The "Undervolting" Guide

Use the latest available version of ThrottleStop from unclewebb.

For battery life, I would not be expecting too much improvement, depending on the actual workload(s) you're comparing. For heat though, it should be noticeable cooler. This may or may not give you better performance because of no throttling (this depends a great deal on the chassis design though too).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

 

Hi, I just ordered Noctua NT H1 and going to repaste both CPU and GPU in a few days. The temps are okay but I believe they still can be lower.

How should I proceed? My laptop's brand tech service said they use business card method and they probably used on my laptop too which is an awful method to alot people. I was disassembled my laptop and saw that there are alot air bubbles.

I plan to use the pea or the line method. Which method give the best results? The line method on the CPU and the pea method on the GPU? Or both the pea or the line? The CPU is not exactly square, in fact it looks like rectangle. The GPU is however is more like square. I use GT70 barebone with i7 4710MQ and GTX 870M. Thanks in advance.

 

I usually do the line method... A small line through the centre of the die of the CPU... Wouldn't recommend the business card method at all..

 

I know, I have no idea why they choose to use that method at all. It is no surprise that my CPU runs hot without undervolting. Okay, I'm convinced that I should use the line method on the CPU. Meaker said I should use the pea method on the GPU. Do you also agree?

 

I agree. A small dot/pea on a square GPU will spread nice and evenly.
A dot on a rectangular CPU however will have trouble spreading to the four corners. If you put a large enough dot to achieve that it might overflow along the sides. A thin line generally spreads evenly.

Don´t use too much, you want it as thin as possible while still covering the whole area. Too much and temps will climb. I suggest taking pictures of your dot and line for reference, reassemble and monitor temps in benchmarks and games. Then open up again and check the spread on both GPU and CPU. Clean it of, adjust amount if you need, reassemble and test again.

 

I also use dot method and line method but not spread method, a tiny amount of paste is sufficient.

 

Hi guys. I repasted both CPU and GPU. Repasting on CPU has a great effect, lowering the temps about 4-5 celsius. I did line method on CPU. When I checked, I saw it spreaded beautifully on the die.

However, the GPU's temps become worse. I saw 90 celsius for the first time ever with my GTX 870M. It was never reaches to 88 celsius before. Besides, it heats up quicker than before. What the hell? I did what you guys said, drop little dot on GPU. Temps were higher so I did think maybe I drop little than it should be. Then opened up and repasted it with more dose. Did the pea method again. I saw 90 celsius by applying this in Watch_Dogs.

Also, everytime I remove the heatsink, I see the thermal pads won't stay in order, they twist. How can I prevent this? They also seem fragile things so I'm afraid to damage them.

Should I use the line method on GPU?

 

You have too little paste.. You need much more...

 

What is the most recommended way to check if an undervolt is stable? And how do I notice if it isn't (except obvious BSODs)
I undervolted my processor -0.70mV right now and ran prime95 set to generate maximum heat and let it run for 30 minutes.
Should I just increase the time to make it a "good" test or are there better more recommended programs?

 

You need to test in a variety of ways. Even though it's stable in testing you may still see BSODs under light loads.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Indeed.. I would run XTU stress test, benchamrk test for varying load, run heaven's benchmark, 3D Mark and a few games.. If it works without problems in all that your fine..

 

I am thinking on undervolting my i7-5600U CPU and GT 840m GPU (Latitude E7450). The goals are to decrease temperatures and - while idle - increase battery life.

Af for cpu, I guess Throttlestop will be the way to go, but does anyone know how to undervolt a mobile geforce (preferably without vBIOS flash...)?

 

You need to do vBIOS flash.. No other way to UV GPU..

 

Once the undervolt is set, do I still have to run xtu for the undervolt to be active?

Sent from a Galaxy far, far away

 

As long as your computer doesn't crash, the UV/settings will stick... If it crashes you'll need to open XTU and reapply the settings..

 

Can I undervolt my i7-4720HQ processor? I heard that undervolting won't work for some processors and I don't want to waste time trying to undervolt it only to discover that it wouldn't make a difference.

 

Yes you can

 

Gotcha. I had heard that Ivy Bridge processors couldn't be undervolted, but I wasn't sure if Haswell couldn't as well. Thanks!

 

I'm going to sound like an absolute n00b but I can't see anywhere in Throttlestop to undervolt (Dell E6410 with the 740-QM quad cpu). No doubt I'll feel like a real sausage when someone points out how obvious it is...

Thank you!

 

You can't undervolt the i7-740QM. Only Core 2 and Haswell Core i have undervolting capability.

 

Hi, I would like to ask you. I undervolted my laptop acer aspire 6920G to 0,9V but somehow RMClock set minimum value to 1,05V. I mean when my cursor is on the RMClock icon it shows FID:10x VID:1,05 but in my profile table my maximum value is 0,9V. Do you know how to setup minimum value? There is link with picture. Thanks!
http://i.imgur.com/gddpIDG.png and http://i.imgur.com/MGimYvP.png

 

You're set to use Maximal Performance, thus bypasssing your custom voltages.

Use Performance on demand instead.

 

ThrottleStop 8 worked fine initially in Windows 10. I added CPU and GPU temperature icons to tray. Since then I moved ThrottleStop to a different folder and now temperature icons don't show in the tray area. I was able to untick both in options but cannot turn them back again now. I understand Windows 10 memorized the original location of the executable and that's the source of the problem. However, I don't know how to fix that. Looked through the registry and could not find old path anywhere. Other than tray icons ThrottleStop works fine in the new location. So, it''s not critical but I'd like to figure it out. Any help is appreciated.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-323

Post#3222

 

My search skill is lacking. I was thinking Windows 10 has a completely different system now for notification icons (task bar icons and whatever other names they use).
Thanks a ton. Worked beautifully.

