Erratic CPU Performance Under Load

I have an Alienware 18 with a 4910MQ. When the CPU is under load my speed fluctuates from 3.7GHZ to 2.9GHZ every 1 second.

For the first 10 seconds of any high load, it appears to be stable and things like rendering move along quite quickly, however after the first 10 seconds progress slows and the cycle commences. It is as if the turbo switches off and on again every second.

My temps are also quite high even though I am running stock clocks. I regularly get upwards of 95C.

Is any of this normal for these processors?

 

You're thermal throttling. Try cleanimg out any dust as first step.

 

Thanks for the response. I'm not sure that I am thermal throttling. When monitoring using XTU, the thermal throttling bar never rises above 0%. Even if I am, dust isn't the issue. Its only 6 months old and I use it " in a dust free environment. It's done it pretty much from day 1.

Could it need a re-paste?

 

Don't use Oc profiles in bios. Wrong power settings and to high core voltage. Use xtu/Trottlestop and make your own settings. I recommend Ic7/Gelid extreme thermal grease. The best is liquid ultra.

 

Thanks I will try this when I get home from work.

What voltage should I be looking at? Or is it jus trial and error? I cant seem to find that much info on the 4910MQ...There is lots on the 4930 however... Setting the multiplier to 42 on all 4 cores recommended?

 

Post a screen shot of your power settings in Hwinfo64/Xtu. Use high power plan in windows power settings and not balanced mode. Take also a picture of your advanced settings in bios. You must run some benchmark test with o.k temperature and normal clock speed before you start overclock. Download Cinebench 11.5 and Wprime version 1.55 for testing. http://www.wprime.net/ http://downloads.guru3d.com/CineBENCH-11.5-download-2475.html You must start from scratch before you play with overclocking settings. Multiplier of 4.1 or higher on all four cores recommend use of Liquid ultra. Set up Hwinfo64 such as the image.

 

Capture by Jammy_p123 posted Jun 10, 2015 at 7:21 PM

My temps look high with all OC turned off! Could I be dealing with defective hardware?

 

man i have the bios set on oc lvl 1 and getting around 45c when im not doing anything and not using xtu or throttlestop
so i think your temp are just fine

 

Do you have any problems like I'm having with regards to performance drops? Even with all OC off it is throttling back to 2.9ghz every 1 second

 

it does go to the 2.9ghz (i think its suppose to -because turbo is just when needed- right ?) if its not doing anything or sometimes while in game i guess i never check but i dont see any poor performance from the cpu or gpu the only thing before was that my cards throttle but now in every game i changed in nvidia control panel 3d settings to prefer maximum performance and im also using svl7 not for overclocking just for the boost as default clock
and my pc its doing so great now with no problems

 

Processor shall provide full turbo boost all the time if you set high performance in Windows power option. Don't use balanced performance in Windows power option. Test with Wprime 1024 (set 8 threads) and Cinebench 11.5 as I said earlier (see download link in previous post). Run tests with Hwinfo64 in the background so you can monitor the temperature, clock and of course Cpu package power. Processor shall not throttle if temperature and power settings are correct. Put always up cpu package power easily visible in Hwinfo64.

 

here is what i get running the fire strike ill try the wprime now and see

 

Fire strike is no good benchmark test. Use 3Dmark11, Wprime and Cinebench 11.5.
You have processor throttling in Firestrike. Use Hwinfo64 for monitoring as shown in the image.

Such shall processor clock speed appear in Fire strike.

 

man how is that even passable your cpu is only 25c ! if im not doing anything it would be like 45 - 50 do you put your pc in the freezer ?

 

It is never hotter than 19 to 20 degrees at home. Use fans at max with Hwinfo(in bench tests) and also the best thermal paste "Liquid ultra" . In addition; The AW17 has only 2 heat pipes on the processor heatsink . Aw18 have 3 pipes.

 

man i live in belgium outside is cold so inside is warm and actually cpu does more then he should for gaming its all about the gpu and i dont use my pc for more then that and im not an overclocker so i think im gonna just stick with it with the stock settings and thanx anyway i hope @ Jammy_p123 get the help he needed from this

 

How did it go with Wprime? In your signature it says i7-4910MQ "4.1GHz" ... In Fire Strike was the maximum clock speed 4.0ghz who went down to 3.791ghz....

 

I would say disable c-states but I think there is no option to do that in the BIOS. maybe throttlestop?

 

Yes with Trottlestop. Everything should be on high performance in Windows power options if you use Trottlestop... Then You can put whatever settings you want in Trottlestop. You can also put high-performance in Windows power options and use Xtu.

