Heat problem solving for centrino and sonoma note

Hi all

A bloke nicknamed Irion (from Germany I think) has posted this on the VIP Asus forum and I thought it could do a lot of good on this one, so I hope he doesn't mind but here it is



(A Small modification: this all works for sonoma as well as I found out now. I have updated the tutorial.)

Hi Folks!

I want to share something great with you
all of the following tricks are from the german unofficial ASUS M6N-board http://www.encke.net/encke/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpBB_14&file=index. I will give you a step-by-step instuction. This all works perfectly on my ASUS M6710NEUP, but basically should work on any centrino-based computer (banias and dothan, and as I found out now for Sonoma as well!). For example it works well on a Acer Aspire 2020.

First, what it is all about: We will use the tool "RM Clock" to reduce the core voltage of the CPU. This dramatically reduces power consuption, therefore the battery lasts longer and the cpu temperature is much lower. There is absolutely no risk of damaging the cpu, if you follow my instructions. As well, the CPU performance is not modifyed, you still have the same power for games. On my machine, i can play Half-Life 2 or World of Warcraft with the CPU staying so cool, that the fan keeps off half of the time (BIOS 0205).

Here is what these tools can achieve:
Without these tricks, my computer uses around 33 Watts in prime torture test (see below) at 1.5GHz, and the temperature rises over 70°C.
With RM Clock, it only needs 22 Watts, the temperature doesn't go over 56°C but it still has the same performance!
The Watt numbers were measured via Mobile Meter 0.3.0.0 in Battery mode.

I can not guarantee that this will work, and i don't take any responsabilities, i can say this perfectly works for me, and for all my friends on whose computers i tried it. I am also not sure if you lose your warranty or something. basically this should not happen, because we only decrease the cpu voltage, and it is only done if the program is active in windows. if you reboot or just deactivate the program discribed below, all changes are gone, there is nothing saved in the hardware.


What we need:
The tool "RM Clock" from http://cpu.rightmark.org/download/rmclock_15_bin.exe
The tool "CPUMSR" from http://www.cpuheat.wz.cz/BetaVersions/CPUMSR_0_88.zip
The tool "prime" from http://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v238.exe for stress testing
Centrino Hardware Control from http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm


1 - Uninstall the Power4Gear Software, it sux ;-)
2 - Download the above tools and extract/install them. it is not important, where prime and CPUMSR are extracted, RM Clock should be extracted to some folder, where it can stay, like C rogram FilesRM Clock3 - Now, start CPUMSR. Click "Configuration", and uncheck the "enable user protection" box. now, click the "Pentium M" button in the list on the left side (be sure not to click any of the other buttons!!)
4 - Choose "Frequency & Voltage Control"
5 - Here you can see the current multiplier and core voltage, write them down somewhere, or keep them in mind.
6 - Run prime (should be in the start menu under "Prime 95") and click "Just Stress Testing"
7 - In prime, choose Options -> Torture Test... and choose the first box (Small FFTs).
8 - click "OK" to start the "torturing" of the CPU, you will note text lines beginning with "Test 1, 1000 Lucas-Lemer iterations...", they keep appearing (=torturing) until you choose "Test -> stop"
9 - switch back to CPUMSR and move the windows so that you can see the text lines appearing while you change the settings in CPUMSR.
10 - in the "Change Multiplier to"-field you choose The maximum available multiplier for your system. In order do find it out, open the CHC-Helpflile from the START-menu, it has some great tables, including each CPU's multipliers and the correspondent default Core Voltages. it has no effect if you choose a multiplier above your maximum, you can't overclock your CPU.
11 - in the "at a Voltage of:"-field you choose the correspondant Voltage from the CHC-Helpfile-table, but 1.308V should work for everybody.
12 - click "Set"
13 - now, if your computer hasn't crashed, which should not yet happen ;-), you slowly decrease the voltage, but keep your maximum multiplier, and click "Set" each time.
14 - while you do this, keep watching the lines in prime, as long as they appear regularly, everything is ok
15 - At a certain voltage, one of these things will happen: either prime reports some kind of error, or your computer crashes. This is NOT dangerous, just restart (press the power button 5 secs, wait 5 secs and press it again to turn the computer on). It is important, that you keep in mind the last voltage that reported no error! it varies from system to system, on my system it is 0.924V but this will definately vary on each system!
16 - write down this voltage that was the lowest one to work and the correspondend multiplier on some piece of paper!
17 - now, you repeat the same (start prime and CPUMSR, if it is not yet running) and set the multiplier to 6x, which is the lowest possible setting, with the lowest possible Voltage, 0.700V and check out if prime reports an error (really should not happen).


