The ThrottleStop Guide

@Diversion - Clamp allows the CPU to throttle below its default speed so I usually turn that option off. Have you tried enabling Speed Shift? An SST setting of 0 on the main screen is for maximum performance when Speed Shift is enabled. I like 80 for a Balanced profile while Microsoft and Intel like 128. You might get improved off idle performance when using Speed Shift. When you first used TS, were the power limits set to 9 and 15? When first start, TS reads its default settings from the CPU so whatever the bios sets, TS uses those limits. Nice that Dell did not lock that register in the bios. TS rounds off the reported TDP wattage so a reported TDP of 4 is probably 4.5W internally. When designing TS, I never thought that +/- 0.5W was going to be too important.

 

Yes I haven't touched anything except for undervolting so far.. And disabling turbo to see behavior under load. So those are all default settings you see. I'm mostly interested in ultra efficiency on battery but I will try your suggestions and make a plugged-in profile with those and see what happens. The issue is this thing will still hit 90c and throttle back and hold the throttle until temps reach 50c or so.. the downsides to fanless/passive cooling of course. The good news is my now "stable" load speed is now 2.6ghz+ after the undervolting which is pretty quick for sustained load on a Y series, it's a speedy machine for passive cooling!

I did enable Speed Shift and noticed some odd behavior where it stopped deciding to go to higher 3+ghz clocks. So just rebooted to turn off Speed Shift. It doesn't seem to work nicely with the Dell BIOS or something.. I noticed the same strange behavior on my previous i5-7200U XPS 13. I think Dell intentionally didn't want it to be enabled for some reason.

 

After you enable Speed Shift you need to enable and play with the Energy Performance Preference (EPP) adjustment on the main screen. A setting of 0 should get you your max multi back. I think Speed Shift has got a bad rep because Intel dropped the ball when they selected a default EPP setting of 128. That can easily be fixed using TS.

That is not normal thermal throttling. Usually when a CPU thermal throttles, it will reach the throttling temperature and then hold at that temperature indefinitely. The CPU slows down just enough to reduce power consumption and heat so the CPU temps do not go beyond the throttling temperature.

Low power devices often times use a skin temperature sensor. Leaving BD PROCHOT enabled can allow these skin temp signals to throttle the CPU far longer than it needs to be throttled for. When plugged in, have a look at Limit Reasons. If BD PROCHOT is lit up in red then that is probably what is going on.

 

Hi Unclewebb - i would like to share my test -> Limit Reasons can be started now.
Would you please explain me one more time what the checked CLAMP option does and any idea why Clevo want to have it working that way?

I never had this checked by default on any Clevo Laptop i had used before....

All other settings in the screenshots show stock setting - only the undervolt was set by me and i had removed the checked BD Prochot checkbox

Is there anything else you need to get testet ?

 

Diversion,

On my Dell 9550, SpeedShift does not work as expected when turbo is disabled or c-states are disabled. I think disabling SpeedSTEP in BIOS caused issues also but can't remember. (FYI disabling C1E states via ThrottleStop does not seem to cause any issues)

Try this - make sure your BIOS has turbo, c-states, speedstep enabled. Then in ThrottleStop, enable SpeedShift with EPP=0.

 

SpeedShift seems to not do anything/change any behavior on this XPS 13 2-in-1.

 

Odd - the i7 7Y75 has speed shift:

http://ark.intel.com/products/95441/Intel-Core-i7-7Y75-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz

 

The CPU acts 100% the same at SpeedShift 0 vs 255.. I guess Dell is blocking it to be activated via the BIOS.

 

I don't know how Dell blocks EPP but I think you are right.

On the 9550, Dell does block the same speed shift adjustments such as EPP (control panel>power options). So even if a user adds speed shift control options via powercfg (eg EPP), the drop-down options may change but that is purely visual and don't impact the computer. On the 9550, however ThrottleSTOP EPP works correctly. Unfortunately, your computer is behaving differently as you can not get EPP to change.

Note also, 9550 users that hacked the BIOS found the Speed Shift Control in (control panel>power options) worked correctly.

FYI - on the first post of the "XPS Speed Shift" thread, see a link to the Intel developers guide in PDF. That guide highlights the Speed Shift toggles (~p474) if you are interested in seeing what is there:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-speed-shift.796891/

 

@Diversion - I am assuming that you have enabled Speed Shift in the TPL window and the main screen of ThrottleStop is showing SST in green. Once that is done, with Speed Shift - EPP checked and set to 0 on the main screen, does the FIVR voltage monitoring window also show that SST - EPP is 0? When SST - EPP is set to 255, does the FIVR window show SST - EPP is 255? When you run a single thread of the TS Bench test, are your scores more or less the same when EPP is set to 0 or when EPP is set to 255? I would think that if Speed Shift was enabled that it should show a difference. During everyday use a person might not notice any significant difference but during the above benchmark, there should be a measurable difference in performance and ThrottleStop reported CPU speed.

