How to Supercharge the M11x with Core i5/i7 UM CPUs

Unclewebb, i have everything unchecked at the "conditions" page, on the "settings" page I only have the first box checked, and in the "general" page i have run with the highest privileges checked. (thats all)

M11Ash, I have the laptop almost half a year now.. :\ I just got alot problems with this little one.. its too bad

 

I never actually compared my TS bench with anyone but on the 32M I am getting around ~38. I posted an image of my highest score and my TS and options open.. can anyone give some advise on better score? Im on i7 model 166 mhz OC TB and SS on and TS settings in image

 

Hey there, I've been a long-time follower of TS on my R1 but never had to use it until I recently purchased my R2. I just recently read this post and on number two it says click the turn On button so that it changes to active mode. Two quick questions and pardon my ignorance

1) Does this enable to TDP/TDC values to become active?
2) Do I need to keep TS running in the background to keep it active?

Thanks Webb,
DeeVu

 

1) and 2) is yes and yes.

On some laptops like the Alienware M17x-R2 with the 920XM and 940XM Extreme CPUs, you can make TDP/TDC adjustments in ThrottleStop and those adjustments are written directly to the CPU and will remain, even after you exit ThrottleStop.

With the M11x-R2, the turbo TDP/TDC adjustments you make in ThrottleStop are being constantly reset so you need to keep ThrottleStop running and active so it can continue to monitor these and maximize your performance.

Your signature says you are overclocked to 166 MHz. If that's true then using ThrottleStop is a must. Without ThrottleStop actively running and adjusting your TDP/TDC values, an M11x-R2 that is overclocked to 166 MHz in the bios can actually run slower than the same M11x-R2 at default settings.

I think the best way to learn more about ThrottleStop is to do some simple benchmark testing with wPrime or the TS Bench and watch how your CPU's performance changes with different ThrottleStop settings. The first post will get you pointed in the right direction.

 

Thank you! I've been using it without TS in the background for a week now. Time to run Benchmarks.


Thanks,
Deevu

Edit: That alone dropped my 32M time from 57seconds to 41seconds!

 

Can someone answer my post/quote 3 posts above ?

 

Another happy customer.

Let the games begin. It really is easy to make a huge difference in CPU performance with a couple of quick adjustments in ThrottleStop. Anyone that can find their way around the bios, do some overclocking and can figure out the pictures in the first post will have enough information to get their laptop running significantly faster.

I don't own an M11X-R2 so if anyone can take a decent picture of the bios screen and where the overclocking option is located, send it my way so I can include it in the first post.

MasivB: I think after most users get their laptop setup, they run away and never return to this thread. They're usually too busy gaming.
Your time looks decent. TS Bench times really vary based on the amount of background stuff you have running on your laptop. You might want to do some wPrime testing instead. There seem to be more wPriime times posted in this thread so you will have more numbers to compare to. DeeVu just mentioned a 41 second time so your 38.457 second time looks good. I'll go add a benchmark time section to the first post so users can compare. I'll include best times for wPrime and TS Bench scores. Your screen shot can be the first score in the new table. If I get enough feedback, maybe I'll be motivated to create a pretty spread sheet.

 

My 32M is 41 seconds.
My wPrime and got 25.384 seconds.


Enjoy,
DeeVu


Edit: You mentioned it previous to this post but what's SS? I am probably overthinking it.

 

SS - Screen shot would be my guess but I know I'm wrong.

 

Haha that would be logical. I was thinking of a program of sorts.

 

i'm going to get into this tonight! can't wait! any preadvice for the noob?

 

Thanks uncle for responding I was confused by your post earlier but I see you edited it now I understand. I will try more benchmarking. Im downloading all the 3DMarks as well as the wPrime you suggested if anyone is interested check back in this forum on the weekend for my scores to compare... I like to compare because out curiousity but sometimes it helps me target a problem I am having or different settings that may be better for my setup because I did notice that there is a difference for the TPL being a 100/100 or 30/30 performance wise (slightly but for some reason 30/30 is better). Uncle you probably have more knowledge on this as I am a noob when it comes to it but trying to learn more.

 

haha if you use the computer unplugged make sure you set your ts settings according. hahah made that mistake too much. but other then that plugged in i use tdp settings 200/200

 

200/200? what is max you can go? I thought 100/100 was max (even though now I am getting better results on 30/30 for some reason)

 

The TDP / TDC settings can go as high as 4095 as far as I recall. That's more than a little overkill for a Core i7/i5 UM CPU or for any CPU for that matter.

