ASUS G73JH Problem - Very slow after using battery

Here's a WAG; do you have automatic Windows updates enabled?

 

For me, I have auto download, but I decide when to install.

Connection??

 

The connection was Windows downloading and installing a bad update automatically without you knowing it happened.

 

What is a "bad" update?


Well - didn't work. Used BALANCED instead of the Power4Gear listings and it still did it, this time at about 20% battery level.

Have to reboot now.

Sheesh!

 

i have found error in system logs that ACPI app couse reduse of cpu performance. perhaps this is the reason?

 

Yes, but why? There shouldn't be ACPI errors.

 

Will people with clean installs w/o Power 4 Gear encounter this error?

 

---Nevermind---

 

So, this is the WARNING message I get in the event viewer under administrative events whenever it happens:

event SOURCE: Kernel-Processor-Power
EVENT ID: 37
TASK CATEGORY: (7)

The speed of processor 2 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report.


There is 1 message for each of the 8 processors. Listed in order of 0, 2, 4, 6, 1, 3, 5, 7.

 

An update that Microsoft believes fixes a problem but has unintended side effects.

Okay, here is another WAG. Could it be the "Minimum processor state" "On Battery" value? The default minimum value is 5 percent. What if you changed it to 100 percent?

 

This DEFINITELY has something to do with the issue - does anyone know what it means?

 

I tried that and didnt worked.

 

Ok, here is a question...

Should I feel a lot of air coming out the vents in the back of the G73?

All I feel is a bit of heat coming out...not that I am complaining, but searching the error, it seems to be heat related in some way - but I can't see that being a problem - as the machine is very cool....but then again who knows?

Is there a way to tell if fans inside the machine are all working?

My machine is silent and I feel no "push" of air out the back vents. Which I thought was a good thing.

 

This was stated on one forum:

... relates to battery conservation features of the laptop. The processor gets throttled, especially when under battery power, in order to keep it consuming as little juice as possible under the circumstances.

 

hmm in mine right vent i working all the time and i feel warm air there

 

Did you try it with and without Power4Gear installed or switching between both "High performance" templates?

Like you mentioned it probably doesn't make any difference, I just wanted to cover all the bases before ruling that completely out.

 

only with power 4gear

 

i just found that when you have problem and you hibernate system and resume then you get 930mh insted of 490

 

Got this issue too :-(, I just keep the system plugged in to AC.

 

Ok...so, after doing a BUNCH of reading...

This whole event has something to do with CPU THROTTLING when on battery power.

Here is a link to get the next discussion started (it is HP, but I think this is the issue)...

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Hardware/Envy-15-Core-i7-Throttling/m-p/223706

 

Apparently this is an issue with many machines - but for asus only on battery...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=464397

 

so its battery, bios or cpu?
im confused now...

 

Supposedly, after the machine reaches a certain heat (while on battery), the CPU throttles down to cool and conserve battery life.

That is about the extent I understand it at this point.

Just not sure if it is supposed to STAY STUCK throttled down?!

Anyways, I have more important things to do (shame) right now, so, hopefully we can come up with some answers going forward!

Thanks for everyone's help so far.

 

hmm i tried to replicate the problem and monitoring with cpuz.
so i have started windows with 7% battery and multiplier was normal. then i plugged in ac and still was normal.
After i unplugged ac multiplier went to 4x instantly.
Plugging adaplter didnt helped.
So this looks like soft problem for me.
Maybe tommorow i will have more time for testing.
I have reinstalled chipset, gpu drivers but no change.
Are you guys able to install that turbo booster monitor and driver?
I had installed monitor by asus but after having tese problems i uinstalled it and now i cant install it...weid. which i had original win cd.....

 

Uninstalled Power4 Gear.

Still happened.

So, it is not related to that utility.

 

I aslo reinstalled P4G and it didnt helped.

Perhaps turning on TT on battery couse this problem?