Speed Shift is enabled within the CPU so once it is enabled, I do not think that there is anyway to block it. The only possibility is if Windows adjusts the EPP value more often than ThrottleStop checks and adjusts EPP. You should be able to watch for this in the FIVR window where the current SST - EPP value is reported in real time. If this value is not consistent with what you have set in ThrottleStop, that would indicate a problem.

 

Reporting that on the HP Envy X360 Kaby Lake (will do review soon) and MSi GS63VR the EPP values are set in stone.

Maybe next version of TS would have an optional feature in which you can set it to monitor EPP and to always revert to the user's EPP value if changed by bios/windows.

 

This is a feature of Speed Shift. Some CPU models might have the EPP value locked. There is nothing you can do about that. It might also be possible for a manufacturer to lock the EPP value in the bios so software like ThrottleStop cannot be used to modify it. When you have a chance can you post a screenshot of TS with EPP set to some random value and then another screenshot of the FIVR voltage table so I can see what is reported. I might need to add a lock to the Speed Shift - EPP value so users do not get the wrong idea that this can be changed when it is locked. For the record, Speed Shift works correctly on the desktop Kaby Lake CPU that I tried it on.

ThrottleStop already has a real time EPP monitoring feature. This info is displayed in the FIVR voltage table when Speed Shift is enabled. I agree that is an obscure place for it but it takes too much time to redesign ThrottleStop. Much easier to just slide it in somewhere at the moment and then adjust its location later if I can think of a better spot for it. For the next redesign, I will probably move all of the Speed Shift related info and adjustments to the main screen.

 

SST EPP on both laptop will switch to 0 if I switch to a power profile with 0 EPP value.

 

@Mobius 1 - Does that mean it works? If you change the EPP value in ThrottleStop, does it change in the FIVR monitoring table? My plan is to update ThrottleStop so if the CPU does not support EPP adjustment, this feature will be locked.

I was just reading some more about EPP. There seems to be some CPUs that support Speed Shift but they do not support EPP within the Speed Shift register. This might apply to the 6th or 7th Gen U CPUs but not sure yet. Edit - For these CPUs, there is another setting that ThrottleStop used to have but I think I removed it. I will add it back if necessary.

 

Yes the FIVR window monitoring change EPP value, hold constant at 0 or 128 default.


Can you explain to me how the intel power balance work?

 

Intel CPUs throttle based on power consumption. The Power Balance feature lets you choose whether you would like the Intel CPU or Intel GPU to throttle first. When gaming on the Intel GPU, I think you would get best performance with the CPU set to 0 and the GPU set to 31. A fast GPU is usually more important for FPS so this would allow the CPU to throttle before the GPU throttles its speed. I have not played with this setting for a long time. I will have to do some Kaby Lake testing to see if it still applies. It is another Intel feature where the actual results might not be overwhelming. Must be hard when large teams of programmers dream up features that the average Joe can barely tell if it makes a difference or not. Luckily they are well compensated so they can sleep easy at night.

 

Ok I'll keep in mind.

 

Unfortunately I returned the XPS 2-in-1 based on other annoyances with the machine but i'm currently playing with SpeedShift on my Asus with 6700HQ and the stock read on the FIVR tab for EPP is 84. I turned SpeedShift on to 0 on the main page, then go back to FIVR EPP and it shows 0 now. However, when I run ThrottleStop bench WITHOUT SpeedShift at 0 enabled, it's a solid 8.6 to 8.7 seconds on the 32M. However, when SpeedShift is set to 0, it's slightly slower at 8.9-9.0 seconds on the same test. Turn off SpeedShift, reboot the system.. No SpeedShift enabled - back down to faster scores at 8.6-8.7 seconds.

Edit: There's perceptible lag when SpeedShift at 0 is enabled.

Any ideas?

 

At the moment, absolutely none. When running the TS Bench test, an excessive number of background tasks can significantly increase your times. What sort of C0% does ThrottleStop report when your 6700HQ is idle at the desktop? I will try to do some tests tomorrow to see if there is anything unusual going on.

 

why I can not put the check on CPU temp in options?

 

Exit ThrottleStop and clean the Windows icon cache.

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

After you do that, restart ThrottleStop and hopefully it will work correctly.

 

I had a play with speedshift again and don't know what I did differently but it's no longer maxes out at 37.92x as it did before (in TS 8.30) regardless of the max multiplier.