From now on, we don't need CPUMSR any more. you can uninstall/remove them if you want, we only needed it to get the limit-voltages. You can now decide, if you want to use CHC or RM Clock. Personnaly, I prefer RM Clock, so I am explainig it in detail. CHC works very similar, you will find out! CHC offers the possiblity to set the temperatures at which the fan starts and stops, this might be interesting to V6V-Users. I strongly recommend M6Ne-Users not to activate fan control in CHC, it makes the fan never stop again ;-).


1 - Now, start RM Clock by double-clicking the .exe-file.
2 - Click the "Management"-Tab and activate the "Use P-State Transitions (PST)" checkbox
3 - At "Minimal FID" you choose 6x
4 - At "Minimal VID" you choose 0.700 V
5 - At "Maximal FID" you choose your maximum multiplier, 15x in my case
6 - At "Maximal VID" you choose the voltage you wrote down, that was the lowest one to work, it is recommendet to choose 2 or 3 levels above, as a safety backup for voltage fluctuations.
7 - At "AC Profile", choose "Automatic Management"
8 - At "Battery Profile", choose what you want, "Minimal" for 600MHz and super-low power consumption ;-), or "Automatic Management" for high performance, but still lower power consumption than 600MHz without RM Clock.
9 - Click "Apply" and close the RM-Clock window.
10 - Now start prime again and do the "Small FFTs"-Torture Test again to check if everything works alright.
You will note the small icon in the system-tray-bar, where you see a circle, that turns red if the cpu is at a high frequency and stays gray, if the frequency is low. The frequency adapts automatically to the cpu usage, as long as you have "Automatic Management" activated under "PST Performance Profile" in the right-click-menu of the system-tray-icon!
11 - if everything works alright without a crash or an error, right-click on the icon in the tray-bar
12 - and activate the "Start Minimized to Tray" and "Run Automatically at Startup" options.


congratulations, you're done
if you have problems, feel free to post them here

Greetings, Luiz.

Thanks Luiz [ ]

 

Derek,

Wow Thanks for the useful info

 

Users can also tryout centrino hardware control (http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm).
Does the same as above but with a nice easy gui, using it on my M2N with good results, machine is quieter, cooler and thus I guess battery life is also better.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

I have a question about underclocking and undervolting.
I have posted on other forums and I am getting no response.
Can anyone tell me if this makes sense and if not, why.

If the CPU temp controls the fans on a notebook and the CPU
is underclocked or undervolted, the notebook would run cooler,
however other components such as the GPU and Harddrive which
is also dependant on cooling may not be getting the proper cooling
because the fans are not being initiated enough.

Thanks

 

ETS,

That is a very good example of why not to screw around.... I wouldn't worry about the hard drive, but I would worry about the gpu only in certain cases...... if you're going to permanently undervolt and underclock the cpu....... you're most likely going to underclock the gpu as well and not use it as much...... However if you're not thinking that way, then you'd have an issue if the gpu and cpu are tied to the same cooler... like the W3v/V6v.... If they are larger systems and independent... it wouldn't be an issue.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
800-474-2296
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Yep it depend on each system, everyone will behave slightly differently, some will benifit some wont. I have it on my M2n only, my M6Ne was a bit unstable and I could be bothered spending days finding a good combination of voltages, thus better to leave it stock. But the M2 works fine with it...only has a intel gpu so not much heat from that...the centrino system has hdd temp monitoring and smart reporting...my hdd has been pretty cool...well below 50C so no issues there...fairly happy with my undervolting at the moment.
But like pro says best not to stuff around...unless your prepared for the outcomes.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

.... Here's a good way to know if you're NOT ready for what might happen.....


1. If you burn up your GPU, you have NO idea why it happend.

2. If and when you burn up your system, you're the first one to call up and ***** to Asus or your dealer that the system sucks and doesn't work...

If you're *man enough* to put up with the consequences and know what you're doing.... then do ahead.

[ ] - hate to put it that blunt but from my experience those two lines above are the tell tale signs of someone who doesn't have a clue but reads about "cool" things like this online...

Good luck with whatever you do.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
800-474-2296
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Not planning to underclock or tweak anything, I figured
manufacture settings are set for a reason. Just
curious as to why others were doing it and if they even
thought about what could happen.

Thanks

 

Oh, well excuse me... I guess you're just one of those scratching your head as well...

Well there are reasons for it, but the pentium-m's always scaled their settings and I even beleive the newest 533 models undervolt automatically as well but haven't actually tested that as I really don't need to know........ but limiting your settings, although effecting performance, would improve battery life and the heat produced by the cpu...... but most that know how to use the powergear settings should find that to be enough.. After all, if you bought a 2.1ghz cpu, if you ever needed it, you'd want that performanace when it called for it.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
800-474-2296
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Yes I to agree with the concept of leaving the settings as is, they must be set for a good reason. Bios up grades is about all I'll do.

