I purchased a Best Buy HP Spectre 14 OLED in May 2021, and have been mostly happy with it. I dual boot Linux, and HP's BIOS updates have fixed the last remaining quirks I had. However, the Command Center was always a bit hard to judge.

There are a lot of quirks to it, and I think most people judge each profile by fan noise and overall performance (Cinebench score, for example). I became particularly interested after a fresh Windows install, due to the notable change in fan curve and lower but quieter performance.

I wanted to compile some of my findings in this post to help current and future owners understand the HP Command Center. I will cover the Smart Sense, Balanced, and Performance profiles, as well as how I reinstalled, since it's sort of a weird process. I have no insider knowledge, so I could be wrong on some of this.

1. Choosing a Profile

TLDR: Smart Sense on battery, Smart Sense or Performance when plugged in. Never Balanced.

This is where I made mistakes before, which left me annoyed with the fan curve. I had been using Balanced or Performance most of the time. I came to my conclusions with a combination of Cinebench, HWMonitor, and Command Center.

Many complaints about fan noise & thermals on the Spectre relate to its boosting behavior. Essentially, it can seem like the Spectre ramps up to 99C and then hard thermal throttles, after which the fans kick in. And this is essentially the default behavior of the Balanced Profile, but there's more to it.

Each profile has its own combination of power limits and thermal limits, which really shows under sustained load. All share that same initial jump in temps with no fans. Balanced & Smart Sense top out at 97C, while Performance hits 99C.

During this same short burst, power consumption hits 35-41 Watts, seemingly unaffected by profile. I believe this is HP's way of speeding app opening without having to kick in the fans every time. My conclusion is it's a feature, not a bug.

After this burst, the processor obviously throttles, usually down to about 1Ghz for a few seconds. Behavior then diverges significantly.

Smart Sense - After hard throttle, the Spectre climbs back up in speed and temps. On battery, it settles in around 15W, 2.5Ghz-2.6Ghz, and 55C. Plugged in, it stays around 18W, 2.65Ghz-2.7Ghz, and 66C.

Performance - On battery, this severely limits clocks and TDP (same as Balanced results below). When plugged in, it behaves similarly to Smart Sense but averages 21W sustained and lets temps stay at 96C. Result is consistent 2.9Ghz speeds, much higher fans.

Balanced - On battery, TDP gets limited to 10W under sustained load with frequent drops. Clocks stayed between 1Ghz-1.6Ghz. Temps stayed at 55C. Plugged in, it underperformed Smart Sense in Cinebench by about 15% and had an annoying fan curve.

I find the above super interesting, because to me it's clear that HP really is using Intel's dynamic tuning to control thermals via TDP, rather than just use fans to mitigate & throttle when necessary.

All numbers above are the rough averages over time. I think the sustained average is the most important figure, because it is a decision rather than a byproduct of hardware/cooling. Smart Sense and Performance both boost to a higher power limit frequently during the plugged in run, 22W for Smart Sense and 28W for Performance.

2. Installing From Scratch

HP really needs to figure this out. You can get the app from Microsoft Store, but you can't search for it. Doesn't show up. You have to follow a direct link to it, which I found in a forum.

Someone had an HP rep offer to send it on a Recovery USB because they had no way to provide it digitally. Super weird for an app with its own dedicated button on the premium Spectre line.

But before installing HP Command Center, you have to install at least one SDK from HP's website. I installed both to be safe, ordered by release date.

This honestly feels more like getting software for a no-name Chinese keyboard than a core program pre-installed on a ton of HP laptops.

3. Conclusion

Make sure your Spectre is not set to Balanced. If you've chosen Performance before while plugged in, it will automatically switch to Balanced when you unplug. Once you select Smart Sense while on battery, it will remember the choice.

This is all just my experience and what I've pieced together from forums, reviews, etc. It also doesn't take into account GPU loads, which will likely change behavior. My next test will be to see whether HP Command Center prioritizes keeping the same temps or increases artificial limit to maintain clocks.

I'll come back to update this with results, a link to MS Store, and screenshots of power usage/clocks/temps/Cinebench scores.

If this helps you, please let me know. I can put together a Linux dual-boot guide if anyone is interested. I've tried a bunch of distros and applied various Spectre-specifics fixes from forums.