 

I found weird thing. When i try to reaf temps on HWinfo32 it has problem to read gpu temps and after tew trys of reading temps cpu multiplier goes to 4x. Perhaps this is temp sensor problem? it cant read tems so it change multiplier to 4 to prevent any damages?

 

I have a feeling that this problem is not a glitch... It is intended by the CPU for this notebook.

I would think that all machines see the same thing...would love to hear more feedback.

 

werid thing i have reinstalled turbo boost monitor and p4g and battery was asking for power. multiplyer went down to 2-4x (battery was showing 5%). power plugged in and now i see that multiplier is normal again. but battery is powering VERY SLOW. 20 min and it show still 7%. so there is hope for normal working.

 

I have a problem which is REALLY annoying.. someone please help me..
Got my laptop on Wednesday, bought Battlefield Bad Company 2 yesterday.. and sadly.. EVERY times i play, i got some kind of error.

My game get out of Full Screen, there's a little window that appears and every letters i press goes in the box (window) and shows some random signs...

I close the window, go back full screen, as soon as i press a letter, box appears again.. and i cant play anymore.. unless i close the game.. and reopen it..
I tried uninstalling the game many times and reinstalling it.. i always get the same problem..
and it does that only with letters.. I have no problem with digits 1-9 or space bar.. someone.. please help me..

 

Holy hijack Batman.

 

I appoloigize for not reading the entire thread. I did read it when it started a few days ago. Yesterday I saw this very problem for the first time. I was unable to get it to go away until I finally rebooted.

The video was very slow on screen, even moving windows around, and I noticed everything seemed really slow, just pulling up a windows explorer folder or internet explorer window took many seconds. I finally noticed that the damn cats had bumped my power brick and the AC side of the brick was unplugged. I realy don't think it was heat related as in my case it was sitting idle for an hour when I went to excersize, I didn't even know it was on battery untit I started using it.

Here are some things I tried though for those trying to figure this one out. I am running from a factory restore that I did from the DVD's I made, as I installed 640gb drives right when I got it. Been running great for almost a month with no other problems.

I tried:
changing power settings from windows power settings
changing power settings from asus power4gear
shutting down windows explorer and restarting
removed battery (thinking the charging was causing the problem as my battery was almost dead)
reseating all ac/dc/adapter plugs
giving it some time (20 mins or so), thinking it would eventually fix itself

I can confirm that this is NOT an intended effect as it has only done it once. I have even played games when on battery and there was no noticable change in performance. You can see from the attached screenshot why it seemed so slow! 25mhz base clock and 180 mhz cpu, and I beleive those readings as slow as it was!

 

yep, you have same problem as we all. but i see you have bios version 205. was there such version?

 

Happened with me too, I think it's your Chinese language keyboard install. Go to your language & keyboard settings and remove everything but English.

 

Yes, that is the version my laptop was shipped with and is currently using. In total, there are three BIOS versions. The ASUS websites says:

[ 206 ]
----------------------
Firmware change

[ 205 ]
----------------------
To support W25Q32BV for G73Jh model

[ 204 ]
----------------------
First Release

At this time, no one at ASUS is saying what BIOS 206 addressed and the description is useless. Since there is no information about the 206 release, I for one will not be foolishly installing it until more information is made public.

Wrong thread. Look here.

 

Ok so Mick id man said that he re installed turbo boost monitor and p4g and he said that seemed to fix something. has anyone else specifically done this and found it got results?

 

I will test few times and let you all know if the problem is fixed.
I used turbo boost monitor from inter website. I was unable to installl the one rom asus website.

Well i have installed 206 version my bad...but it looks like its not the reason of problem.

 

I still have BIOS 205.

I have tried uninstalling the Intel stuff and Power 4 Gear and reinstalling.

Still getting the issue.

Only happens on battery power when battery level hits under 50%...usually between 30-40%.

From everything I read, the CPU is supposed to do this (throttling) when temps get to high. So, maybe you are on to something micki about a sensor or something - because my laptop is NOT running very hot at all.