There is very little if anything to be gained by going beyond the recommended 30 / 30 setting and absolutely nothing to be gained by going beyond 100 / 100 but you won't hurt anything by using high numbers like that. These values limit the amount of turbo boost. If your CPU is operating below these limits, you get full turbo boost and if it is above either of these limits then you won't get any turbo boost. If your fully overclocked CPU can only draw 25 W then it doesn't matter whether you set the turbo TDP limit to 30, 100 or 1000. You are below these limits so you are guaranteed full turbo boost.

It's difficult to find a benchmark test that gives repeatable results. All laptops have a lot of background tasks running all the time so there is always some random variation in benchmark results. Some users run one test, see a better number so immediately conclude that their new TDP/TDC setting is better than their previous one.

Instead of a single test, it might take 10 or 100 benchmark tests before you can prove anything. All benchmarks will have a different range of results even when using the exact same settings. For any benchmark, you have to first determine how big this range is. It might be +/- 1% or maybe it is +/- 5%.

A benchmark score of 1985, 1996, 2004 and 2012 might be 4 runs at the exact same CPU settings. If you are increasing the turbo TDP/TDC values after each benchmark, you are likely to conclude that your new settings are way better than the 30 / 30 settings that you started with. That may be true but that sort of testing doesn't prove anything. You have to do a lot of A B A testing where you go back to your original settings to check for a baseline. With hundreds and hundreds of background threads always running on a PC, it's impossible to control them so they always consume the exact same amount of CPU power so be careful not to jump to conclusions too quickly when testing.

Better yet, if you don't believe you are getting full turbo boost at 30 / 30 then set TDP / TDC to 100 / 100 and go play some games. UM CPUs are definitely not trying to consume over 100 watts or draw 100 amps.

 

Wow great post I never really considered ranges just always just considered getting lower values but after running more tests I noticed what you were saying. Some of my believed lower scores were starting to go back up to scores I had with previous settings. I guess you can't really get a definitive answer on how much performance increase you get since the numbers can be so variable, but I do see a difference. Thanks.

 

Once again, it's me with another noob question.

What is Throttlestop? Is it safe for me to use alongside OCing and Turbo?

What should I set everything to? Because, I'm at a loss on this.

 

On the M11x-R2, ThrottleStop can significantly increase the amount of turbo boost when fully loaded so your CPU will be running much faster. You can download it from my sig and then head to the first post in this thread and at least get yourself familiar with the program and how to set it up for the R2. I don't mind helping people but you need to put a little effort in first. You don't need to read all 90+ pages of this thread but you do need to read the first post a few times until you are familiar with what ThrottleStop is designed to do for the CPUs in the M11x-R2.

 

Maybe I'm blind, but I still don't see anything answering my question regarding if I can OC and use this tool at the same time.

 

The answer to your question is yes.

 

Thank you. I hope he does, too.

I apologize to to everyone. For my attitude, and for my stupidity.

 

I set up a task to run TS at startup however now i seem to have an issue with the TS icon on the taskbar.

Prior to setting up the task when I used to manually engage TS, hovering over the TS icon on the lower right task tray (next to the battery Icon) used to provide me the 4 basic info (temp/dts, core useage, clock speed, and multiplier).

Now after setting us TS as an auto run at startup task, hovering over the icon provides me with NO data. Did I miss a step in setup or something? Why would it stop providing info on the hover over?

Thanks


EDIT* Also I have two instances of TS when I click on the "customize" icons and how they appear on the taskbar. One seems to be from the Task I just set up the other the original TS which has the info underneath.

 

I mentioned to Warhammer40k in a PM that this is the way I set up ThrottleStop in the Task Scheduler and it always works correctly for me.

Task Scheduler

There are a few options in there that might need to be adjusted if you are running TS when on battery power.

 

Ahh so confused. Ive been using 10/10 on Battery power with no problems am I not doing it properly / not getting full potentional of TS battery life?

Edit: I cant find anyone on the forums discussing battery life and TS does anyone have a link I am missing?

 

Battery life and TS is easy. Just turn TS off.

On the Core i7 Quad core laptops, you can damage your battery when you use TS and start drawing too much power from it. Why risk shortening the life of your battery? Save TS for when you are plugged in. If there are any more general ThrottleStop questions then post them in the ThrottleStop Guide thread in my sig so people can find the info they are looking for in this thread.

 

Warning
I have deleted a few posts + subscribed to the thread
Any more nonsense, and I will be handing out infractions

 

ALL ----

Please review the forum rules.

This is a forum where users help users. Its not a free-for-all bashing forum. Some of you have been previously warned about inflammatory posting. Next time, posting ability will be removed.

Questions? PM a moderator. Do not disrupt the thread again...

