l3arrett82, I was doing something like you were doing. Swapping back and forth from Balanced to Performance Mode in windows. I did it quite often in fact. BUT one day I swapped it back to Balanced mode and suddenly the cpu no longer would idle down in speed. I knew it was not idling down as before when I swapped back and forth because I was looking at it in CPUz and CPUz updates every few parts of a second. I looked here and there and then I noticed a part of the "advanced" settings in Windows Power Mode was different where you can setup the CPU itself.
Where at one time I could set the cpu IDLE to a percentage of full speed and where there was a setting to adjust the MAX speed to a percentage >> BOTH of those settings were NO longer available to use as was previously available before swapping back and forth over a few months I guess. The only option still available under the actual cpu settings was the CPU Cooling option for either passive or active. That option used to be grouped with IDLE > CPU Cooling > MAX but the IDLE and MAX adjustments were just GONE from that section of Windows Power Mode > Advanced > CPU. Just Gone. Looked for days to find an answer. No ready answwers anywhere. So since I don't play around with the computer I need, I just RE-installed Windows and the option was there again and I changed the settings back to what they were in IDLE mode and the cpu went back to doing as before. SO I don't just swap the Windows Power Manager back and forth from software like I was doing. I now go in bios and change the speed and actions of my Cpu from there.
Computers that I must use, I seldom if ever do any changing to anymore. I need them. This was a play computer and I did use it for my Video editting but otherwise, I was able to RE-install Win 7 without too too much grief. The software adjusting of cpu speeds has been more of a curse to me and others lately since it came on the scene. We used to do it when I benchmarked for scores day in and day out. But that was for funzies and the O/S was RE-installed pretty darn regular anyway. So no biggie. In your case you were just changing for the heck of it and seem bitten by something similar to what I saw after changing power modes for a month or two. I got bitten for sure. I looked for a way to 'repair' the way Power Manager worked and could not unearth anything, so I RE-installed Win 7 and everything was back to the way it was. I did the swap around of Windows Power Manager for months maybe before my problem surfaced. You seem to have done it once or so and you now seem bitten.
RGone...