The ThrottleStop Guide

I am pretty sure Limit Reasons will work correctly on Kaby Lake without needing any major changes. I just need to unlock that button. Fixing that is on the top of the things to do list. Maybe tomorrow.

 

Ok

 

Hey everyone,

I have an i7 6700hq and my multiplier is set at the maximum 35. Previously I would get a solid 35 on the FID and close to the maximum 3.5 GHz but then suddenly my FID seems locked at 31.10 resulting in around 3.1 GHz. No matter what I do it won't shift from that number even though I changed no settings. Also my benchmarks on Throttlestop are around 25% slower (8 Threads 32M used to come in at around 8.5 seconds, now more like 11 seconds).

Any advice or tips would be very welcome indeed. I run an Alienware 17R3 (2015) .

Thanks in advance,

SaigonBrit

 

I think the two phenomena are unrelated. The 6700hq can run at 35 for one core, but the maximum for all four cores (8 threads) is 31. I have never been able to get all cores above 31. However I get about 8.6-8.7 for the 32M TS Bench. If you check processes using task manager, you may find that something is taking up 15-20% of processor cycles. There have been a number of reports of this across the web - I finally got it to stay down by disabling Cortana, but there are other possibilities. I did, by the way, find that I could reduce voltage by 1.5 on CPU and CPU cache without causing crashes or reducing performance - YMMV, however.

Best,

Joe

 

@SaigonBrit - Can you post a screenshot of ThrottleStop while your CPU is idle? If the C0% is high, check the Task Manager and see what is running in the background. You will get your best TS Bench numbers when you have next to nothing running in the background. You have to keep a close eye on Windows 10. It seems to go rogue at times and will completely tie up a core doing only God knows what. I turn off as much useless Windows crap as possible.

http://i.imgur.com/Lbatd6G.png

C0% = 0.3% is not that bad at all.

Edit - If you have a Kaby Lake CPU and want to do some Limit Reasons testing, send me a message. TS 8.41 is out for testing.

 

I have tested very well and can confirm that in latest version the Throttlestop window doesn't minimize to notification area. for some reason it only remains on the taskbar even when the taskbar option is unticked.

 

hm, what does "turn on" actually do, it's the little button that you can toggle between on and off in the bottom of ts window.

 

@Dashing_97 - Did you clean the Windows icon cache when you switched to the new version of ThrottleStop?

http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-clean-notification-area-icon-cache

That is the first thing you need to do if you are having any icon related problems. Task Bar needs to be cleared so ThrottleStop minimizes to the System Tray / Notification Area.

Good question and the answer is, not very much. When ThrottleStop was originally released, many users were afraid to use it. I created a Turn On / Turn Off feature to try and round up a few more new users that were sitting on the fence, not sure if they should try ThrottleStop or not. As more and more features were added to ThrottleStop, the Turn On / Turn Off feature became less and less important. This button only controls the Clock Modulation, Chipset Clock Modulation and the Set Multiplier feature. Many laptops do not need to use any of these features. Clock Modulation throttling is rarely used on newer laptops. Most throttling is controlled by power consumption these days. Chipset Clock Modulation is not used at all in the newer chipsets. The Set Multiplier feature is also becoming obsolete. If Speed Shift is enabled, Set Multiplier is not used at all. The Non Turbo Ratio can also override the Set Multiplier feature. I can disable all of the various throttling schemes that Lenovo engineered into my laptop without having to touch any of those settings. If a laptop does not use these then there is no reason to enable any of these 3. Using ThrottleStop to battle a throttling method that your laptop does not use is only going to waste CPU cycles.

Thanks for the Limit Reasons picture that you sent me that shows TS working correctly on your 7th Gen Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U. These are only 15 Watt CPUs so long term, it is what it is. I wish Intel was a little more generous with the TDP rating but then that might cut into sales of their higher end chips. Be thankful. The modern day low power U CPUs work a lot better than the original ones did.

 

It drops below 15 for ling term, seen it as low as 9 once

 

After exit a game, throttlestop notification area in the taskbar suddenly stop moving (the value remains same).

 

If your U CPU goes into TDP-down mode, it is no longer a 15 Watt processor. In TDP-down, it is only rated at 7.5 Watts. These are sad processors when they run in TDP-down mode.

