The "Undervolting" Guide

Indervolting could lead to an increase in gaming performance. If your CPU temperature drops low enough because of the voltmodding, then your GPU temps can drop as well, if they both share the same heatpipe or are close together period. Voltmodding certainly dropped the temp of my CPU, GPU and hard drive. Although, 10fps does sound a bit extreme.

 

The only way it will "increase" performance is if your CPU was throttling and so could not run at full speed. But with the reduced temps it doesn't throttle and so you see a performance "increase" compared to what you originally had (though equal to before undervolting if the temps were alright).

 

If you assume that your CPU's reduction in heat output causes the ambient heat in the region to lower enough to increase the heat output rate of the GPU significantly, then yes, your GPU could see higher efficiency seeing as how its temperature might go low enough to not trigger the throttling mechanism.

But in reality, it only caused my GPU's idle temp to lower by 2c, so I estimate that its not that big of an improvement in performance from the GPU.

 

what is the fix for the unknown error? i couldnt find it on the first page.

thanks

 

Hello

does any has undervolting a turionX2 tl-50 (hp tx1030)
I put a low voltage, I opened orthos and I executed the test, after 5 min the computer suddenly turned off... is this normal with a unstable voltage? ( I had no BSOD or frozen PC)

Does anyone has stable voltages for reference?
thank you for all

Greetings

 

Does anybody did Undervolting for Gateway P-7811FX ?
(276pages - a lot to read, sorry)

 

If too low, yes.

 

Please follow the steps in the first post and you yourself will become someone who has undervolted the Gateway P-7811FX.

 

This is great, thank you. So far I have my laptop with a T3200 CPU running 10c cooler.

 

Is there a processor list with stable multipliers? If so, it would save people some time in testing things out themselves
Or do you guys think that is a bad idea? The table would of course come with a disclaimer to be used at your own risk.

I had one more question. Overclocking on OEM machines leads to warranty voiding, right? What about underclocking?

 

Quotes from page 1.

 

Default.

 

Undervolted

 

That's 13c lower.

So even at 100% load the "turbo" fan mode never comes on.

Happy, thanks again!

 

@stonebear: You say "Not all processor chips are built equally. Each individual processor have different voltage tolerances."
I kinda know that but all I meant was to have a basic guideline as to how much others have gone. Say the default multiplier is 12 for my processor and if I know people go 8-10x usually on my processor, I'll start at 10x instead of going for 11x first. Would save me some time, don't you think?

 

Hi J, I don't really know what you mean. It sounds like you are talking about using lower multipliers rather than undervolting. You can undervolt at any multiplier.

 

Leno, if you take the volts too low then yes, the computer will blue screen on you.

 

Having an RMClock issue here, was working fine then one day it decided on my x9000 to only go up to multiplier 14 under profiles..instead of 17 so it only goes up to 2.8ghz ....i tried going into the bios and resetting the overclock...reinstalling RM clock but it just wont show the extra multipliers...also when i go into default CPU it sees that the startup default is 17.0x multiplier, so when i go unmanaged its fine it just wont let me manage that far up makes no sense...

If ya got any ideas throw them my way


Thanks,
D_Sage

 

For anyone with a T7250, I was able to undervolt from 1.175 down to 0.9750. Idles at 45-50 and max I've ever seen was 66 on one core and 63 on the other. Normally when I stress it I just get it to 61-63. Thats a 10 degree drop from a 74 high .

BTW, I never max out my CPU without using a cooler, so definitely take that into consideration.

 

Did anyone else see t his site with what looks to be a copy of the guide? However, at the end it does link back to this one.

John

 

I have not seen that before, but they do give credit, so it should be fine.

 

Great guide. I was able to lower stock max voltage from 1.2625 to 1.2125 using my max stable OC of 3.25ghz on my E7500. At this speed stress tests brought the temps up to 70C but now thanks to the undervolt it never hits more than 65C. At stock 2.93 ghz it really is cooler too!

 

I have Dell Studio 1735 with T8100...
According to all posts it can work on .9V on all freq...
Mine problem is that I cant force voltages less then 1V...
Where is problem?

 

Every specific CPU is different so you can't hope to rely on other peoples results, they simply give an idea of what is achievable. One can only find the minimum undervolt settings through trial and error.

 

Ive only given permission to 2 copies of the guide, one was a German translated version and one for a blog.

Doesnt bother me too much, as long as its linked back and not stolen work

I just didnt want it to go on other notebook websites. I wanted to keep it exclusive to NBR.

Did you choose Mobile in Advanced CPU settings and restart RMclock?

 

It is on mobile, but don't want below 1V...
May be is IDA or Super LFM issue- how to handle this 2 things...

 

Flipfire comes from a civilized area down under. Out in the wild, wild west where I come from, we call a bloody poacher a bloody poacher. We grind Spirotots into TaterTots....

