750 MHz while being advertised at 1 GHz. . As follow the confirmation the integrated-GPU is 1GHz capable while only drawing 750 MHz while at 100% transcoding: $ cat /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_RP0_freq_mhz 1000 $ cat /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_cur_freq_mhz 1000 $ cat /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_act_freq_mhz 750 Coincidentally, looking into BIOS updates I found out MINISF001 BIOS updated was dedicated to bump the 750 MHz to 1000 MHz. I bumped to MINISF007 which should already have the update, and yet I’m still limited at 750 MHz. I initially thought I was throttled due to overheating but I tested hardware transcoding from a cold state (50 degree celsius). Settings confirming the GPU is 1GHz capable yet not having more than 750 MHz while at 100% transcoding: Since the BIOS seem to be shared between S12 and S13, could some settings intended for the S12’s N100 be restricting the S13’s N150 by the same way? SN: BN1505GF51988

Beelink CS-Bony

Sorry for the trouble.

Please follow the 2 steps below for positioning and resolution:

First, confirm that transcoding is truly running on the GPU: Install intel-gpu-tools and run “sudo intel_gpu_top -s 1000” to check the utilization rate of the Render/Video engine; if the Render/Video remains close to 0% for a long time, it indicates that QuickSync has not been truly enabled (ffmpeg must be accompanied by -hwaccels + -c:v h264_qsv or hevc_qsv), first troubleshoot the calling issue, and then discuss the frequency.
Soft-lock frequency to bypass the BIOS limit (key point): Set all three sysfs (min/max/boost) to 1000, restart and if it fails, persist it in the systemd service:
echo 1000 | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_min_freq_mhz
echo 1000 | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_max_freq_mhz
echo 1000 | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/gt_boost_freq_mhz
The official Intel documentation (the Lock Frequency section of the Frame Analyzer) uses this method to fix the GPU at the target frequency as a reference.