G73JH clarifications

Just had a few things which have been bugging me since i got my G73JH, thought i'd ask here. I tried searching but either got unreliable or irrelevant answers.

1. I have Turbo boost turned OFF but CPUZ still reports my clock speed @ 2.9GHz. Now i know that only the first core is being overclocked, but why is it reaching 2.9GHz with turbo boost turned OFF? Does turning Turbo Boost ON actually do anything performance-wise? Is it better if i just leave Turbo Boost disabled?

2. If i reformatted without installing the "ATK Package", "Intel Management Engine Components", "Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor" or "Power4Gear Hybrid", will the first core still overclock itself to 2.9GHz even without any Turbo/Power related software installed?

3. Do i require the "ATK Package" to be installed to use the backlight on the keyboard?

4. I know the G73JH has no RAID controller, but just wanting to confirm that it has no 6GB/s SATA3 ports either? What would be the absolute fastest SSD i could run on this?

5. My fiance was playing WoW when my G73 blue-screened, after which "Wake on LAN" was somehow enabled and used to pop up every time i booted (until i disabled it again). Does anyone have any idea how this happened?

 

Don't confuse twin turbo and turbo boost. Twin turbo should be off but turbo boost is an intel feature and you shouldn't mess with it.

Reformatting won't change anything about turbo boost, the feature is integrated to the CPU, you might able to disable it in the bios, but don't. I can't see why you'd want to turn it off, it changes the multipliers depending on how many cores are used and will never let the CPU go over the TDP defined by Intel.

If you want to accurately measure your CPU speed and multiplier, i recommend you use throttlestop in monitoring only mode.

Yes, you need ATK package for the hotkeys, kb lights adjustments etc. You NEED ATK on an Asus laptop.

Nope, no 6GB/s SATA.

 

Alright, that seems to be the source of my confusion.

I'm referring to the 'Twin Turbo' then - If the Intel's 'Turbo Boost' already overclocks it to 2.9GHz then exactly what purpose does the 'Twin Turbo' serve?

Does that mean it is always at 2.9GHz because i set the minimum CPU state to 100%? Is that the only real way to control Intel's turbo?

I intend to upgrade to an SSD, but will only be installing the absolutely vital programs/drivers/utilities. If i manage my own power profiles and do not want/need the 'Twin Turbo', can i simply not install "Intel Management Engine Components", "Intel Turbo Boost Technology Monitor" or "Power4Gear Hybrid"? Do any of those have any actual vital purpose?

 

Power4Gear does the same thing as the Windows power management options. Whether you like this utility or not is entirely personal. I prefer it over the built in windows power management since i can switch power profiles on the fly with the hotkeys.

Twin Turbo raises the BCLK of your CPU a bit but in my opinion it's not worth it. If you want to overclock, use SETFSB. That is a function from Asus, Intel has nothing to do with twin turbo.

The turbo boost monitor is only that, a monitoring tool. No need to install the thing unless you want it.

The Intel Turbo boost doesn't need to be managed by the user, it does just fine on it's own so don't worry about it. Read this if you want to know how it works: AnandTech - Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger

 

Well, you CAN use Twin Turbo, once you tweak the master clock settings in Windows.

run "bcdedit /set useplatformclock true" from a Admin-Elevated Command Prompt

 

Does it still turbo boost at x13 multiplier on the 720qm or it stays at x12 multiplier? I'm asking because even if the timing issue is fixed, 142x12 still gives a lower overall clock speed than 133x13.

 

can you provide what the heck this command do please... looking on other forums just found it fix something related to synchronicity of windows with the hardware. Actually the terms used by other is kind of cryptic so make me even more confusing. Just grab wintestertimer 1.1 and I realize my ratio is 1 in stock and 1.07 in OC state. But again, what this mean?

 

Yes, TurboBoost will work with Twin Turbo in this matter, and so keep the x13 bump.

It causes Windows to use a better Master Clock internal register instead of the ancient default one which should have been burned from the kernel for being so legacy. It also has the nice function of not causing TurboBoost to disable when overclocking.

 

@Chastity so after tweaking the master clock settings in Windows we can use Twin Turbo without having any issues in performance?

 

I know that, and i have already done that, but my question is - What exactly does 'Twin Turbo' ACTUALLY do?

