Undervolting my M4400, a few questions

Hey,

I want to undervolt my Presicion M4400 as per this guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

A few questions as I embark!

1) Does it matter how much power my M4400 draws when I do this? That is if I later attach USB drives, add a 2nd hardrive to optical bay, should I take these into account? I assume no but just checking.

2) After doing the first stress test I got max temps of 76C on CPU, after lowering the max 10.0 multiplier voltage and running it for 10 min I got max temps of 79C. Something must be wrong?

In RMClock's CPU info page (see pic. 1) the "current" 10.0x multiplier reads 1.1250V when Im doing the stress test although I've set the 10.0 multiplier to 1.1500V (default max is 1.2500V) on the profile page (see pic 2).

Shouldn't the read outs correspond with the set max voltage? Also on the RMClock CPU info page (see pic. 1) the "maximal" 10.0x readout is 1.2500V which is again different from the set 1.1500V.

Is this normal or have the setting not been saved or something?

3) On the advanced CPU settings page my thermal monitoring is not checked (see pic 3) this differs from the Undervolting guide screenshots and is not specified if these should be on?

Thanks!

Sami

 

Im running the Orthos stress test for 10.0x multiplier at 1.0000V and the CPU temps are around 64C. Oh boy, that is low... This will be a great thing!

Another question, it was noted that a too low voltage would result in a blue screen, but at 10.0x 0.9750V the Orthos stopped and reported:

"FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Torture Test ran 10 minutes 52 seconds - 1 errors, 0 warnings.
Execution halted."

So I guess this means it reached the limit? I took the voltage up two notches to 1.0000V and stress test seems to be running fine now.

Sami

 

When you drop below the minimum voltage, weird things happen- BSOD, FATAL ERROR Messages, spontaneous crashes/shut downs....but that's the sign that you've hit the low end and need to bump it up two or three notches.

Undervolting is a beautiful thing, especially on the M2400/M4400 and Latitude E6400/E6500...thermal management is the only complaint I had with my E6400 and I fixed it by undervolting...all is well!

 

You are correct.

Perhaps you had not reached the maximum temperature during the first test.

Did you also tick all the boxes for the P states transitions on the Performance on Demand page?

The maximal voltage is based on what is stored in the CPU, not what you have set.

No problem. I haven't got these enabled either (but I do have the C4 sleep states enabled).

Software such as Prime95 (and, I presume Orthos) have built-in error checks which can sometimes detect errors before you get to the BSOD. I recommend that you run an overnight stress test and then set the final voltage two further steps above what you have determined to be a safe voltage. This will give some headroom for higher temperatures, either for renewed fluff build-up or summer.

I also suggest you enable the SLFM option (which is enough for light usage). I also use auto-interpolate for the intermediate voltages. I don't feel it is worth spending time optimising these because the CPU spends most of its time on the slowest or fastest speeds.

John

 

Hey guys,

I've finally did the undervolting last night too. Last time i looked at the guide you still needed to install unsigned x64 drivers which required changing settings in the OS that didn't seem all to safe to me.
Undervolted and ran the test and i went from a max of 92C to 73C....with just the first 0.100 step. I'll try lowering it further when i have more test time but this is already a major difference here
Only downside is that i'll need to look for other means to keep my legs warm in this cold weather

 

Yes, I dont know what the problem was, seems to be ok now... It seems if you go back and forth the settings pages in RMClock the computer goes back to its own power management profile.

Do these settings take effect when the computer hibernates or also when its in screensaver mode (same as idle right)?

Is there an added advantage to this since at the moment I have the index one and two multipliers already set to the lowest possible voltage of 0.8250V. So I'd have index 1 at 6.0x with 0.8250V and index 0 (SLFM) at the same, 6.0x at 0.8250V?

Its pretty amazing! My idle temps are around 35C whereas before they were 45 or so. Even with hard stress the temps dont seem to go much above 65C!

Sami

 

Make generous use of the apply button. Anyway, you now seem to have got the settings to stick.

They are nothing to do with sleep / hibernate but help reduce power consumption when under very light usage. Personally, I never use a screensaver on a notebook since the animation increases the CPU workload. I just set the screen to turn off after a few minutes. Screensavers are a legacy of CRT screens when continually displaying the same image could cause damage.

SLFM halves the speed of the FSB which saves a bit more power.

Yes, undervolting is worth the effort if you want a cool and quiet computer. It's a shame that there's been no development of RMClock for a couple of years.

John

 

Ah I see! The CPU went down to 0.84GHz from 1.68GHz. Works alright then I guess

Tonight I'll do the over night stress test to see if the computer handles these settings!

I tried the auto-adjust intermediate states VIDs but the voltage values didn't change? Should they? Or maybe I have the right settings by accident?

Sami

 

Maybe you struck lucky.

Your new voltages make me jealous. However, maybe my P8600 has idle lower current consumption.

The other aspect you can check, out of curiousity, is whether the two cores of the CPU have similar temperatures. My core 1 runs several degrees cooler than core 2.

John

 

Yeah the voltages are pretty low compared to the originals! 0.2500 lower! Both CPU's seem to always hover at the same temps, one or two degrees difference max.

Here's a screenshot of the temps after moderate use of one hour. Very very happy with this! Fingers crossed it stays stable

Sami