Looking for easy way to work around CPU sleep states

I'm looking for an easy way to work around CPU sleep states. I am thinking a background program that will utilize the CPU up to a certain percentage (customizable would be ideal) to prevent it from entering the deeper sleep states (i.e. 800-1200Mhz).

Any thoughts? I was hoping that Prime95 had the ability to configure the % of CPU load to apply, but didn't see a way to configure this.

 

Why would you do this? Apart from killing your battery and fan of course

 

You could just disable C states in your bios. Ofc you loose turbo, but what you are trying to do makes no sense anyway.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Meaker, that's really what I'm trying to avoid is disabling turbo. I'm hoping for a software based solution that I can easily turn on or turn off from an application.

There's a huge thread regarding this which was already hashed out on our very forum here -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...et-can-not-take-full-advantage-fast-ssds.html

Basically, the SSD drives put a very small load on the CPU when performing 4k read/write functions. So, if your laptop is running at say 800-1200Mhz, the performance of the SSD is cut in half. For those who know about SSD's, you understand the important of 4k read/write functions. If you don't, then you may want to check that thread.

The topic of low 4k read/write issues come up quite a bit if you were to do a google search, mostly dealing with laptops, and the majority of people who experience it see it as an SSD problem, when in fact it's directly related to the CPU.

 

I agree with Meaker. I think you're putting too much weight on a non-issue.

The reality is that getting slightly faster 4K read/write times (anything les than an order of magnitude) isn't going to affect the real-world experience of most laptop users. The only situation I can think of where slightly faster 4K read times would actually yield a real-world benefit would be if you are running a very I/O intensive database platform.

What a laptop user *WILL* notice in real-world experience is the higher heat, fan noise, and lower battery life of what you are trying to do.

But in any case, you know the trade-offs. There are two ways to do what you are asking:

• In that very thread you linked, it refers to a StorageReview.com article that discusses the different registry tweaks that they used to disable processor sleep states.
• Or, you could go into Windows Power Options, and set the Minimum Processor State to 100%, and it will remain clocked at its max frequency.

 

Why not use the "high performance" power plan?

 

try Throttlestop, it lets you fiddle with some Cstate settings

 

Thanks for the responses folks. High Performance power plan does nothing on these Sandy Bridge CPU's. They will still throttle down to 800 MHz when idle. And yes throttlestop may be the best solution for this with some registry tweaks, but I was hoping for a less invasive method, hence the thought of an application to apply a small load to the CPU.

If anyone happens to know of a program, I'm still interested

 

Mega,

that's not what you want (a program that applies a 'small load').

ThrottleStop is highly recommended for what you want to do.

 

+1 for ThrottleStop. You can lock your CPU to a given multiplier and disable sleep states.

Still not sure why you'd want to do this though. Sleep states take microseconds to switch in and out from, they happen many times every second. You will not see a noticeable improvement in performance, and in fact, since you have Sandy Bridge, you may find a small performance hit. This is because Intel CPUs automatically overclock when given thermal headroom. By running your CPU at C0 100% of the time, you're generating more heat and lose out on those momentary overclocks. Just my 2c.

 

Here's some more info about maximizing SSD performance.

Maximum SSD performance on your laptop with ThrottleStop and registry mod

These mods might not be possible or practical for the non Extreme Sandy Bridge CPUs.

 

Perhaps if Mega would explain exactly what he needs to accomplish and what his understanding of both speedstep and turbo boost is we might be able to help him a bit more.............