 

Set your Core Current Limit and Processor Current limit (both) to 130.0A using XTU. Also be sure the Turbo Power Lock in XTU is changed to "Disabled" (which should make it disappear after rebooting). Just these three things should improve your CPU performance massively. As @Papusan already mentioned, stock voltage is WAY TOO HIGH and will cause overheating with stock thermal paste. For 42x4 you should be able to get away with 1.165V or 1.175V easily. You're going to have overheating and thermal throttling with an overclocking Haswell using stock thermal paste no matter what you do. If you want really good temps, nothing but Liquid Ultra will do. IC Diamond and Gelid GC Extreme will bring great improvement over stock paste, but you'll not see temperatures as good as Liquid Ultra.

 

The first step is to apply new and much better thermal grease anyway. No point in overclocking until this is done on a Hotwell whether there is a Mx or 49xxmq. The same also applies to i7-48xxmq. A i7-49xxmq processor works very well with overclocking if everything is done by the book... A much much better processor than the new modern Bga nonsense from Intel. Even if you run stock settings and only lower the voltage, the processor works anyway better with a new and better thermal grease.

 

Liquid Ultra is king - especially for air cooled CPUs. I even used it repasting my desktop 980 GPU with some very favorable results.

 

Especially important for laptop processors, which have worse heatsink and fan profile than a desktop pc.

 

Yep, there's alot of scepticism with the stuff. Obviously a no go for aluminium. But the stuff wont suffer from pump out, never seems to degrade and most importantly is a clear cut above other pastes with thermal transfer. If i am going to waste my time repasting I'm making it worth my while, hence always going to be using CLU.

 

In July this year; I have used the same Liquid ultra for 1.5 year. So far 0 degrees change in temperature. Incredibly good. Will never return to an ordinary paste so as the good Gelid Extreme that I used before. Never ever... Had it been possible on my laptop processor without any problem, I might tried Indigo Xtreme ™ but no other paste.

 

I used Gelid Extreme for a while on my 980m's . Its good but after reading Mr Fox's testimony that it turned to dust after some strenuous heat cycles I didn't bother wasting my time on the desktop.

 

That saw tooth looking graph is a very poor representation of what your CPU is really doing internally. When throttling due to reaching the turbo power limits or thermal throttling; the CPU will be rapidly adjusting its speed hundreds of times a second. Monitoring software that takes a stab in the dark once every second is usually wrong. The ThrottleStop multiplier data is second to none so turn on the Log File option when benching and then you will have a clear indication of what multiplier your CPU was running at. There is also a program by Dufus in the ThrottleStop download called LR0101.exe that will show you a reason for any throttling.

 

here is log file after doing a fire strike benchmark it looks pretty good for me dont forget its stock overclock so its set 39-39-40-41

 

@encor50 - 1.2385V is way too much. With such low multipliers, you should be able to run between 1.160V to 1.175V. I would set static voltage, no offset.

 

I have ordered some Liquid Ultra so I will post results after I have re pasted with that.

Interestingly I re pasted using some Coolermaster IC E2 that I had lying around from a previous build and that has dropped my temps by 5c. There was barely any stock compound on there at all when I took the sink off! Check out the HW screenshot.

Excited to see the results when the ultra arrives!

 

I have tried out everything you have suggested. Thanks for the help! I still seem to be thermal throttling.

What should the turbo boost power time window be set to? I think default is 28s?

 

You can choose either 128 or 256 sec. You can put up to 128 sec in bios and change this to 256 sec in Xtu afterwards.

 

I have attached some screenshots after applying liquid ultra.

It didn't go above 90c when running Cinebench which I thought was good considering I was at 100c on stock clocks before! There was no throttling and it stayed at 4.2GHZ the whole time

I have also put a screenshot of my settings used in XTU Do you think they are okay?

I was quite sparing wit the Liquid Ultra as I didn't want any overspill. Do you think I would benefit from applying a little more? It is about 24c room temp when I ran that test not sure how much of a difference that makes.

 

can u save your xtu settings and upload it here i want to try it sinds we have the same cpu thanx

 

You can increase the reference clock to 100.3mhz. Otherwise it looks good. Don't apply too much Liquid ultra. Liquid Ultra shall be applied on the processor die and heatsink. A better benchmark test for processor is Wprime version 1.55. Run Wprime 1024 (choose 8 threads in advanced settings) stress test and monitor temp. http://www.putme.net/wPrime155.zip

 

Do you know if there is a way to get fan control for GPU's? It is greyed out in HW and MSI. I have AMD R9 290X

As when I run cpu fans at max using HW my GPU fans don't respond and the temps go up.