I just don't see why SO MANY of us would have the same issue if it was that.


Again - please refer to the kernel error message I posted before - saying something about FIRMWARE.


event SOURCE: Kernel-Processor-Power
EVENT ID: 37
TASK CATEGORY: (7)

The speed of processor 2 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 71 seconds since the last report.


There is 1 message for each of the 8 processors. Listed in order of 0, 2, 4, 6, 1, 3, 5, 7.

 

HWInfo32 is a great program but it does not accurately report what is happening here. When it starts reporting a very low MHz number that is usually a sign that the CPU is using clock modulation to slow itself down internally.

Run ThrottleStop in monitoring mode and it should correctly report what's really going on.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cigelp

The Asus G51 uses a signal sent via the bidirectional PROCHOT to throttle the CPU. With ThrottleStop, you can turn off this signal to prevent throttling. I haven't had any feedback yet but using ThrottleStop to disable the bidirectional PROCHOT signal might also work on the G73.

The other thing you can do is you can use ThrottleStop to try and force the clock modulation and chipset clock modulation to 100%.

Be careful when testing. Disabling throttling can result in much higher power consumption than a manufacturer intended. It might also reduce the life expectancy of your battery so I would only try to run a laptop at full speed when on AC power. Post some results if ThrottleStop gives you some control over your G73 laptop.

A lot of throttling schemes are based on and triggered by power consumption and might not have anything to do with the temperature of your laptop.

Edit: One thing to keep in mind is that it is physically impossible for the multiplier to go to any number less than 7.0 on a Core i7-720QM and 9.0 on an i7-820QM or i7-920XM. When CPU-Z starts reporting a number less than that it is WRONG. It is combining clock modulation into its calculation and coming up with a multiplier that isn't possible.

 

I had once problem when bat was 49% and later when it was 5-10%.
I have tested temps with few different aplications ant temps were absolutny normal! Multiplier was showing 2-4x when problem occurred. After hibernation it went to 7x.

But now after reinstalation of Turbo boost from intel website(there is only 1 version avaliable) and Power4Gear_Hybrid_WIN7_64_110024 problem looks to be solved now. We will see in few days. I have also reinstalled Chipset drivers and Catalyst 10.3 drivers.

 

The only thing is...

Why is it happening to some people and not others (assuming it is a built in function of the CPU)?

And what triggers it? Sometimes it happens after a couple of mins, other times after 30mins-1hr.

I am wondering about the 7x - sometimes it does report LESS than that, and I know what you have said below, but why then would the laptop get SOOO slow that it is almost unusable (mouse lags, scroll lags, things take 10x longer than usual)?

 

This throttling scheme uses a feature built into the CPU called clock modulation. The CPU is still running at the same speed externally but internally, the CPU will start taking coffee breaks. It will start to ignore pulses from the clock generator chip and will intermittently be doing nothing when it should be working. It will start by ignoring 1 out of every 8 clock pulses and this can continue further until it is ignoring 7 out of 8 clock pulses. When combined with a 7.0X minimum multiplier, your computer will be running like a slug.

There are two types of clock modulation. The regular version is known as On Demand Clock Modulation (ODCM) and has been available in Intel CPUs since the Pentium 4 era. The other type of modulation is started by the Intel chipset so ThrottleStop labels that Chipset Clock Modulation. The two are separate but basically do the same thing and tell the CPU to start skipping clock pulses. This reduces power consumption and heat and is used a lot by Dell in their laptops. All of the laptops that I've seen use one type of modulation or the other but not both at the same time. It's possible to use both at the same time to really slow things down.

If you want to see how CPU-Z or HWInfo32 reacts when clock modulation is being used then download ThrottleStop and you can force either type of clock modulation by putting a check mark in the appropriate box and then dropping the % from 100.0% down to 12.5% in steps of 12.5%. The CPU-Z multiplier will drop really low and HWInfo32 will start reporting a BCLK much lower than it actually is.