If it's already at 2.9GHz with it turned OFF and it's still at 2.9GHz when it's turned ON, then what exactly is changing? Is it actually doing anything? Why should i bother using it?

 

It bumps your base clock from 133 MHz to 142mhz, with the theory that it is overclocking your RAM and CPU. Intel Turbo boost reacts oddly to twin turbo for the most part, and doesn't always result in higher performance, but I haven't tried it with the above mentioned tweak for windows 7.

 

If Chastity says the tweak for windows 7 fixes the turbo boost not kicking in on twin turbo (god this turbo thing can get confusing ) then it's true .

Anyways, Rishwin, core i CPUs work this way, they have a base clock of 133MHz and the overall clock speed is determined by the multiplier. For an i7-720qm, those are 12+1/12+1/12+6/12+9 (4cores/3/2/1) which gives clock speeds of 1.73/1.73/2.4/2.8. It's the same for your 740qm except the multipliers are a bit higher. If you raise the BCLK to 142MHz, you will see an increase in clock speeds.The number after the + represents the multiplier from the turbo boost function.

The problem if you don't use the timing tweak for windows 7 is that turbo boost won't kick in if you raise the BCLK. When the JH came out, people tried the twin turbo and since the timing fix wasn't know we got 142x12 = 1.7GHz on twin turbo which is lower than 13x133=1.73GHz. With the fix i would get 142x13=1.85GHz

 

Oh no, i understand all of that.

I understand that it is supposed to raise the clock, but my issue is that when it does, it still doesn't go any higher than 2.9GHz.

So if it's 2.9GHz with it off and 2.9GHz with it on, then that means if it IS actually raising the clock, it must also be LOWERING the multiplier. Which to me, seems completely redundant. That's what i don't understand.

 

That's because of the issue with windows 7 that Chastity mentioned, use the fix she provided in her post and you will clock at higher speeds.

Here's the post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu.../581003-g73jh-clarifications.html#post7530050. There's also a thread somewhere on NBR that explains the whole timing problem if you change the BCLK without using the fix. Run the fix in a command prompt with admin rights and you'll be good to go.

 

But I've already done that. I did it several weeks ago now. Nothing has changed at all.

 

Have you check with some monitoring app like Throttlestop (in monitoring mode) or CPU-Z that your BCLK is indeed raised to 142MHz when you turn twin turbo on? Oh and try running something multithreaded like wPrime or Prime 95 and check your CPU clock then with twin turbo enabled.

Personally, i would use throttlestop in monitoring mode and you could use the TS bench option and run the 32M on 8 thread and check how the BCLK and multi behave on high performance while pugged in.

 

You probably won't see a max increase, however, your min increase with 4-core / 8 threads will increase. On my JH, I bump the FSB to 1.8-ish OC, and then TurboBoost reports 2.0 on 8 thread load. This was confirmed with a significant boost to my video encode's fps rating. (Went up about 40 fps)

 

Now this is very strange. CPUZ and HWINFO32 are giving me 2 very different readings.

HWINFO32: Regardless if 'Twin Turbo' is turned on or off, my BCLK seems to be constantly changing between 133MHz-145MHz. However when it is turned off, it shows that the multiplier always caps at 20. It then goes to 22 with 'Twin Turbo' turned on.

CPUZ: When 'Twin Turbo' is turned off, the BCLK seems to sit at a constant 133MHz, with the multiplier jumping between 10-22. When it is turned on, the clock goes up to 145MHz, and occasionally reaches 3.2GHz.

Why are these 2 different programs giving me different information? One tells me that the multiplier is a constant and the BCLK is changing, while the other tells me the BCLK is the constant while the multiplier changes.

What gives?

Additionally, HWINFO32 is apparently telling me that ALL of my 4 cores are running at 3.2GHz, and it currently tells me that my BCLK is 175Mhz and using a lower multiplier of 17/18. CPUZ obviously is telling me something completely different (145MHz x 22).

 

HWiNFO32's cpu clock and multiplier readings aren't very accurate at idle. I find throttlestop to be the most accurate when the CPU is not under full load in regards to bclk and multipliers. CPU-Z is better than HWiNFO though.

 

I used Prime95, and I'm a little confused. These are the results that i got from both HWINFO32 and CPUZ, it seems they finally agree with eachother:

TT OFF: 133x18=1.73GHz
TT ON: 145x18=1.85GHz

Problem is, that's not right. If it really is using those figures, the clock speeds should be 2.4GHz and 2.6GHz respectively. The maths simply doesn't add up.

