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

Cool guys im gonna try this out this weekend. I am stoked to see how it works out on mine.

 

I really feel like Alienware is mostly at fault here. The TDP limit is set way too low ... to a point that makes no sense for a laptop of this size. Turbo is essentially impossible to kick in at those settings. The fan never gets a chance to kick in (which, btw, is probably the last weird thing about this laptop ... I should be able to tell the computer to run at a faster fan speed to help turbo boost out).

The Sony Z runs much faster processors in a lighter and slimmer frame without overheating. The Alienware should have an even easier time of it.

I never complained b/c technically I got what they sold me ... but given the overall weight/size of the laptop and the fact that it is a performance ultraportable mean this crippling is NOT how the system should have been designed or sold. It's a damn stroke of luck that this limit can be altered via software. I finally feel like I have the laptop I paid for.

 

I just checked out the Dell Alienware site and the big problem is that if you want a Core i CPU in your M11x then you are forced to pick one of these low power UM processors. I can't find a way to build a M11x with a regular Core i CPU.

A user with a M17x R2 that has a Core i5-540M is able to run wPrime with full turbo boost, without having to use ThrottleStop. He gets the full 21.0 turbo boost multiplier when both cores are fully loaded compared to an i5-520UM that is turbo throttling somewhere between 8.0 and 12.0 when fully loaded.

UM processors are not for enthusiasts. It would have made a lot more sense for Dell to put a little UM button on their laptops for the energy saving types. They could have then used a regular Core i5 CPU and gramma could click on the UM button which would reduce the turbo boost TDP/TDC limits down to 10/30 like these Intel UM CPUs are set to.

This mess is just the Intel and Dell marketing departments both going off the rails. The M11x is not running too hot so there is no need to kill performance like this.

 

Oh, what a great time to revisit the m11x forums. This thread was a very pleasant surprise as I believe I was the first to bring the cpu throttling issue to light, yet only a handful understood ): I noticed it happening while playing games, and benchmarked mostly with Assassin's Creed 2. I'm going to try this again.

But yay, time to get testing! Will download and report, thank you unclewebb.

It should be noted if running throttlestop has any affect on battery life, btw.

 

Are you talking about the multiplier dropping to 8x during high loads or during medium/low loads? Mine doesn't drop to 8x when there's a lot going on, but it does during lighter loads, which is how TB is designed.

I still don't get what's going on with your machine since it's not the power plan affecting things (thanks for the follow-up on that btw ).

 

If you use ThrottleStop to increase the performance of your computer then that will decrease battery life. You will have to decide if it is worth it or not.

It's easy enough to create a battery profile in ThrottleStop with less aggressive TDP/TDC settings and ThrottleStop will be happy to switch profiles as you switch back and forth between AC and battery. The best of both worlds.

 

im also extremely happy ive logged on tonight and seen this but ive nevre used or seen wprime or throttelstop before. I have downloaded wprime ran some 32m test so i get how to do that that. But with throttlestop I dont know what settings to change. I cannot see any tpd etc values. I am tired tonight but ive double checked and cant see it.
Can someone help me out here please as I woud lovel to untap the hidden power!!
thanks in advance

 

Open ThrottleStop and right click on it. There is a menu that will open a window so you can adjust TDP/TDC. It's hidden so the 920XM users wouldn't hurt themselves or their CPU.

 

corwinicre: His machine was throttling down to the 8.0 multiplier because he is overclocking by increasing the BCLK. That's why his CPU is so much different than what you were seeing.

You are running yours right on the edge of turbo throttling. By increasing the BCLK, you will go over the TDP limit and get into more and more turbo throttling until finally you have zero turbo boost and are left running at only 8.0 times.

 

Ahh, thanks! That makes sense.

If you didn't add this feature to ThrottleStop, that would bring up the interesting question of which provides better performance for long, intensive applications, BCLK OC or standard BCLK that allows TB to turn on. 12*133 > 8*166 (in fact, 10*133 > 8*166), so it would seem the latter, assuming TB would keep the multipliers at least at 10. That is a pointless discussion now, though

 

Some of the results posted so far seem to show that without ThrottleStop, increasing the BCLK in the bios was resulting in an increase in wPrime times. Nice for Dell to market these as overclockable but it doesn't make too much sense when overclocking them makes them run slower when fully loaded.

Having a BCLK overclocking feature without any access to the turbo TDP/TDC settings is a poorly thought out feature for Core i UM CPUs.

 

What sort of improvements .. will we see performance improvements beyond the amazing boost we are already getting with 2.88?

 

It's always room for improvement. From x8 to x12 is a 50% loss. Kevin brings back ~20% so 30% still remains to recover.
Now it's up to Kevin's magic skills to get near to that 50%.

 

at 156FSB and throttlestop I am getting the following with wprime (32):

28.274
27.501
27.672

not bad..