Anyway, that's what is going on. To maximize the load on your computer you can try running both Prime95 and Furmark at the same time. That is usually enough to trigger this throttling. The HP Envy 15 is one of the very few performance laptops that can actually run this load at full speed. Most laptops choke when loaded like this. You can monitor with ThrottleStop and watch what happens to the clock modulation settings.

If you notice issues while gaming then it is easy to run ThrottleStop and check off the Log option so you can create a log file of what your CPU was really up to. Upload ThrottleStopLog.txt somewhere like www.sendspace.com and post a link here if you'd like me to have a look at it.

All CPUs and GPUs consume slightly different amounts of power. That can be why it happens to some users and not others. The type of game you play and where you are in the game also will effect the amount of power consumption and could trigger this throttling sooner or later. Some users might have some throttling going on but not even notice it. That's why a standardized test method like Furmark + Prime95 will make it easier to compare to other users.

The problem with laptop manufacturers using these types of throttling schemes is that they can be totally excessive and will not be turned off and the CPU returned to full speed until long after the throttling was needed. It's also questionable why laptops are sold with great specs and then secretly throttled like this without informing buyers what's really going on.

 

Hmm now i remember that i did 3dmark 06 and vantage tests on the beggining and half of tests fps were normally like 50-60 and hals of tests it was 0-1 and it looked like demo on commodore 64. It was weris but i didnt realized this can be a problem. I suspect now that these teste were when cpu multiplier went down. anyway when i run a game i will see how it works. for now didnt noriced any slowdowns.

I googled many manyforums with similar problem on win7.why it happens to some users, dont know. perhaps this is some number of cpus or drivers in win7...

 

Here is what I still don't get...

NOTHING triggers it...it happens by itself.

I don't really game much. This occurrence will happen when the notebook is just idling...and not much is running at all (CPU at 2-4%).

It ALSO, will NOT return to normal when AC is plugged in after it starts. It will only return to normal with a REBOOT.

So does what you are saying still apply (Uncleweb)?

Thanks!

 

Agree with you corpfan - Mine does this even when doing the simplest of tasks. I would certainly hope that tasks like this would not require any form of intentional throttling. My temperatures are also never warm (let alone hot).

 

How the heck are we going to figure this out?

 

You can start by running ThrottleStop and create a log file so you can document exactly what the problem is. If it is clock modulation being triggered, neither CPU-Z nor HWInfor32 can report this accurately.

It might be as simple as turning off the bidirectional PROCHOT feature that I mentioned. This fixed a lot of issues on the G51.

There might be a random bug in the bios that triggers chipset clock modulation accidentally and since it happens randomly, it never gets properly reset until you do a reboot. Running ThrottleStop with both types of clock modulation locked at 100% might prevent these issues that you are seeing.

Can Prime95 Small FFTs + Furmark stability test run at full speed when the G73 is plugged in?

If the slow downs are completely random and they are not in any way related to load then run a ThrottleStop log file and the next time it happens you will have a record of exactly what happened. When minimized to the system tray, ThrottleStop consumes very little in terms of CPU resources so you will never notice it running in the background collecting data about your CPU.

This is a fixable problem once you know and can prove exactly what it is. I communicate with the Asus rep regularly so if you can show me some data, I can forward that to him who can contact the bios engineers directly to show them what is going on and hopefully come up with a fix.

Next time it happens use ThrottleStop, see what the problem is and I bet you can also correct this problem and get back to full speed without needing to reboot.

 

Ok, using Throttle Stop, and it has happened again.

I will post the results shortly after 10:10 EST - hopefully you will be around at some point to help diagnose.

Thanks!

 

Ran Throttle Stop .exe on battery with PERFORMANCE mode (Windows 7) at 100% on all settings at approx. 9:15pm. Used stock settings, checked off Log File and More Data.