 

It is a pity RMclock won't let me reduce volts below 0.95, at multiplier 12 I am using 0.975, at 11 using 0.9625 and at multiplier 10 I am already down to the lowest value of 0.95.

These seem very low but CPU-Z reads the values higher, 0.975 is read by CPU-Z as 1.088 which I think sounds more likely.

 

Why do we enable "enh. stop grant (C2E)" ?

Also, I can't enable "Intel Dynamic acceleration" or "Dynamic FSB switching", despite having a T3200.

 

Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for a great guide!

I'll type my story here I guess...

I bought a HP Pavillion DV8000T (T2600 processor) in the summer of 2006. It was my first pre-built system in a long time (I like to build my desktops from parts). I should have read more reviews of the thing first...

From the start it had heat problems. After I moved to Japan in November of that year, my expensive laptop would auto shutdown pretty frequently. I couldn't even run rip songs with itunes without worrying about a shutdown, let alone play a game or edit videos... and yes, I thoroughly cleaned the fans. Hell, sometimes in the summer, it would shut down just after booting up!

So I lived with it until 2008. Don't ask me how, but I did. In early fall of 2008, I bought a zalman nc-2000 notebook cooler which helped immensely. I was able to use my computer NORMALLY! I played games, and did everything else with no problems.

Then about two weeks the weather got warm and my computer started shutting down again. I think once my cpu hits 90C it auto shuts down. Anyways, my highs were around that, playing around the 88C mark.

So in despair, I decided I was going to buy some arctic silver 5 and while I was looking up info about it, I discovered this thread...

And now that I've managed to undervolt my cpu to 1.1250 (from 1.2625), my max temperatures only hit 86C but it takes a long time to get up there. My idle has also dropped about 5C from 60C to 55C.

I was stable when using the orthos benchmark at 1.1125, but when I ran pcmark04, it crashed, so I had to bump it up one more notch and I haven't had any problems yet. I wish I could undervolt by more than .1375v, but it's much better than nothing.

I'll be sure to post what my max temperatures are after I arctic silver this thing and let it burn in. I'm sure cleaning out the heatsink will be good too. I would have done it sooner but DV8000Ts are a pain in the BLAH.

 

It is on mobile, but don't want below 1V...
May be is IDA or Super LFM issue- how to handle this 2 things...
Is there any solution???

 

Maybe your CPU wont go below 1.0v, like mine wont go under 0.950?

 

Can this guide be used with a desktop? I have undervolted my computer and would like someone to take a look at it and let me know what you think of the results. I would also like to know why I am unable to undervolt it even further. I am of course happy with the results and I have run ORTHOS for 45mins without a blue screen of death or anything like that. As well are there anything else I need to change in the settings besides the difference between desktop and notebook.

So far these are the results I have gotten with my desktop.
Default Temps running ORTHOS for 10 mins.
Core 0: 78C (172F)
Core 2: 75C (166F)
Core 1: 78C (172F)
Core 3: 75C (166F)
Voltage: 1.3250v

After running Orthos for 10 mins.
Under Volted
Core 0: 70C (157F)
Core 2: 68C (154F)
Core 1: 67C (152F)
Core 3: 63C (145F)
Voltage: 1.1625v (the lowest RightMark will let me lower it too)

Results
Core 0: -8C (-15F)
Core 2: -7C (-12F)
Core 1: -11C (-20F)
Core 3: -12C (-21F)
Voltage: -.750v less than stock

Computer sits idle somewhere between 52C (125F)

 

Does it matter that your highest multiplier is at a lower voltage than the lower multipliers?

On my configuration, after a 1 hr test, I can set the highest multiplier (8.0x in my case) to the lowest voltage allowed, 0.9250V. Thing is, this is the lowest voltage value available for any multiplier, so they will all be at the same value, the lowest value possible. Is that a problem?


Also, RMclock shows that the CPU load never exceeds 94.12%, I hope this isn't a sign of performance degradation because of undervolting.


edit: Just thought I should put this here.. I spoke to Dell XPS support, and they told me that a BIOS update was available that fixed some heating issues. Since I started running these tests before and after I installed the upgrade for the BIOS, I realized that they just decreased the maximum voltage for all the multipliers, lol.

 

Yes It means that at highest load, your PC will take lesser power than at something just below it (say 80% load or so). Clearly, that's a waste of power.
Rinse and repeat for the other multipliers as the tutorial states

I'm undervolting the P8600 and I've shaved off a lot of excess voltage but not a lot of heat. Well, is 8 degrees Celcius a lot? (No seriously, I'm asking)
I guess the machine isn't as bad at cooling as I thought.. I seriously thought it would be hotter.
I have heard that the Penryn cores require lesser power. I guess this is shown by the fact that we can run the PC at lower voltages with no issues.
Currently the max multiplier (9x) is running at 1.0375v instead of 1.2v. IMO that's a decent bit shaved off. What do you guys think?