What version of ThrottleStop are you using? In TS 8.40 there is a new feature called Stop Monitoring. If you click on this button, ThrottleStop will no longer read your core temperatures or speed. Some users only want to use TS for voltage control and not for monitoring. They want an efficient program. No bloatware.

If you have any other icon problems, follow the advice that I just posted above.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-537#post-10426706

 

Thanks for the reply. FYI, it only happens after I exit game without using native resolution. My laptop screen resolution is 1920 x 1080. I always play game using 1600 x 900.

 

@za8zak1 - Thank you for taking the time to explain your problem more thoroughly. Did you clean the Windows icon cache yet?

http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-clean-notification-area-icon-cache

Just for your info, the Set Multiplier feature will not work if Speed Shift is enabled so there is no need to check this box and if your laptop does not use Clock Modulation throttling, there is no need to check that box either.

After cleaning the icon cache, if you are still having problems, I will try to recreate the problem.

 

@unclewebb - I already clean Windows icon cache using file.bat. Still not solve the problem. Also, when I connected my laptop to TV using hdmi, the same problem will occur.

 

I will have a closer look at this issue but it won't be until the middle of next week. Thanks for the additional info.

One last thing. After you clean the WIndows icon cache, you have to stick with the same version of ThrottleStop. If you go back to an earlier version of ThrottleStop, you will need to run the .bat file again.

 

Ok, noted.

 

Hello Kevin, thank you for your work on this program, it's a great tool.

Just wanted to let you know that I couldn't manage to minimize version 8.40 to tray, it stays on the taskbar. I executed the .bat file you linked to like 5 different times haha

I reverted back to 8.30 and it minimizes to tray just fine.

 

Is there a way to limit the igpu multiplier?
Im trying to move from Intel XTU to Throttlestop,but Im missing this option.

 

Hi there!

THX for the great utility!

Best regards

phila

 

A quick question, besides the two registers (MSR and MMIO) that can set the PL1 limit, are there any other things that also control PL1? I ran into a case recently that there existed constant PL1 throttle even with MSR and MMIO set well above the throttling value (limit reason shows red PL1)

 

Since I enabled speed shift for I7-6700HQ on Windows 7 for Dell Inspiron 7559, I cannot reduce the CPU clock speed. For example if I play with GTA V, 1800MHz CPU speed would be enough, but it jumps all the way to 3.5GHz and generates significantly more heat, than before. Is there a solution to lock CPU speed with speed shift enabled?

 

With Speed Shift enabled, you should be able to go into the TPL window and set a Min and Max multiplier for Speed Shift. Try setting a max of 18 and a Min value equal to or less than 18 and see what happens. When doing this, I would use 0 for the Speed Shift EPP setting on the main screen.

@Hanamichi23 - I will be looking into this issue later this week. Are you using the Win 10 - Anniversary Update edition? I am using an earlier version of Windows 10 and I am not having any icon issues while running TS 8.40. When you ran the icon cache .bat file, were you in an account with Admin privileges? Did you try right clicking on the .bat file and selecting Run As Administrator? Doing this has always worked for me.

@xrender - Your testing shows that there must be something beyond MSR and MMIO values that can limit PL1. The CPU will use the lowest value it finds. I wish I had access to and more knowledge about this other setting but unfortunately I don't. If you are getting constant PL1 triggered throttling, it is probably because the bios did not setup the CPU correctly. Either that or they did it on purpose to control power consumption to an extreme level.

 

I'm not sure what did it but it seems to be working now

 

Thanks, it is working, I could limit the CPU speed on a lower clock with Speed Shift enabled.

 

Suppose the TDP of a processor is 15W (U family), if I set MMIO and MSR of PL1 to, say 25W, will PL1 limit still be at 15W? (my understanding is that it shouldn't, but that machine has it capped at 15W with PL1 limit when loaded)
I doubt if this unusual power throttling is due to some other techniques like PECI interface. I am not sure if the power is further managed by PECI, will the MSR and MMIO setting just be overridden.