I can even play Tropico 3 at high.. that game got some serious issues.

 

at fsb 166 and throttelstop i am gettting after 3 runs

27.835
28.157
27.405

cool uncle your the daddy!
+rep x 100

 

I f*cking love you. This fixed the poor performance on my i7 which was slower when overclocked.
I went from ~1680-~1750 cpu score in 3dmark 06 to 2100 When at 158mhz.
Also causing me to break the 8k mark and another 100 to boot.

Thanks soo much for posting this <3

 

Here is a screenshot of before and after.
http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/7232/97648087.png

 

this is probably a stupid question but I cannot see the answer in the many posts.
Once I enable TS does it stay enabled even after i reboot or do I always have to open TS each time?
thanks

 

ThrottleStop writes information to your CPU. When you reboot, that info is lost so you need to run ThrottleStop each time. Drag a link to it into your Startup folder if you want it to start with Windows or if you use UAC, use the task scheduler method.

Task Scheduler

tonkatrain: Don't hold back your feelings now. Tell me what you really think.
Are you BC guys allowed to run Alberta software on your laptops? I guess you are now.

 

Quick question, is TS supposed to keep the clock at 12x, 14x, 16x, or 17x? I thought iseries go up to 16x dual core, and then 17x for single core.

Also, theoretically shouldn't we get better battery life if we DECREASE TFP/TDC settings?

K, off to test assassin's creed 2!

 

ThrottleStop is fighting against the bios to keep the turbo TDP/TDC values at a higher level. The higher ThrottleStop can maintain those two values, the more turbo boost you will end up with. The CPU decides whether you are entitled to some turbo boost based on if you are under or over the TDP/TDC limits. ThrottleStop can be used to raise the TDP/TDC limits which tells the CPU to provide more turbo boost but the bios then lowers those limits back down to default values which tells the CPU to reduce the amount of turbo boost. Life would be a lot simpler if Dell would let users set TDP/TDC in the bios so these CPUs could run at full speed without needing ThrottleStop.

Reducing TDP/TDC would be a way to reduce the amount of turbo boost which in theory would increase battery life. An easier way would be to simply click on Disable Turbo in ThrottleStop if you don't want any turbo boost when on battery power.

I'm not sure what CPU you have so I can't comment on the multipliers. The amount of turbo boost is continuously changing based on whether 1 or 2 cores are in the active state and whether the CPU is operating over or under the turbo TDP/TDC values. When lightly loaded, individual threads are constantly entering and exiting the C3/C6 sleep states so turbo boost can be constantly varying.

 

It looks like that after 154/156 there isnt much different on the overclocking performance, is that right? I am getting 27 and you are too.. but 156 is the max my OC will go and still allow me to play games and etc.

 

Set the tdp/tdc to 200/200 just so the limit would never be reached and played an hour of sc2 with no cpu temps above 70C... don't be too afraid to set the tdp/tcp as high as you want while plugged into AC so battery life is not an issue

 

What kind of performance increase did you see in SC2?

 

I did a few benchmarks using fraps on a replay and showed about a 15~20% fps increase.

 

UNCLEWEBB....i wish you had this when i had my m11x r2 that would have turned the m11x r2 into a portable BEAST....hmmm might need to reconsider a r2 in the future if you are able to tweak TS like you have done for the XM processor. Unclewebb is a huge asset to this community and you guys are in good hands. Wish i could help out in some way and give you further benchmarks but already you have seen the effect of his software in 1 day more to come i guarantee you.

 

Ran WPrime many times with and without ThrottleStop and am showing no difference in performance whatsoever.
I'm overclocked at 166 mhz and using High Perfromace plugged in.
Chip is Stepping 5 and Revision K0. No Cpu-Z running.
I guess this does not work with every chip.

 

Ran 3 Times, not much improvement as some, but still there.

1- 38.397 sec on Default 133MHz TB (10/30)
2- 34.568 sec using ThrottleStop on (20/60)
3- 33.915 sec using ThrottleStop on (30/90)

 

Bily42: What TDP/TDC settings are you using? You have to right click on ThrottleStop to get to that menu and screen.

Does it show ThrottleStop Enabled at the top right when you are testing?

When running wPrime with ThrottleStop in Monitoring mode only, what sort of multipliers is it showing? Post a screen shot or two half way through a wPrime test with and without TS enabled. Most users with your CPU and a higher BCLK are seeing a significant improvement so post some more info so we can figure out what's going on.

If your CPU is not turbo throttling at full load then you won't see any benefit from ThrottleStop but most of these CPUs are turbo throttling when you raise the the BCLK.

faiz23: Looks like many users with the M11x R2 have had some significant problems but until a couple of days ago, no one had bothered to send me a log file of what was going on. I can't fix what I don't know about. I've got a few more ideas that I'm working on to help with this problem.