 

The highest multiplier will always take the highest voltage. Yes, go back and re-evaluate the others. They will end up being equal or lower, always.

Newer CPU's use thinner "wires" and smaller transistors. The result is less flow of electrons (current, amperes) 'round and 'round the chip. Less current means less watts which means less heat. The minimum working voltage is a unique value determined by the physical design of the circuitry. Below that value, the transistor gates simply refuse to switch on and off, on command.

Re Penryn cores: Got it backwards. It's because of lower voltages that they use less power, not "less power means lower voltages".

Lastly, it's not a contest to see who gets the biggest drop in temp. A well designed cooling system will give you a low "score" after undevolting because it didn't need as much voltage drop to run cooler in the first place. The real winners in the undervolting game are the lucky dogs who didn't even need it in the first place.

 

Doesn't the thickness of the processing layer have something to do with this? I guess that's the part you're referring to while saying "using thinner "wires" and smaller transistors"

I got 15-20 mins extra battery life out of the whole thing. I still think that the Dell SXPS provides below par battery life but I guess that's expected with a machine with such hardware.

Its been a couple of days since I've underclocked. I didn't need the reduction in temperature as much as the extra battery life.

@scott.ager: I never meant that this is a competition. I just wanted to ask if that's the approx amount of heat people shave off on my range of processors or is it above/below the average

 

Yeah, you're right. The printed circuit conductors ("wires") are 3 dimensional. They have width, height and length like any (rectangular) wire. And, 45nm width is 45 millionths of a millimeter. Absolutely amazing to me.

On scoring your results: Not picking on you, my friend, just offering my offbeat perspective on why we're all here on this thread.

Cheers,

 

Yes, 8 degrees Celsius is a lot.

 

I am trying to undervolt my P8400 on my Latitude E6400 (with WS2008 x64). I am not having issues with the undervolt itself, but with starting rmclock at any user logon (I have 3 users set up; one administrator and 2 accounts in the 'users' group).

I have created a scheduled task for this purpose, but it doesn't seem to work for any user! Here're my settings:

General Tab:
Use administrator account
Run whether user is logged on or not
Run with highest privileges
All other options unchecked

Trigger Tab:
At logon of any user; status enabled

Actions Tab:
Start a program; C:\Program Files (x86)\RMClock\RMClock.exe

Conditions Tab:
All options unchecked (incl. start the computer only if the computer is on AC power)

Settings Tab:
Allow task to be run on demand
If the running task does not end when requested, force it to stop
All other options unchecked

Please advise!

 

Theres no need to use Task Sched

Have you tried the following:

 

Yes, but enabling that setting works only for the administrator; RMClock does not start for the two limited user accounts. For them, I tried dragging RMClock.exe to the Startup folder, but then it asks for the administrator password (which I do not want the limited account users to possess).

 

Hi,

I try to undervolt my cpu but the problem is the multiplier stuck at 6 no matter how I set it.
Full load under orthos stuck at 1200 MHz (bus 200 * 6)

Except for SuperLFM which it will run on idle at 800MHz (bus 100 * 8)

Laptop DEll XPS M1330 Bios A15
The CPU is T8300 (Max at Bus 200 x 12 > 2400 MHz)
using RMclock under x64 OS

Thank you for every advice.

 

So... does anyone know how to run RMClock automatically on startup for non-admin accounts, without having to type in the admin password every time?

 

Mine is similar to that except I only have mine set to run only when the user is logged on.
Also, in the settings tab, you may want to try (in the combo box) setting it to "stop the existing instance". Then it should kill it and then run a new one on the new user.

 

So you also have a limited account and RMClock starts up fine in that account? What OS are you using?

I set it up as you said, but I don't see RMClock start up on the limited accounts. Well, when I tried to start it, it said another instance was still running. So I killed it (had to 'see all processes from all users' and enter the admin password) and restarted it from the start menu (had to enter my password again).

So... RMClock seems to start for the limited accounts, but for some reason I don't see the window and the taskbar icons. I need to kill it and restart it (having to enter my admin password twice). What could be the issue here?

One more interesting thing: I created the task in the task scheduler using my admin account, but I don't see it in the scheduled/running tasks when I am logged in using the limited accounts. Why is that? I have 'hidden' setting unchecked for the task...

 

Windows 7 beta (32-bit)
Just noticed that I only had an admin account (but I had created a task that worked properly in this case), I'll create a standard account and see if it works.

 

Yeah, that task works well on my admin account. Tell me if it works on your standard account, and whether you see it in the task list for the standard user.

Thanks!

 

It doesn't seem to work on the limited account. I'll keep looking online to see if I can find anything.

 

Have you checked the boxes are ticked in the main profile and subprofile page? Sounds like you are stuck on a battery saver mode.

I believe you will need to use a UAC bypass tweak for RMclock.