Recommend Software for Z63a CPU & Fan controls

OK I just bought the Z63a from Canadasys during the weekend, here are my queries:

1. Any recommendation of software to control of CPU speed, volt, and fan with the Z63a.

2. What are the best settings (speed, volt and fan and other settings etc.) with 1.73GHz Dothan CPU to maximize battery life?

3. The recommended software will preferably on detection of switching to mains power to enable all settings automatically switch to maximize performance.

4. The software can display all settings, CPU speed, fan speed, cpu temperature, HDD temperature etc. when click.

Thanks for any input.

 

I love the simplicity of Asus' Power4Gear that comes with all of their units....

For fan control I'd use Fanspeed

 

Notebook Hardware Control is a pretty easy program and does well

0.7 volts is a stable voltage, most are using that at 6x

Power4Gear also helps, I use both

Everest or CPU-Z works great for looking at your specs

 

On my z63a, notebook hardware control seems to conflict with the software that handles the hot keys. For example, with NHC running, it takes about 15 seconds for a response (and the on screen display) when I hit Fn-F5 to dim the display. No such latency without NHC running. Also NHC often locks up when I try to maximize it, and I have to kill it with windows task manager. When it locks up, it seems that other problems lock up as well (such as running windvd). No such problems without NHC.
I'm using nhc 1.9 beta3. Maybe one of the older versions work better?
Also I haven't seen anything in NHC that shows the fan speed, am I missing a config option?

 

I've been using the Rightmark CPU clock utility for the past 6 months to undervolt the CPU. 0.70V @ 6x and 1.084V @ 14x. The procedure to determine the appropriate voltage settings for your own notebook is given in the Asus FAQ thread.

I haven't managed to over-ride the default fan speeds but the slow fan speed (1200 RPM) is almost inaudible and the undervolting means that the fan rarely steps up to the next speed setting.

John

 

Thanks for all the replies.

I think I should try out all to see whats best for my Z63a, i.e. longest on battery life and best performance on mains power. I will start with Power4gear since its on one of the 5 CDs (5 of them!) that came with my Z63a.

Since bcc reported problems with NHC, I will try it out last.

 

I read thru the ASUS Notebook FAQ thread, trying to download Everest. Too bad, no longer a freeware. In the thread, it said:

" You need to download 3 programs, as well as .NET Framework

Microsoft's .NET Version 1.1 Framework

Everest

Centrino Hardware Control

SpeedFan

Once you've installed all these, first run the .NET framework, then CHC, then Everest, and lastly, SpeedFan.

After rebooting your notebook, run CHC, and in the window that pops up, it should tell you your CPU Clock, CPU load, CPU voltage, Charge time, CPU Temp, etc. Remember the CPU temperature, compare it after and see if its any cooler! "

What does Everest do here? How do I run .net after installing .net Framework?

 

So it looks like I figured out my issue between Notebook Hardware Control and the ATK0100 driver/hotkeys. If you ever click on the 'Samsung P35 compatible FAN Control' button in notebook hardware control, that's when things fall apart, and NHC regularly locks up. Had to deinstall/reinstall NHC to figure this out. Once that settings is enabled, NHC never lets me disable it (too locked up to respond apparently). You can edit the setting out of the .ini however, and recover that way...
NHC has a lot more info than asus's power4gear or PC probe, so it's nice that it now works again. power4gear seems real broken - whenever you cycle through the "presentation" setting it hoses your resolution&background graphic, and doesn't restore them when you switch to any other setting, and you can't disable "presentation". I also could not get dynamic switching to work with power4gear running.

 

Must be a conflict of software... Power4Gear works fine for me, but I don't use any other monitoring/power control software.

 

The problem with P4G presentation mode is normal. It was clearly designed as a quick way to change the display to suit a 800 x 600 resolution project. In my case, once you leave this mode the resolution is reset to normal, maximised windows are still maximised, but any windows which were not full screen when you switched to presentation mode are left as 800 x 800. I've just uninstalled P4G. Let me see if I miss it.

John

 

When cycling modes in P4G, if you accidently stop at the presentation mode, it changes your resolution to 800x600, and pops up an annoying "PMode CFG" window. Yes, this is obviously to suit external display output. But, then if you switch to the next mode, the display momentarily switches back to 1280x768, then after about 1 second the "PMode CFG" window goes away and the resolution is snapped to 800x600 - *permanently* until you reconfig the resolution yourself. Looks like if you uncover the (sometimes lowered) pmode cfg window and hit cancel before cycling to the next mode, the permanent change can be avoided. Thus the usability of the power4gear button seems hopeless, and I'd have to conclude uninstalling p4g is the correct fix.

To boot, cycling modes with p4g turns *off* the custom dynamic switching in nhc, and so the clock gets pegged at 2ghz...

 

I leave power4gear in game mode. it enables dynamic clock stepping, although your screen saver is turned off.

 

I just downloaded Notebook Hardware Control and did the undervolting thing. When I ran (before undervolting) a WMP High-Definition video, the temp would climb to 70 C. Now, the temp only climbed to 52 C!!!

AMAZING!

 

I tried P4G and did not like it and uninstalled it. I then downloaded NHC and ran into the same problem of bcc of setting Sumsung fan stuff and got stuck. Then I was wondering if all such software had problems and then uninstalled it.

 

I've been using the Rightmark CPU Clock utility for the past six months to do my undervolting. This software has fewer options and may cause you less trouble.

John

 

The latest NHC with .net (version 2 final) seems to work fine if you reinstall and make sure to never try the samsung fan option. It has more info and functionality than the utilities that asus provides. The only thing you miss is the fan speed info (which is available in the dated asus probe utility you can download from asus's w3a file area).