 

Happy to help, thanks for the rep!

 

I ordered a Sager with an i7-6820HK overclockable CPU. I'm new to overclocking and undervolting. Can I get the best of both worlds by setting up one profile that runs undervolted at standard clocks when on battery and another profile that increases the clock speeds and voltages to match when plugged in? I read the first few pages but can't read all 578! Thanks.

 

Has anyone been able to use rmclock on Carrizo APUs? I'm getting "unknown" on CPU info.

 

For future readers, the answer is yes, Intel XTU detects laptop systems with batteries and automatically offers two profiles that can be applied depending on whether the system is plugged in or not. No manual switching necessary.

 

using xtu I'm undervolting my 4300u -10mv what's everyone undervolting those to? I'm running a dell e7240.

 

I have overclock to 4.0GHz on all 4 cores with -65mV undervolt on my 4930MX in my Alienware 18

 

Hey guys, i have a Clevo P650SE and i used to undevolt it, but even then the temperatures were pretty high so i just turned off turbo boost and removed the undervolt. A few days ago i repasted the CPU and GPU and turned on turbo boost again but now i can't find the "Dynamic Voltage offset" in the XTU, only "core voltage offset". Any of you guys know what i'm doing wrong?

Edit: i7-4720HQ

 

Use TS8b5 instead.

 

Hey guys, is it worth undervolting i5-5200u, or gains will be minimal? As it is ultra low voltage (ULV).

 

Always UV if you can.. Drops power usage and allows longer period of turbo!

 

What does Ultra Low Voltage really mean. Does it mean it uses less voltage while idle or that because it uses a lower multiplier the maximum core voltage wont be as high as full voltage chips.

It doesn't seem mean it uses less voltage per frequency than other chips. I've seen a desktop i3 Haswell use less voltage than possible with an undervolted Haswell ULV at the same frequency (something like 2.7GHz IIRC) and probably less power.

@Zom015 If you are not throttling then undervolting can help increase battery usage otherwise it can help letting the CPU run faster. YMMV

 

how to undervolt Westmere i5 560M ? and Ivy bridge i3 3217U ?

 

Ok thanks for reply, I will try to undervolt and use "ThrottleStop" to remove throttle on weekend. Which I should do first? Or it doesn't matter?

 

Well ThrottleStop can do both. What sort of throttling are you experiencing, any pics you can post to show what is happening?

 

I got quite high interrupts, sometimes up to 1.20, and latencymon suggested to remove throttle.

Here's pic of ThrottleStop:

In your opinion, do I need to use "ThrottleStop"? If you need any pic I will post, and BIG thanks for replying and being so helpful.

 

Need to see how much you are throttling so pic needs to show that. Maybe running TSBench, Cinebench R15 or Wprime 1024M.Something that will run long enough to see throttling and show energy and temperature values. Opening limit reasons and clearing columns before running can help to, HWiNFO can provide some nice graphs.

 

Ok, so I ran Wprime and cinebench, while HWiNFO logged sensors data to csv files: here are csv files:

• Cinebench
• Cinebench virustotal
• Wprime
• Wprime virustotal
• HWiNFO System Summary

 

Looking at the results HWiNFO seems to be reporting EDP across all 3 domains, especially IA in which it is nearly on all the time even while the CPU is idle. Perhaps you could check this with "limit reasons" in TS. If you would open the sensor panel on HWiNFO to show those reasons then run "Limit Reasons" and click each of the 3 grey boxes to clear logged events in yellow. Then give it a few seconds idling and snapshot both together and post the pic, cheers.

In those tests clocks are holding well and not showing throttling. Temperature is fine but showing a large differential from core to heatsink. Might be poor TIM and/or poor thermal characteristics of the die. Only a re-paste might confirm one way or the other but max temperature isn't high enough to be a major concern. VID seems a little high, you could try reducing it with a negative vcore offset starting with -50mV.

From the tests run there doesn't seem much to worry about.

 

Okay, so I ran "limit reasons" with HWiNFO sensors panel, not everything is showing because of small screen, but maybe it will be enough.



P.S My sound sometimes stutters, is this related to some CPU throtting?

 

Seems HWiNFO doesn't play nice and resets limit reason flags and constantly resets them. Very anti-social. If you run Limit reasons on it's own (it's probably hiding in the TS folder) does EDP flash up red or just yellow when previously cleared?

IIRC Unclewebb has helped a lot of cakewalk users with audio problems usually to do with DPC latency, maybe ask him. I think he also has an option for timer resolution that's a semi-secret option in TS that's helped a few folk out too.

 

I tried runing "limit reasons" without HWiNFO, and still EDP flashes yellow.

Thanks for suggestion, I will try to contact "Unclewebb" when I will have some free time.

I will also try to undervolt CPU little bit, as for "playing" with ThrottleStop, I probably won't be able to increase CPU performance much?

Thanks for help man.

 

Clocks don't seem to be dropping but undervolting can still help with temps and battery life. Not sure why that EDP is triggering. When you say Yellow flashes I take it you mean it turns red. Maybe PL3 is activating.

 

Nope you misunderstood me , yellow doesn't turn to red, when i press button it disappears, then after ~1sec it reappears yellow.

P.S I recently bought Wastelands 2, and it lags in some areas on max settings, I wonder if I could squeeze little bit of performance by Overclocking processor, when I play that game?

 

Ahh, okay.

The only CPU overclocking you might get out of that is increasing bclk for which you may or may not need a firmware mod and probably looking at only a 2% to 3% increase. Not really worth the effort IMHO. Try the undervolt and if the lag is still annoying you might think about reducing max settings.

You could also try asking about the 940m in the gaming thread to see if anything can be done with it.

 

Ok, that seems all. Thanks again.