 

Good to hear. This is one of the few ThrottleStop issues and usually cleaning the Windows icon cache fixes it. ThrottleStop is programmed with a C++ compiler that was popular for writing Windows 98 apps. I get a kick out of using it to write apps that are stable and more or less compatible with Windows 10. TS is plain and a bit ugly but at least it works. The original developers of Visual C++ should be impressed with the tool they created. I have been thinking about upgrading for a while but I don't want to create more problems than I solve. I can live with a few minor issues.

I thought that would work. Intel's new Speed Shift feature is much more flexible and useful compared to the older SpeedStep technology. Thanks for the feedback.

As far as I know, PECI is the third limit that can be used to throttle the CPU. If you set the MSR limit at 25W and the MMIO limit at 25W and PECI is set to 15W, PECI wins and the CPU will throttle based on this limit. ThrottleStop does not have access to PECI so in this situation, it will not be able to solve this throttling problem. About all you can do is try to use ThrottleStop to lower the CPU voltage and power consumption and try to avoid or delay throttling this way. Somewhat useful but not as useful as I would have liked.

 

Many thanks!

 

hi , i need help in the FIVR -> turbo ratio limits the overlock is not aviable to select and de 2 cores have valuers but not aviable to changes they are block i dont now how to config

 

The Core i7-6500U is a low power CPU. To overclock, you have to spend a lot more money and buy a laptop that has an unlocked K series CPU. The maximum multiplier in the 6500U is locked by Intel at the factory so they cannot be overclocked. The only possible way to increase performance is to reduce power consumption. Try adjusting the CPU Core and CPU Cache voltages lower in equal amounts. This will reduce power consumption and will allow the CPU to spend more time using the 31 multiplier before throttling.

 

ok thank you so much

 

**Deleted by user**

 

Why would you post this on the ThrottleStop thread?

I think you should create a new thread instead...

 

Certainly can... I'll retract my post.

 

but you should keep in mind that XTU takes CPU power when running (even when minimized) - while Throttlestop does not! This was analysed and well documented from unclewebb long ago in this thread... The same machine only with XTU installed instead of throttlestop did not use the single core max Turbo state in a single core stress test and was around 7% slower - thanks to XTU....

 

I quite like the XTU interface and fact it is from Intel.

The issue with my (and others') Skylake 6300HQ processor (Dell 9550) was that XTU caused very premature power throttling, significantly degrading performance. That does not occur when XTU is uninstalled. That does not occur with ThrottleStop.

This appears to be a flaw that people should consider before using XTU...

 

XTU saves settings to the BIOS, ThrottleStop does not. ThrottleStop makes recovering from bad settings quite a bit easier.

 

Does anyone know if powercut will work with i5/7 5th gen broadwell-U chips?

 

Does closing XTU from the system tray fixes that?

 

Hello all,

This is a very exciting update for me because it introduces the potential to throttle (throttleStart) my skylake SP4. I'm trying to make it so the fans never spin and keep the processor at 800mhz or less.

As many users noted, the updated Windows 10 OS (which is required to get the security updates and new drivers that fix wifi bug, etc) does not allow users to turn off speed shift, and the multiplier bin is ignored.

However, I still can't get it to set the multiplier (or speed) to the lowest frequency, even if I set EPP to 255. Is this normal/expected? The speed still darts around, even at near-idle.

Thanks all,
And a very special thanks to Our Good Uncle Webb

 

In the TPL window, ThrottleStop gives you access to the Min and Max variables for Speed Shift. These should allow you to control the maximum speed when needed. Based on user feedback so far, I think I will add these to the main screen, somewhere, so users will be able to use different values for each profile if needed. I prefer full speed all the time myself but for low power situations, when properly adjusted, Speed Shift can be a very useful feature and it is more flexible than the old school SpeedStep feature.

PowerCut took advantage of a Haswell related bug thanks to @Dufus. It will most likely be disabled on your Broadwell U and if it isn't disabled, it probably should be because I do not think it will do anything useful.

If I was going to run XTU and I needed maximum performance, I would exit XTU after it has set up all of the voltages. As long as no other software on your computer interferes with the voltage settings, your voltages should be maintained after exiting XTU and there would be a lot less overhead and wasted CPU cycles.

 

Excellent.