Incorrect maths aside, is that how it is supposed to be? Does Intel's 'Turbo Boost' not turn on when all cores/threads are being used? I know it's only supposed to affect the first core, but is this right?

 

^ no intel turbo boost acts on any core depending on load..

the multiplier applied depends on the number of cores under load/ no of threads running..
read here and see the 920XM example..
Intel Turbo Boost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Alright, so the 740QM has Turbo stepping at 1/1/6/9.

Doesn't that mean that even though i had all cores in use, i should still have seen a performance increase of 133MHz?

It was also obviously using the stock multiplier of 13, why are they both showing 18?

 

were those x18 multipliers at idle??
at idle, the cpu keeps on changing multipliers and active cores due to the minimal background processing of windows..

if you really wanna test the multipliers then fire up throttlestop run the TSbench and define the number of threads to run..

if you do 1 thread you'll see proc using x20 multiplier on a single core, this wont be constant though coz of some degree of throttling due to temps, turbo boost con almost never hold a steady x20 multiplier on a single core

if you run 8 threads and occupy all 4 cores, you'll see that all cores run at x13 just as described..

why are you so concerned about this? turbo boost will always work in the background, no drivers or clock change of yours will make it stop working. the only thing which hampered it from reaching the x13 multiplier when OC'd was that timing bug for which you've applied the fix i believe

 

I was running Prime95 on all cores, i left it for 15 mins first to warm up before i checked the clocks.

It's using a multiplier of 13, even the maths tells us that it's using 13, yet it still displays that it's using 18. Both HWINFO and CPUZ are showing 18 while running Prime95.

I'm not concerned, I'm merely trying to understand EXACTLY what my laptop is doing. I'm an avid desktop overclocker, so I'm used to setting my BCLK and multiplier, and having it stay the same. I get uneasy when i see my clock speeds jumping allover the place because I'm not exactly sure of what's causing it when both 'Turbo Boost' and 'Twin Turbo' are constantly changing it.

 

was it on a low power profile? or core parking tuned on by any chance?

Did you simultaneously check the taskmanager graph or some other app to make sure 8 threads were running and all cores were active..?


If all of the above were fine then i'm sorry mate, i'm as stumped by this as you are..

and as for the clocks not being stable, they never will be perfectly the same on a mobile cpu probably unless its fully stressed due to the various power conservation methods in the background

 

Yea mate, while running Prime95 i had Task manager open to confirm all 8 threads were @ 100%, while i had HWINFO32, CPUZ and RealTemp open for clocks and temps.

I ran it all again and everything seems to be showing the proper 13x multiplier now. Not sure what caused the error last time, but oh well. At least i know it works fine now.

I only use 1 profile, that has everything @ 100% so that shouldn't be the issue. I tried googling it and couldn't find out too much, what exactly is 'core parking'?

The only question now is why I'm not getting that extra 133MHz from Intel's Turbo Boost when all 8 threads are in use. I know it turns on/off subject to power requirements, would my laptop running with all 4 cores @ 100% really use so much power that it can't accommodate the Turbo Boost? Running temp flat-out on Prime95 is only 73 degrees, so that shouldn't be an issue.

 

My experience is that if you want to OC your CPU past the speed it was designed to run at it will draw more power than the 45 Watt. Therefore you will have to 'up' the Max. Turbo Power Limits (the TDP and TDC) with ThrottleStop, or else you will never get an OC. It will throttle itself to the max. Wattage it was designed to draw. Which I believe is 45 Watt for a 720QM. Just my two cents worth.

iemie

 

Well it is using Intel's own Turbo Boost and Asus' Twin turbo, so as far as I'm concerned this is well within it's "designed operating speed". Other than those, it's completely stock, so there should be no issue.

I don't want to overclock it, it does that itself. I simply wanted to know exactly which one was overclocking what.

It's a 740QM btw, so the 1.73GHz IS it's stock clock speed.

 

For some reason prime95 makes my 720qm run at x12 multiplier. Anything other than prime95 which runs on 4 or more threads makes is clock at x13 like it should with turbo.

All i7s except the xm editions have a TDP of 45W both first and second generation, the 740qm is just a bit more power efficient than the 720qm.