I notice an approx yet consistent ~1/10th second difference on TSB 32M between speedshift on (~6.2 sec) vs it off (~6.1). At min-max of 45-45 it idles at the same as it maxes, at approx 4.49GHz, and it is still the same margin slower than with it off at 4.5. Raising the bottom limit raises the average idling speed (so min 20 = ~2ghz) but similar 1/10th second slower score.

It's nice to be able drop the idle usage nearly in half at a daily of 4x4.5ghz overclock - from ~17W to ~10W

Only problem with this and the delid is the fans don't spin as fast at idle/low power so the rest of the unit (incl wristrests) heats up a bit more now! Maybe I just have to not use Speedshift and OC it higher hehe

 

All C0% states are between .01 to .04 max idling on desktop.. I perhaps some things running last time I attempted because the scores are now pretty equal.. Within .XX seconds on the 32M and within 1.5 seconds on the 1024m test now.

It's still consistency slower by a imperceptible amount consistency, which is odd to say the least but it's extremely close.. Not sure why it performs 1-2 seconds faster without SpeedShift than off but it's not enough to really go digging deeper why.

What I am hoping for is better undervolting capability with SpeedShift on since the voltage is more stabilized now and doesn't dip into .5volts at idle like it did before SpeedShift is enabling.. Now it idles at pretty much maximum voltage on the CPU.. And without the voltage vDroop or whatever it is without SpeedShift, seems like I can actually undervolt more now.

Hope this makes sense, but I guess you could have a case saying that enabling SpeedShift at 0 will provide more stability for overclocking and undervolting since it stabilizes voltage without increased wattages. I only became unstable after running a hardcore bench after I stopped the bench because it wants to drop the voltage so low afterwards.

 

That nifty C1E checkbox in ThrottleStop helped bump up real-time CPU performance on my Skylake i5 HQ.

I tried disabling c-states in BIOS to boost performance but that did not work as expected in a laptop environment and capped CPU max fq. The C1E is a nifty trick around that...

Give it a try

 

is throttlestop 8.4 the latest version? or is there some newer? a beta perhaps?

 

It's the latest

 

Is clock modulation needed for Alienware 17 R3 laptop?

 

Take a search around the thread for recent posts. First result...

Better yet, give it a try and see if it does anything on your R3

 

I take this back, I found some power limits (PL 1 2 3 and 4) that I'd missed in the BIOS after a reset that were being raised to non-throttling values by TS in the TPL page, I raised them (to mirror what TS already had set) and the disparity has gone between Speedshift and Set multiplier methods of controlling max CPU frequency.

 

With speed shift enabled, the set multiplier, performance profiles lost their function in the main screen of Throttlestop. I wonder if these options will be adjusted to Speed Shift? I like to use different profiles for different tasks, like for internet browsing 1.8GHz enough, for gaming 2.5 GHz and full speed only for benchmarks. I've currently found the way to change CPU speed in TPL, but would be nice if I could change that in the profiles like in the good old time.

 

But you can.
I have a Cube Mix Plus with a 7Y30 that has speed shift enabled, and I have set the profiles to:
1: Speed Shift Epp: 0 Fullspeed, all the time
2: Speed Shift Epp: 128 This is like ballanced, goes up to 2.6GHz but only if needed
3: Speed Shift Epp: 186 Little bit more conservative, max 2.1GHz on one thread.
4: Speed Shift Epp: 255 Max 1GHz

 

@Atom Ant - The new Speed Shift function has replaced the old Set Multiplier function. Doing what @FZelle is doing is one possibility to get the kind of control back that you are used to. My long term plan is to bring the Speed Shift Min Max variables out of the TPL window and onto the main screen so you will be able to adjust these for each profile. It will also be more logical with all of the Speed Shift settings in one place.

Just working on a little side project for a client at the moment. Here is a sneak peek.

 

With the latest release of ThrottleStop (8.4), I am unable to get the program to close to the system tray. Is this a bug? I have the proper boxes checked.

 

@Marc Erdrich - Can you post a screenshot of ThrottleStop so I can see what boxes you have checked?

 

Thanks for the application. I have a i7 -4700

I am having some problems, when i put the Windows Power Management Minimal Processor State at 100% like it says in setup document Throttlestop never drops the performance below 2400mhz even if Speedstep is ticked ON in Throttlestop. Any idea why that happens?

As a final note my main objective is to use the Throttlestop to have a more efficent use: less heat - i already reduced offset voltage of CPU, CPU Cache and GPU.
Edit: Another reason i do this is to be able to read and view not processor intensive videos with fans idle. So it is also a noise decision.

 

That looks mightily like an Obsidian Tool colour scheme

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

 

@Bullit - If you want your CPU to drop down to 800 MHz when lightly loaded, exit ThrottleStop and switch over to the Windows Balanced power profile. You can still use ThrottleStop to set an under volt. After you exit ThrottleStop, run HWiNFO to confirm that your under volt is still working.