 

Would anyone like to dumb this post down for some of us less techonologically literate people. I restarted computer set overclock to 156 mhz turbo boost on and speed step on..

then i downloaded throttle stop where i took profile 1 changed tdp settings to 30/30. I then clicked the turn on button and went to ts bench. Over there i clicked on 2 threads and got a 78.9 as my high score and with 4 threads i got 58.01.

i keep seeing people score at like 30 range. what am i doing wrong. seems soo complex. am i messing up my computeR?

 

i bumped into this post and was thinking... is this applicable to a normal i5-520M (not UM) cpu? I've tried adjusting the tdp and tdc and ticking unticking all kinds of boxes but it seems to be stuck at its 20x multiplier

 

melthd: When both cores of a Core i5-520M are active, it is designed to use a maximum multiplier of 20. This is the Intel specification that is set at the factory and there is no software that can change that limitation. This thread is about adjusting the turbo TDP / TDC values to get more turbo boost out of the low power UM CPUs. If your 520M is showing the full 20.00 multiplier while running 4 threads of wPrime then you are already getting maximum turbo boost for your processor and there is nothing more to be gained by using ThrottleStop.

egyptionsr2buff: There are two different benchmark programs being used in this thread. The times obtained by wPrime and TS Bench are completely different so you can't compare the two. The first post contains an example of how the wPrime time can improve by using ThrottleStop and it also contains a time for a TS Bench 32M run by MasivB's Core i7-640UM. You did not mention what CPU you are using but obviously the higher end UM CPUs that are overclocked to 167 MHz and beyond are going to be able to run better times than the lower end UM CPUs that are not overclocked as much.

Post a screen shot of ThrottleStop while you are half way through a full load wPrime benchmark test so I can see if you have it set up correctly and if your multiplier is running at the expected value for your CPU.

If you are concerned about messing up your computer then you shouldn't be using ThrottleStop and you shouldn't be overclocking it in the bios.

 

Hey Unclewebb my TS seems very stable on my i5 m11x. I run it all the time when plugged in and have the battery profile set to nearly default settings. This shouldn't draw to much from the battery right? I'm hoping it's nearly transparent. Is there a way to just turn TS off on Battery automatically?

So far I really like it, and it's perfect to get the boost for work or gaming whenever I'm plugged in.

 

If you are using a battery profile with default settings then battery power consumption should be the same.

There are a couple of settings in the Options window that can be used to control ThrottleStop when switching to battery power.

AC - ON, Battery - OFF

This will switch ThrottleStop to Monitoring mode whenever you switch to battery power and will automatically switch back to active mode as soon as you plug back in.

If you want to completely exit ThrottleStop when you switch to battery power, use the

DC Exit Time (s)

option and set it to however many seconds you like. ThrottleStop will exit when you switch to battery power and you will have to restart it when you are plugged back in. The latest version is very efficient when minimized to the system tray and sitting in monitoring mode so leaving it running like that while on battery power shouldn't significantly reduce your battery run time. If it does, turn it off.

 

Hey wasup unclewebb.

sorry i didn't put my specs up. I have downloaded Wprime and in the beginning it opens after i run it as admin of course but it says that it is obtaining hardware info but remains in that state forever. Why is it not recognizing my hardware. eventually it just quits and just starts up.

this is what i got so far

i made 3 profiles one of them i set it at 30/30 the other was 10/30 and the last was 11/11. another question i have is sometimes the FID for my highest performance profile sometimes get lower than my basic settings is that normal? Like for instance in this picture it shows the the setup like you asked Uncle but if you see my 3rd profile and the first they have almost the same FID's



8gb Ram i5 U-520 overclocked to 162Hz from the bios

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/7953/91583905.jpg

 

wPrime has a few issues at the hardware recognition stage on many computers. You will have to ask the programmer of wPrime why that happens.

The FID is your average multiplier for that thread. When a Core i CPU is lightly loaded, some of the threads and cores will be rapidly entering and exiting various sleep states which reduces the average reported multiplier. You have the C1E, C3 and C6 sleep states enabled so cores are constantly entering these states when lightly loaded. You need C3 or C6 enabled for turbo boost to function correctly.

I was hoping to see a screen shot while wPrime was running so I could see the full load multiplier but your wPrime time looks OK for a Core i5. You can have a look through this thread to see if your wPrime results are comparable to other users.

 

Does overclocking the r2 in bios without throttlestop increase voltages or pose any risk to the long term life of the cpu?

 

Why would Dell include the ability to overclock in the bios if it was going to significantly shorten the life of your CPU? That wouldn't make any sense.