I posted this here because some people were wanting to do something about the fans on there V6's being on a lot. Also the W3's were giving me the imptression that they were a bit on the warm side. Basiclly it gives people a choice if they want to play around with it.

As I've said, my fan on the V6 doesn't bother me, and the game setting on the power4gear does me fine. However would be good to get some more battery life as 3 hours is not quite enough.

Cheers

 

Everything is cool.

Thanks for the response, I've been losing sleep wondering why so many people were undervolting.

Personally I can't afford to mess up my notebooks...Well I can afford
it finacially,but my girlfriend would be pissed for months.[B)]

 

So if someone is looking for a new Pentium M Sonoma laptop, what is a "cool" temp for this CPU to be running at? I have seen some that feel like they would give 2nd degree burns and others (only a few) that only feel a bit warm.

Thanks for any help.

 

I would set your powergear to email as long as you're just emailing/internet/word type stuff......... When you drop that you'll be dropping the max cpu speed and threfore cool things off a bit more and gain some more life. At the same time, if the lcd brightness is too low for you at that setting, do into the powergear settings and adjust it up and save it......

You don't have to live with those stock settings. When you need the power, crank it up.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
800-474-2296
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Smudge,

I think that expecting a notebook/laptop to run "cool" is expecting
a little too much.
I have gone through notebooks from Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sager, Dell
and HP; processors from 386, 486, transmeta, P-P4 and they all ran
warm and felt pretty close to the same outside (case temps.)
I live in Hawaii where weather temps go up to 94 with humidity at 70
so maybe I'm used to warm temperatures.
Using Mobmeter most of my units run between 47c and 60c.
I'm guessing smaller units will run hotter due to restricted air flow, but that would be dependant on the components involved.

Just in case you need it

C to F conversion (C*1.8)+32=F[ ]

 

Thanks, I'll give that a go. With the standard settings the Mobmeter I have indicates 24.7W of discharge in Email/office. By the looks of it the CPU is set at 800 GHz only in this mode.

Compared to 24.4W in game mode with the CPU running at 800 MHZ but it does jump up when the CPU spools up for faster speeds. Unbelievably battery saving mode is a higher 25.3W, it seems that the frequency of the CPU is set only at 1.33 GHz for this mode and does not change.

All these levels fluctuate a bit but it seems that the game setting is the best for battery saving if you don’t do anything fun, however, all up if you want to under volt you CPU and keep it at 800MHz I can see how the email/office setting would be best.

One other thing, you can really see the difference with the screen brightness settings with this program but I cant give you details as I’ve just run out of battery and I’m now runnig on mains power.

I will play with the settings some more however and see what’s happening but must go to an exam now

Bye [ ]

 

Interesting findings.... I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I'll look into it on my own machines. Let us kno whow it works out for you.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
800-474-2296
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Has anyone actually experienced any problems after undervolting their laptop? From what I read, it doesn't slow down you CPU at all, and it causes few stability issues. Overall I think it would be a good idea and the drawbacks that were mentioned seem unreasonable.

 

Well my m6n completely locked up on the first try I did with it, I had fairly conservative voltages too...above the recommended starting point in the beginners guide, so if you say that is an ok outcome then fine, but personnally I like to be able to use my machine without it locking up and needing a hard reboot. So the cautions are very valid...and users should know about them...if your pc is screwed thru using this program or other undervolting/overclocking utilities, then your warranty may not cover the damage, so if your prepared to play with $2000, fine, but dont suggest that there are no risks...thats foolish and incorrect.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

Hi! I have been undervolting my M6Ne for a few months now, and I didn't experience any problems. I am deeply satisfied with the undervolting, I really only hear my fan, whet the cpu is under hevy load, and the computer runs stable. It is no problem to have the laptop running 2m away from you while you sleep. you hear nothing .

Greetings,
Irion (indirect thread starter ^^)

 

hi there, sorry for resuming this old thread... i've some questions about this procedure and Notebook Hardware Control:

* i'd like know if unistalling Power4Gear is a necessary step or it can simply be shutdown as default at windows start up;
* second a questiona bout this:

the fan will be always on only if CHC is running or also when it is off ??

thanks

 

You can simply just shut down Power4Gear from startup and it won't affect anything.
As for fan control.. I ALWAYS had it enabled when I had my M6Ne; that was one of the reasons why I used NHC in the first place... so i could control the fan.