When I want to save power, I ignore MHz and concentrate on the C States. I work on disabling any background tasks that are significantly interfering with the CPU using the low power C States. With only ThrottleStop open on your desktop, your idle C0% should be no higher than 0.5%. After that, maximize the percentage of time your CPU cores are spending in C7. Cores spending 99% of the time in C7 when idle can be achieved. You might have too many background tasks keeping your CPU busy when it should be idle.

Lucky guess.

 

Oh my, that does indeed look like a color scheme matching my drivers app :O

 

@john - maybe you want to add unclewebbs fabulous tool too ;-D

 

unclewebb many thanks for your advice.

 

Thank you for the great tool.

Edit - Had an issue but it magically fixed itself so deleted question.

 

Thanks for this really good Thread!!!

 

Awesome program, I do have a question though:
I'm not sure if it's because of Throttlestop or something else, but since recently, even with no load at all, my CPU doesn't go further down than 2593MHz, it used to clock down further.

These are my settings:

 

Hello UncleWeb, I am loving your tool, it's helped me address my stupid Dell laptop CPU stuck at 0.78 GHz for no apparent reason.

I was wondering (and sorry if this has been asked), is there an option inside the tool to only show ThrottleStop inside the notification tray area? I have created a task to have it start automatically upon logging in, but I am noticing that the software will either appear minimised in the taskbar or it won't appear at all. Plus, I am still uncertain as to whehter, if I close it, the effects stop or they continue...

Many thanks!

 

@E-PaiN - With a 6th or 7th Gen CPU, I would use ThrottleStop to enable Speed Shift. Do this in the TPL window. On the main ThrottleStop window, set up one profile with an Energy Performance Preference (SST-EPP) setting of 0 for your maximum performance profile. Set up a second profile with EPP set to either 80 (my preference) or 128 (Intel preference) and then your CPU will be able to idle down to a lower MHz when not needed and it will get back up to speed quickly when you do need it. The way you have ThrottleStop setup, you did not check the Set Multiplier option so your CPU can end up stuck at any random speed. Far better to use Speed Shift to manage your CPU. That's why I included it in ThrottleStop so give it a try. Leave Set Multiplier un-checked if you are going to use Speed Shift.

Make sure that the Task Bar option is not checked. This box is just above the Save button on the lower left part of the main ThrottleStop window. Follow this guide to make sure that you added ThrottleStop to the Task Scheduler correctly.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-514#post-10366647

As soon as you exit ThrottleStop, Windows will take over control of your CPU. Some settings in ThrottleStop like voltages will usually remain the same until you either use stand by mode, hibernate mode or reboot. Always a good idea to double check with another monitoring program like HWiNFO if you are not sure about what settings are sticking after you exit ThrottleStop. Better yet, why bother exiting ThrottleStop, ever.

 

Awesome, that worked great! Thanks!!

One more minor question: if I enable CPU & GPU systray temperature display, disable "Task Bar" icon, and enable "No Nofication Area Icon", it re-enables "Task Bar" automatically.

So I end up with 3 icons (CPU & GPU temp + ThrottleStop icon), is it possible to not automatically re-enable taskbar so I can run with just 2 icons?
I know it's minor, but it would be awesome

 

Thanks UncleWeb! I wonder if this is too much to ask from this tool, but since my laptop's CPU control seems to have gone awol, is there a way to select a profile that lowers the clock speed when in idle and sets it back to the selected speed when doing something more demanding? I have tried the PowerSaver option but it keeps my clock at 0.9 Ghz, which is probably great if surfing the web, but when I start a more intensive program it just sticks there, unless I untick PowerSaver and then it goes up to whatever frequency I selected...

Many thanks! Awesome piece of software!

 

hey @unclewebb I noticed on the new Alienware 17 R4 that 1.0.12 BIOS crashes my TS. In fact, when I load TS after booting into windows on the new BIOS my whole system completely freezes forcing me to do a hard reset! :O

I moved my throttlestop.ini and launch TS again and it seemed to work ok. My bad config is here. Do you know why this is crashing my PC on only the new BIOS? It works fine on the last version (1.0.9).

 

@unclewebb I am having a problem where my CPU is preforming far worse than it should. I used your program while trying to diagnose it, and it showed that my cpu, while under load, isn't using c0%. How can I fix this? (I am using an i5 6600k overclocked to 4400 hz on a MSI Z170A Krait Gaming 3x

EDIT: Apparently, it seems I'm not running in ANY c states.... whatever that means... Here are some screenshots taken in the same conditions showing that.

http://i.imgur.com/Ya2wtu5.png?1
http://i.imgur.com/q7Sf6cn.png?1

 

@unclewebb Hi, why I don't have these options active? Thanks in advance.