When both cores are active, a regular Core i7-640M mobile CPU is designed to run reliably at a maximum speed of 3200 MHz (24.0 x 133 MHz). The Core i7-640UM, coming down the same assembly line, built on the same process, using the exact same technology, is being limited by Intel to a maximum of 1862 MHz (14.0 x 133 MHz) when fully loaded. Locking a CPU with a low multiplier is a simple and inexpensive way for Intel to create a low power CPU. A slower running CPU doesn't need as much core voltage to run reliably which also reduces power consumption.

If these tricks were making the UM CPUs run at 3500 MHz or 4000 MHz, then you would be overclocking but the adjustments in this thread are only helping to get the crippled UM series back on its feet. The maximum speed you can run these at by adjusting the bios as high as possible, combined with ThrottleStop, is still only 2338 MHz (14.0 x 167 MHz) when fully loaded. The Core i5-520UM is only running at a maximum of 2004 MHz (12.0 x 167 MHz). That's a joke compared to the speed that Intel designed this technology to run at. No worries.

 

Awesome thanks. Now with throttlestop on the i5 Ive seen some people report as high as 2.8ghz (or maybe even higher if memory serves). What is pretty much the standard stable frequency anyone with an i5 can achieve with throttlestop? Im guessing somwhere between 2.4 and 2.6?

 

Hey Unclewebb, I have been told that TS is useless at 133, but today, I was doing some video conversions, HD video, so the lap was under hard work, I open TS and with TS off, the multipler was 9.XX, almost 10, but with TS on, the multipler never drop below 11.50...

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b245/VIdaluko/Sinttulo1.png

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b245/VIdaluko/Sinttulo12.png

It is useless? for gaming or something....

 

When a single core is active, the Core i5-520 UM will max out at 2338 MHz (14.0 x 167 MHz). When both cores are active, the maximum is 2004 MHz (12.0 x 167 MHz). There are a couple of users that have been able to use SetFSB and increase the bus speed up to about 180 MHz but that isn't very common. If you have a golden UM CPU, some excellent memory and a lot of luck, you might be able to add another 150 MHz to 200 MHz on to the above numbers. The M series can hit 2.8 GHz but definitely not the i5 UM series.

Vidaluko: Useless is kind of a harsh word.
In your example, you are obviously getting a significant performance increase even without overclocking the base clock speed. Many games do not fully load the CPU so the performance increase is less or not at all. The biggest percentage increase comes when using ThrottleStop combined with overclocking in the bios but the 20% increase in performance you are seeing at the default base clock speed is great to see. Thanks for posting that.

Do yourself a favor and upgrade to the latest version in my sig. Check out the ThrottleStop guide thread for the recent changes.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...531329-throttlestop-guide-37.html#post7231834

If you decrease the Force TDP/TDC value in the options window a couple of notches, you should get closer to the full 12.0 maximum multiplier.

 

Unclewebb,

Is there some secret to getting the Low Battery % / Low Battery Profile to work? I have it set to 20% and 3, but when it dips below 20%, it's still on my regular battery profile....

Using 2.99.7

 

I haven't looked at this in a long time. I'll put it on the things to do list and see what's changed recently. I remember a long time ago when it used to work.

 

UncleWebb... How do I uninstall this thing?

Nothing against it, btw.

 

It doesn't install so you don't need to uninstall. Don't run it if you don't want it. Or delete it off you're computer.

 

Eaglebomber: No installer makes for an easy uninstall. As soon as you reboot, your CPU will be back to normal.

mosaic: Thanks very much for letting me know about the broken Low Battery Profile switching feature.
It should be working correctly now in ThrottleStop 2.99.9

 

Uncle, 2.99.9 doesn't seem to like me turning battery monitor off. In fact it's refusing to do it outright :s

 

unclewebb: works great for me now! The low battery profile kicked in at 20%. And, the power saver setting saves my choice now too!

 

unclewebb, I am a uni student after a maximally responsive netbook. Would OCing contribute to this end? (That is I do not gaming or concerned with benchmarks)

Also, would fan noise increase when OCing?

Thank you!

 

Yes fan noise should increase theoretically since OCing brings more heat therefore the fan should be on more but that doesn't necessarily mean more NOISE maybe just more frequently NOISEY.

And why do you want to overclock if you don't game or benchmark?

If anything you should underclock / undervolt

 

I probably practically should although if OCing makes everyday tasks work better (like I've seen some people claim after they overclocked), I am all for it as current battery duration is sufficient for me.

Out of interest, how much can you extend battery life by underclocking?

 

I've heard 8-9 hours on R1. But you should search on the forums instead of spamming UncleWebbs ThrottleStop thread. ThrottleStop (if I am correct) only deals with boosting performance. You cant undervolt/underclock anything with it. But you can set lower power limits but why not just turn turbo boost off.