How to lock FID Multiplier for Core 2 Duo P8600 with ThrottleStop?

Hi all, new here. With the help of guides found on this forum (ThrottleStop and The Undervolting Guide), I was able to recently get the most out of my Acer Aspire 6920G.

All seemed pretty straightforward, for ThrottleStop it was just simply changing performance settings (minimum processor state to 100%) and ticking Chipset Clock Mod. Noticed FID multipliers for both cores locked at the highest (10.0), don't really know how I did this as I remember when I haven't turned it on it was jumping around, and I didn't even tick Set Multiplier. More on this later.

RMClock was simple as well, and came after setting up ThrottleStop 4.00. I have undervolted from 1.2500 to 1.0500. Temps are down. Hurray.

Now, I thought I could reproduce this feat on my wife's HP Pavilion dv4 with a Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.4 GHz) running Windows 7 x64 (just like my Aspire 6920G with T5800 Core 2 Duo). I was wrong.

My issues (I have changed my performance settings already):

1. I tried to lock the Multiplier to the highest by ticking Set Multiplier then 9.0, but even after enabling, the FID still "jumps". How do I lock it to the highest multiplier? Side question, the selector on Set Multiplier allows me to go up to 9.5 but once I do this the laptop always crashes. Why?

2. On my Aspire 6920G it is always running at the maximum, EVEN with Set Multiplier unticked. How the heck did I do that?

3. What kind of throttling does my wife's laptop have? For the Aspire it was chipset based, but what should I tick for this laptop to disable throttling?

4. I am happy with the way my Aspire 6920G is running now with the FID locked to the highest but I want to know how I did this. I tried turning off TS but even in monitoring mode the FID was still locked. Is it supposed to behave like this? I thought the multiplier should "jump" once you turn off TS?

5. Last question, is it ok to have your CPU running at the highest multiplier or does this have any drawbacks? I am returning temps of 52 C at high load after undervolting. Is this ok or should I just unlock my FID multiplier?


Sorry for the noobish sounding questions but knowing the answers to my questions would help me sleep better at night.

Thanks all.

 

The highest multiplier is called the Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA) multiplier. On your P8600, the CPU can only use the 9.5 IDA multiplier when a single core is active. When both cores are active, the maximum is 9.0. When lightly loaded, the CPU is constantly bouncing back and forth between 1 or 2 cores active so the multiplier constantly bounces back and forth between 9.0 and 9.5. There can also be sleep states active like C1E or C3 that can cause the average multiplier reported by ThrottleStop to rapidly vary when lightly loaded.

If your CPU is crashing, it is usually because you are trying to use too high a multiplier without adequate voltage. Start with the maximum voltage and make sure your CPU is stable before reducing it. Do some Prime95 or similar stability testing.

Some of the sleep states can only be disabled in the bios. If your bios doesn't have any options for that then you might not be able to do that. Post some screen shots if you would like some more answers.

I don't know of any throttling schemes on your wife's HP. Run a ThrottleStop Log file while you are using this computer and post the log file somewhere like www.mediafire.com if you would like me to have a look at it.

Depending on how you have ThrottleStop set up, when you click on Turn Off, the CPU might be left in its previous state until Windows changes that state. Check out the Do Not Reset FID/VID option if you want to play around with this. Running your CPU at the highest multi isn't going to hurt anything and on many laptops, it doesn't make any significant difference to power consumption either. If your temps are OK then no worries.

 

Hey unclewebb, thanks for the reply.

I am very interested in playing around with TS and learning what it can do as with it I was able to get most out of my 6920G (which I bought about 3 years ago and almost gave up playing games on).

I just want to state my purpose; I want to use TS to ensure my CPUs are always running at the max multiplier at all times to get the most performance out of them. I guess for that purpose I have done it correctly then for both laptops (My Acer 6920G and my wife's Pavilion dv4).

Guess what, I did an experiment. Remember I told you my 6920G's FID remains at 10.0 after ticking Set Multiplier and specifying 10.0? I unticked it, saved, booted up my machine then saw it was jumping around again--expected. Then I ticked the Set Multiplier box again specified to 10.0, saved and rebooted.

After regaining control of the system after rebooting, the FIDs aren't stuck at 10.0 now, they are always jumping around 9.80 - 10.0. I guess this is what is supposed to happen; I'm not supposed to see the FID stuck at the highest multiplier. Am I correct? (The FID fixed at highest multi to my Acer 6920G T5800 was probably a glitch?)

So in short, if I use Set Multiplier to the max number, say 10, not seeing the FID stuck at whatever number I specify DOESN'T mean the CPU is not running at the frequency I specified. Can you confirm this please?

Again unclewebb, thanks for TS, such a nice tool and I'm just taking this time to learn as much about it as I can; the FAQs you've written are good but I'm just so computer illiterate that I need some clarifications at times.

By the way just a success story, before TS, my 6920G couldn't even manage 5 minutes of StarCraft II. Now I play on high textures and medium-low settings (all day long) with a nice FPS of 60 - 70 and a dip to just under 35 FPS during big battles. TS combined with RMClock, such a great match. All this going on with a CPU max temp of 52 - 53, and GPU temp of 70 - 72.

I'm doing this with my wife's laptop to let her get the most out of it as well. I'll try to make some logs using Orthos so you can see what kind of throttling the P8600 uses.

 

Regardless of whether the HP has throttling or not, i see no reason of locking the multipliers to the highest value possible unless you can't bypass throttling in any other ways. Running the CPU at always max multis will cause a decrease in battery life and an increase in heat. If battery life isn't an issue and the laptop can handle the heat, it won't do any harm leaving at max all the time though. I find Intel CPUs are quite good at managing their multipliers adequately, they will clock at full speed and stay there if needed if there is no throttling.