Significant Heat Decrease! I no longer fear of any heat issues!

After the GPU death of my LGR500, I bought a re-branded MSI GT735. I would have posted this in the MSI forum, but... This can help anyone with a AMD (Puma) CPU.

My GT735 is great, enjoying GTAIV in 1920x1200 all high with distance sliders at 8 and 5 (20-35FPS). However, I almost crapped my pants this last week noticing when I was playing GTAIV for 2.5 hours hwMonitor said my CPU was a 79c and its high was 81c!!!.

I quickly closed the game, I also noticed in the UT3 editor after about a hour or two of heavy use the CPU slowly inches up to about 77c. This really pissed me off because my last laptop had a C2D which I under volted and its max temp with the under volt in GTAIV was 78c.

I thought AMD was supposed to run cooler (well idle it does) but still.

Another thing that annoyed me is the laptops fan never kicked in to full boar, it went faster but it could go way higher, when I turn on the laptop it roars for about a second or so with the fan on max and then it adjusts.

After hours of searching for a fan speed adjustment utility (none of them worked). I finally came across this forum post on undervolting a turion. The program is great, its simple, easy to use, and I just pop it in the startup folder so it starts on bootup. And u just run it once, close it and bam CPU volts change, until the next restart, hence why I put it in the startup folder.

I undervolted 1 above what the guide says that crashes for the ZM80, (i have a ZM82). It worked great, but then while playing GTAIV it BSOD'. So I put it 1 notch higher, and now ive been using it all of saturday and sunday on heavy use with many CPU benchmarks and no BSOD's.

On Sunday I did the final test. I played GTAIV for nearly 3 hours. I alt tab'ed out, and I was relieved to see hwmonitor saying my CPU high was only 71c. Thats it! It was fantastic, it also lowered the temp of my gpu because I guess theres not as much heat going around. And heavy UT3 editor use, only made it sweat up to 66c. And idle its a cool 34-38c.

Hope this helps someone, because it sure helped me.

Link to forum were the application is (there's a 64bit and 32bit):
*Looks confusing but when you get it look at the help html file and its really easy to use. Note: It only works with PUMA/ZM80+ CPUs, I think.

http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=21877

 

Lets see, I have a ZM-82 just like yours and just have to download this program here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=246625

To allow me to play games with low temp? Also, if there a lastest version out or just the one in the link?

 

Yea theres only that verison, on the forum theres a 32 bit one and 64. Im using 64bit since I have 4gb ram and vista 64 bit.

What I did is extract it to a folder, in my case:
C:\Matthew\Program\PumaVolt

then i created a shortcut for the app and placed it under startup folder in my start menu so it starts when the computer is turned on.

Next, what I did, is go into and open up the config.xml in the folder were the program is located. Open it in notepad. And then read the readme/howto html to see the VID settings, VID's are the numbers you use to set the voltages. Higher the VID the lower the voltage.

I don't have my laptop here at this moment since im on my break at work.
But you have to set the VID's for 3 pstates.
Pstate 0 is on max cpu clock, 1 is for medium, 2 is for the lowest.

Leave the lowest alone, only change 0 and 1. Just put them 2 Voltages under the default and that should work well.

Remember if your computer goes into sleep mode and wakes up, the voltages will be back to normal so you have to run the app again and close it to change the voltages again.
When I get home today ill post my config file so you can see what im running at.

 

So you are say here:

is where I should just change the 0 and 1 to -2 and -1?

NVM, do I change the 40 and 57 to 38 and 55?

 

So what you change is the VIDs. Leave the numbers alone.
And only change the VID's of numbers 0 and 1.

If you look in that tutorial html file or whatever it tells what the voltage of the VIDs are.

If you want post the default config.xml, and then the list of VIDs for me and I can tell you exactly what Im currently set at.

Going from my faint memory:

I think my settings are simular to this:
(when i get home ill post my exact settings).

number="0" Vid='42'
number="1" Vid='61'
number="2" Vid='64'

 

Yea I dont want to mess up my laptop or anything, ill wait till your home and post up your vid so I can make changes accordingly.

Thanks~

 

Uh those temperatures are nothing. I believe SHUTDOWN on most Intel CPU's is 105 degrees Celcius. I would imagine that AMD is similar. I hope this helps. God BLess

 

If your going to be doing intensive gaming on a laptop you will experience high temperatures, don't worry, your laptop does not have any cooling issues and it will not experience any damage. If anything getting a cooling pad to help lower the temps a little bit. Undervolting is unnecessary and risks system stability IMO.

 

@usapatriot

I do some really intensive work, yes undervolting does incur some possible stabilities. But if ive been using my laptop undervolted and experiance no problems what so'ever and shave off 10c, I don't think theres anything wrong with that. The cooler your laptop runs the better.

 

Of course there's nothing wrong with that, if you know what you are doing and test for stability afterwards. A cooling pad, however, is a easier and safer method of reducing temperatures.

 

@AznImports602

Yea, at first don't put a shortcut to the app in your startup folder until you found a stable setting, its different for everyone. However, ive been undervolting a long time, and from what I hear, and from my experiance. There is no risk to it. Your not pushing it or anything. I think the worst that can happen is a BSOD (Blue screen of death) then you just turn off and on ur pc and its fine. Ill write a simple guide for you when I get home.

 

The temps look ok to me, i run a rebranded msi 1722 (advent 6555) and my gpu hits 87 tops when the fan kicks in fully.

 

Hehe, Ive only seen my GPU go to 84c, and I freaked. Now with the undervolt the cpu doesen't generate as much heat and my GPU maxes at about 78c.

 

Here is my config.xml exactly.

p_states>
pstate number="0" Vid='41' confirm="false"></pstate>
pstate number="1" Vid='61'></pstate>
pstate number="2" Vid='64'></pstate>
!--<pstate number="3" Vid='64'></pstate>
pstate number="4" Vid='64'></pstate>
pstate number="5" Vid='64'></pstate>
pstate number="6" Vid='64'></pstate>
pstate number="7" Vid='64'></pstate>-->
/p_states>

*add a < before every line, when i posted with it, it wouldn't show anything.
Stable for me!. And cool!

 

Thanks man!