However, I have the Min and Max under TPL -> Miscellaneous set to 8 and 8, yet still see the speed fluctuate (up to 3.4GHz actually). Is this normal? Some of the time I see the speed stick at 800MHz for a little while but the moment I switch windows or scroll or whatnot, it jumps to 3.4GHz for a few seconds.

[edit]
This happens when I set the EPP to 255 (although there it jumps to 1100 and down to 500), and 0 (where it clings to 800 for a bit and jumps to 3.4GHz whenever I click/scroll).

[edit2]
This also happens when I change the AC Timer Res to 1.

 

I have never used Speed Shift on a U series CPU so I am not sure what is normal for one of them. Are you using the Windows High Performance power profile when using ThrottleStop? Are you using TS 8.40? It has a few more Speed Shift related features and the High Performance profile might prevent Windows from interfering with the CPU so ThrottleStop can do its thing. Post some TS screenshots and run some TS log files if you would like me to have a better understanding of the U.

 

sorry this seems to be too noob to ask... but how can i minimize ThrottleStop to system tray? I keep minimizing it and only goes to taskbar...

 

best setting for speedshift? i7 6700hq

 

Typically:
0= max performance
255= max power savings
128= roughly balanced performance Intel seems to recommend to PC manufacturers for average user

I set EPP=0 for performance bias

 

Is Task Bar on the main screen checked? Make sure that box is clear and see what happens.

 

I tried the same thing, making sure the box wasn't checked, and couldn't minimize throttlestop to the task tray.

-------------------------

Is there Will there an option to reduce the monitoring rate of throttlestop?

When it is minimized to taskbar and displaying core temps in the task tray the CPU usage seems to be very low.

I'm comparing it with coretemp set to update every thee seconds and it seems throttlestop in this case eats the same # of cycles or even comes out slightly ahead.
Here's a screenshot, captured the moment coretemp updates.
Colums are: CPU Usage % / Cycles eaten total / cycles eaten since last update
Coretemp's lead went down from 2.3 to 2.04bil cycles ~10 minutes after this screenshot.


It's neat how software dedicated to only displaying temps is matched/beat by throttlestop in efficiency. Maybe if TS could slow down updating its tray monitors it would come out even further ahead.

 

Did you try cleaning the Windows icon cache? Ciprian Adrian Rusen found an easy way to reset the Windows icon cache and wrote a little script that usually takes care of any TS icon issues.

http://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-clean-notification-area-icon-cache

The recent Stop Monitoring option changes the refresh rate to once every 60 seconds. If you turn off features like Set Multiplier and minimize TS to the System Tray, you can get CPU utilization down to zero. Can't beat that.

 

I didn't realize it would still update every minute, TS is in the tray now and the zero cpu usage is perfect.
Set the font to tahoma 8 and it basically replaces coretemp. Crazy.

 

Hello guys.

Thanks for some great software. I have some questions and some problems:

1) Setting Package Power Limits in ThrottleStop does not seem to work. I get PL1 Power Limit Throttling. If I increase Turbo Power Boost Max in XTU then the throttling disappears immediately, however it resets if I change some other unrelated settings in TS. So if I have 30W PL1 in TS I get throttling. If I set PL1 to 29W in XTU then the throttling disappears. If I then decreset the voltage offset in TS it reappears.

2) XTU does not always report the same Core Voltage Offset as TS. Is there any way I can be sure that the voltage offset is actually applied?

3) Is there any problem using XTU for settings Power Limits (since it does not seem to work in TS) and using TS for settings voltage offsets (since Core and Cache are linked in XTU but not in TS)?

4) Is there any documentation for the Turbo Power Limits tab in TS? I can't find any docs for locks, clamps, PP0, or anything in the miscellaneous group.

5) In order for all settings to be applied, the title bar is NOT supposed to say monitoring, right? E.g. the button is supposed to say "Turn Off" NOT "Turn On"

6) When is PP0, PL1 and PL2 active? There's a setting for Turbo Boost Power Time Window (PL1) in XTU but it does not seem to do anything -- as long as the power limit is high enough, the CPU stays on 32x multiplier which is max when both cores are in use.

I have an i7-6600U Skylake and use TS 8.40.