 

Sorry if this is a noobie question, Can you explain this to me how works. I want to help out, but I do not know how this works or what it will do to my i7.

 

Actually, a few of us had given TS a try, but none of its features had any impact on our UM processors. Same for utilities such as SetFSB.

 

I just ran the before and after at 10/30 and 20/60, the results are:

10/30 - 39.8 seconds
20/60 - 27.5 seconds!

I still haven't run any real-time gaming with these settings, but I plan to run SC2 later tonight to see if there is improvement there. While monitoring temps on my CPU, should I watch for anything above 70C (or is it lower or higher?) before it gets too hot?

 

These CPUs are rated for over 100C. I think the highest anyone here has reported is mid to high 70s if memory serves. Based on feedback in this thread no one is seeing any appreciable temperature increases after prolonged gaming. You'll be fine.

 

Not trying to be rude, but did you read the freaking first post?

 

v2.88.1 seems just a liiitle bit slower but frankly I don't think it`s TS's fault, but more about the way the FSB seems to change from 160.1 to 160.9 on the fly and completely automatic. I know very well that wprime results are not always the same 100%

3DM06 and wprime attached, can`t run the rendering yet.

For reference, old 2.88 results with 3DM06 and wprime.

 

Wow did this just help with FFXIV. I just went with 20/60. NPCs are actually loading and doesn't seem as choppy. I am going to run some FPS comparisons tomorrow. But is a great first step

 

i dont mean to keep posting these useless 3dmark06 scores but these scores are so amazing for a notebook this size and its all thanks to TS

 

Ya i did read the post, did u not read my post saying i am a noobie, which means i do not know squat about computers, I was wondering if someone could explain it for a noobie, I did not even know half of the technical terms are. Jeez man do you not want anyone new trying to help?
P.S. you were rude

 

Can someone run some game benchmarks to see how much this helps?
CRYSIS,JUST CAUSE, have benchmark options and it would be interesting to see what results you get with and without TS. Also post what CPU you have.
Screen shots would be nice

 

Alienware m11xR2, core i7 u640, stepping 2, revision C2 @ 158
20/60
Ran 1024M, 1224 sec -> 980 sec.
ThrottleStop log attached, if needed.

Seen noticable change in FPS, especially in BFBC2, Dead Rising 2 and other CPU intensive games. Didn't measure exact values, but the change is quite significant.
Thanks for a great piece of software!

 

this is great. went from 32sec down to 26sec

i noticed TS only worked when cpu was OC'd.. at least in my case

running on default bios settings.. intel speedstep on/TB on, with or without TS it was always 32sec regardless of TDP/TDC settings.

when i OC'd my cpu in bios to 166 (left rest of bios settings at default, intel speedstep on/TB on) that's when TS showed the improvement. whether 20/60 or 200/200, wPrime runs at a consistent 26sec.. awesome!

 

@ Greywind Interesting log. It looks like you have ~x12 multi in load and idle but at some point it drops at ~x10 (when you have that 99.8% constant load. What was that load?).
@ jaeyang9

So it looks like you're not hitting TDP/TDC limits with stock CPU frequencies.

 

@ burebista, Sorry for the confusion, first part of this log is with ThrottleStop enabled and the second (when it's all ~x10) is when it's disabled.
Used wPrime, as noted above (M1024 test).

 

Even a noob would be able to follow step by step instructions, which was given by UncleWebb. You're just lazy, which frankly is worse than a noob in my eyes. If you think that I'm being rude, then so be it. I'm just stating the truth.

 

Using 20 and 60.

Yes.

What is "BCLK"? I see it in ThrottleStop but don't know what it is. Will run the tests again to get screenshots later. Meanwhile here's a shot of WPrime scores with the last 3 being with ThrottleStop enabled.

Hmmm, I have a utility which shows the turbo in real time and have run it when the 335 is engaged and see turbo action.

 

2.88.2. Kevin, you are a GENIUS.

Running the rendering job now, but watching the prime log and the wprime time, I`d say a solid 35% power boost.

 

@unclewebb:
Here's the info you asked for. Sorry, don't have any web page software installed on my m11x so have to just give you separate urls:
http://files.myopera.com/creegah/files/2010-10-13_055837.pdf
http://files.myopera.com/creegah/files/throttlemonitor.JPG
http://files.myopera.com/creegah/files/throttleon.JPG

 

With 2.88.2, 3D Studio Max 2011 x64 render 43 minutes!

For reference, same file rendered with TS 2.88 on and with TS 2.88 off. BCLK 160 in all cases.

Excellent work, Kevin, solid 30% gain.

 

I wonder if this would be an alternative to those doing SSD registry tweaks on i series mobile chipsets.

 

At 166/167 you should be getting at least 28seconds on the wprime 32. are you sure you arent running anything else that could be taking some processor load?