1. As soon as I run the .exe for throttlestop, HWiNFO32 shows that the clocks go to 1595 (approx.) and the Clock Ratio goes to 12x immediately and they stay there. Before running throttlestop, CPU ratios were fluctuating between 13-21x. Also clocks were at 1600-2800MHz.

2. When running throttlestop, the GPU temps on HWiNFO32 show up...normally the VALUE box is empty and they do not show up except for 1 second at the beginning of running the program.

3. I tried TWIN TURBO for a few seconds at approx. 9:34pm. The MHz went to about 1700 on all cores.

4. I was also running CPU-Z at the same time and surfing the net a little.

5. Did a PRINT SCREEN at 9:37pm just to have a pic of what was going on.

6. Shortly before 9:46pm, the CHIP% dropped to 50.0 (which coincided with battery level at 50%. The Clock Ratios dropped to 7x on HWiNFO32 AND on Multi. The clock amounts dropped to about 500MHz for all cores on HWiNFO32. On CPU-Z the core speed was listed at 532MHz approx with a multiplier of x4. The speed of the computer has slowed down. I also did a PRINT SCREEN of this state.

7. At 10:01pm, 30% battery power, the Chip% dropped to 12.5. On HWiNFO32, the clocks dropped to about 160MHz with a 7x multiplier. On CPU-Z, the Core Speed shows 133.0MHz with a x1.0 multiplier. Computer now crawls. Photoshop took about 1 minute to launch....even typing is laggy. Also did a PRINT SCREEN here.

8. Stopped all processes and rebooted at 10:10pm. Battery at 16%.

By the way, when THROTTLE STOP is active the CPU MHz is about 1/2 of what it usually is.

All screenshots are attached.

Opinions?

Thanks!

 

As predicted, Chipset Clock Modulation is being used to throttle the performance of your computer. Put a check mark in the Set Multiplier box and set that to 13 for a Core i7-720QM. 12 is the default multiplier for this CPU and the extra +1 tells the CPU to use as much turbo boost as possible. Turbo boost continuously varies depending on CPU load and how many cores are in the active state at any instant in time. Software that samples your CPU once per second does not accurately report what your CPU is really up to.

Put a check mark in the Chipset Clock Mod box and set that to 100%.

Now click on the Turn On button and ThrottleStop will work to try and keep your CPU running at its maximum. Run another log file while gaming or just using your computer to see if it is still throttling or not.

Now the problem is that when on battery power, this might cause your computer to try and draw more power than your battery can deliver which could result in your computer shutting down instantly when you try to go up to full load. Some computers have chipset clock modulation at 100% but drop the multiplier to 7.0 when on battery power to control the maximum power consumption. You would be way better off like this than with Chipset Clock modulation dropping down to 12.5%. That's just brutal and will make your expensive laptop run like someone stuck a Pentium II in there when you weren't looking. I have no idea why manufacturers think doing this is acceptable.

You can also try disabling bidirectional PROCHOT. (BD PROCHOT) It might be sending a signal to the CPU using this method. You will need to go into the Options window first to unlock this feature.

When testing run something simple like Super PI mod to put some load on your CPU so we can see what the multiplier is when loaded. At idle, the power saving features like SpeedStep and C1E can confuse the issue. Take a screen shot when half way through a 1M or similar calculation.

Does this throttling only happen on battery power? When you plug it back in and go back to AC power does it forget to stop this throttling nonsense. Asus needs to get this fixed up.

Neither HWInfo32 or CPU-Z correctly reports what's going on so what they tell you is not always accurate and shouldn't be depended on. Here are a couple of examples I found during testing that proves this:







The minimum multiplier on a Core 2 Duo is 6.0. With SLFM enabled you can get the equivalent of a 3.0 multiplier. You definitely can't get a 0.5 multiplier. By not correctly reporting clock modulation, it combines this with the regular multiplier into some sort of equivalent multiplier. The result shows you that some throttling is going on but the accuracy of what it reports is questionable. ThrottleStop tells it like it is and can detect and correct the main types of throttling that Asus, Dell, Acer and probably a few others are using.