Confirmed speedstep gaming issue.

Hi guys,


I have been having a strange extreme fps spiking problem when gaming on my m1530.

I did some research and wondered if it could be the speedstep. It is.

I ran stalker clear sky windowed at 800 600 with cpuz running next to it and lo and behold, when the multiplier/frequency dropped on the cpu the fps on stalker instantly dropped from 100 odd to below 20 fps and then back up into the hundreds the instant speedstep decided to put the cpu frequency back up. it had it alternating from 1000mhz 6x to 2100mhz 11x during gaming. all my other games have been having this extreme fps spiking (smooth as silk then like 5-20 fps all of a sudden)

This stuff about speedstep knowing when the pc needs power is bs, ive tested and confirmed that it is destroying the gaming on this laptop and randomply altering cpu speed during 3d gaming to the immediateand extreme detriment of the fps. I have tested and repeated this to be sure. It is speedstep.

I have read around the internet and there seems to be no solution or way to turn this bloody thing off. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions.

power options are 100% min 100% max plugged in, full performance on vista power manager.

If I turn speedstep off in the bios it will default to the lowest clock speed, so that's not good.

Appreciate any help here; my laptop is currently unusable for gaming.

 

ah, I just noticed, the cpu is getting to around 74/75 and then i think thats when the speedstep is kicking in to cool the cpu. Im not certain of this, but it seemed to ramp the cpu down when the temp got near to that temp (sometimes though it would ramp down before it even hit the 70's.)

what is a safe operating temp for the t7500?

Does anyone know a way around this.

 

try rightmark cpu clock utility.

 

if i remember right Intel claims about 90

 

so can rightmark set the speed of my cpu? downloading it now.

 

right, ive managed to get the cpu to 2.19 by turning off c2e c4e c4e

i ran stalker and the problem is solved; consistently high fps.

however the core temp showing on rightmark is 85 degrees, whilst on speedfan it is showing 71 degrees on each core.

anyone know which is the safe/right temp?

 

coretemp has shown it at 89, when it hit 90 it ramps down to the lowest multiplier (even with the c2e/c4e disabled.)

Is lowering the voltage going to help?do you know the best program to do it. there are some options in rightmark, but im not quite clear on how to do this.

 

Your cpu shouldn't hit 90. That's way too hot.

 

i know dude it idles at 58 undervolted; depressing :O(

 

You don't want to do that. You would want to find a way to cool the laptop. It isn't the EIST that's causing your downclock problems(as you found) but rather the thermal protection features the CPU has. It's running too HOT so it throttles it down.

100C is the max thermal specification for the CPU, but again this is MAXIMUM allowed. Your CPU should be running at 70C at absolute max going flat out.

The laptop cooling system must be really crap. Maybe get those lap pads that cool your laptop, I dont' know the name though .

Yes, C2/C4e is only related to idle power reduction. There is yet another feature that protects the CPU from overheating. It's called Thermal Monitor 2 for the Core 2 Duo processors. Again since this is made to protect your CPU from overheating, I'd say you should just find a way to cool your CPU rather than disabling it. I believe it is around 85C where TM2 kicks in(RMClock should be accurate in this case for the temperature).

 

C2 & C4 are sleep states when your computer is idle. Disabling these wont help.

If it idles at 58c then theres a big issue with your hardware. Try reseating your CPU and using AS5. Check your fans are working properly aswell.

Whats your notebook undervolted to?

 

Agreed.
Check the thermal paste.
If not, phone up dell, your GPU might be faulty...
Cores should not be that high
at max... should be around 60 or 70 C while gaming 75 at most, and 80 in extreme cases...

GPU should stay around 80 around or so (mine does) and go up to 86, 87 etc.

 

I undervolted it to 11x 1100 but it didnt prove to be stable after all (crashed during stalker) it affected the temps but only a little.

no use phoning dell, im out of the country for a couple of years, although i am still under warranty.

i figured out the c2e thing wasnt doing anything and turned that back on.

i dont think a cooling pad is going to solve the problem of the cores reaching such high temps. i have some as5 actually, so i might have a go at reseating,; does anyone know of a guide to do that in the m1530?

 

I live in Honduras, and I phoned USA Dell

Got my mobo replaced, didnt know they had delltechs here in Honduras.



Oh and no...
I do not have a guide but its easy

Unscrew the plating where the heat dissipator is in the back..
and unscrew it...
clean the paste residue,a nd apply new one over the chips (cpu, gpu)



that gray thingy is the residue, clean that..
reseat, apply paste and re-screw...

by the way, I didnt do it, so im still under warranty, but heck yes i took pics @ it
lolz..

 

There are multiple temp probes in some cpu's I know for sure the quad core and dual core have them.

How those probes are interpreted in the software can change from one program to the next as its not saying "this cpu is 70c" and then your software knows its 70c it just says "the cpu is this hot" and that value is then given a number based on the offset the software determines is correct for your cpu & chipset.

This is why you can not always rely on software, also CoreTemp in specific going back to what I just said about the temp probes, gives the cpu core temp (thus the name core temp ) these numbers are much hotter than the case temps that most programs use, its also directly from the DTS of the cpu so its supposed to be accurate.

 

do you think reapplying as5 will make much difference? i think im going to have to give it a try, although hsf's have always been my nemesis when it comes to building computers.

i might try to ring dell and see what they say, too.

thanks for all the advice guys, its much appreciated.

 

how much difference did you see in your temps after thatg?

 

easily 5 to 10 C in difference