CPU Multiplier never goes down

So i'll start from the beginning, i've been monitoring my CPU temperatures and the multipliers for a while now.
I have noticed that the normal operation for it would be to stabilize the multiplier at x9 when idle after windows boots and loads all it's startup programs and services. The temp then would be around 42 degrees on all cores.
A while back i noticed that it stopped happening and the multiplier would be stuck at a higher value while there is almost no CPU activity.
At the time i was going to reinstall windows anyway so i didn't give it much thought.
So i reinstalled windows and kept an eye on that - all was fine for a while: like before, after windows finished loading the multipliers would stabilize at x9 and not move from there unless i start doing stuff.
Today, i noticed that the "problem" came back, i am seeing the multiplier stuck at x23 and it just won't go down. There are practically nothing running and idle process is taking 98-99% of CPU.
Everest and hwinfo32 are used for monitoring and process explorer to see running processes.
I can post screenshots if needed but i think i described the problem.
Will try to boot into safemode and see if it still happens and report back.
Can anybody suggest how to go about it ?
I suspect a driver/interrupts issue.. not sure how to go about this one...

 

Have you tried disabling RIXDPX64.sys?

 

not yet, it's the card reader right ?
just disable it from device manager ?

By now i also tried removing everything from windows startup and stopping all the possible services. nothing took down the multipliers.

 

Yes it's the card reader. Try desabling it from the Device Manger and maybe reboot.

BTW, did you flash the BIOS recently?

Also, some people reported success in fixing the issue by doing the power drain. Tried it yet?

 

No, haven't flashed the bios..
I've disabled the three devices starting with ricoh and restarted and nada..
I am open to suggestions

 

Power drain?

 

hahaha, you know that won't help right ? but i'll do it just to get it out of the way .

 

Have you tried adjusting the settings in the alienware command center

 

It helped quite a few people with the same problem, so I'd insist you should try it as well. Just in case.

Another thing is to reinstall the CC.

Another possible cause is the AHCI settings in the BIOS. Don't remember if it should be " Legacy" or not.

 

Well well well... guess what ?

 

That's probably your HWinfo32 applet. Turn it off already, lol.

 

Damn, forgot all about it
But i also just found the problem.
If i switch from High Performance power plan to Balanced the problem goes away..
How the hell is that possible ?

 

I told you it is a setting from the command center. Where you can specify what the minimum cpu speed is.

 

you are right, it's there just as it is under windows power plan settings, minimum processor state on high performance plan is 100% by default. changing it to 5% like balanced solves the problem.
Surprised nobody had been troubled by that before
Thanks all.. A feel extremely nooby

 

We all do at times

 

Interesting, when on High Performance did you notice the GPU clocks and temps increase as well, or just the CPU utilization?

 

The CPU temps would increase because they were set on 100% all the time. As long as the GPU use is down, the temps would be down. If you want to check how much gpu you are using, check it out in hwinfo32

 

No, GPU clocks are at 250MHz and temp is the same. what's interesting though is that even when i set the setting mentioned above for min. processor state, i still see more spikes at the multipliers if compared to balanced plan.
From what i could find now the only read difference between the plans is PCI Express Link State Power Management that is set to off under high performance and to moderate under balanced plan.
This setting is supposed to control the amount of power dedicated to the video cards if i remember correctly. Don't see how that can elevate cpu load...

 

It probably gives the priority to the CPU, and giving it more juice from the PSU, excellent observation.

 

So, my conclusion from all this is that i am going to stick with balanced power plan.
My reasoning is that while idling i want it to be as cool as possible and i don't mind the 1/1000th of a second wait until my CPU catches up to my requests. As for the cpu/gpu power devision, again, when not gaming i don't care about it and when gaming i am sure that under both plans GPU gets as much power as possible as well as the CPU..