The ThrottleStop Guide

Unfortunately ThrottleStop can not control your fans. When they run too slow, that's definitely a problem. I don't have any experience with your laptop so I don't know how much of this problem is due to poor design or is just a poorly installed heatsink. Some users with some laptops have dropped their core temperatures significantly after reinstalling the heatsink.

The Core i CPUs do not support simple undervolting the way you could with the previous Core 2 CPUs. The only way to run cooler is to slow your CPU down and sacrifice some performance. Start by using the Disable Turbo option and if that is not enough then start lowering the multiplier. This is all going to be trial and error. You can run a ThrottleStop log file while testing so you can keep an eye on your core temperature while gaming.

 

My laptop has quite serious issues with FID changes. When EIST is enabled, OS changes core frequency multiplier very rapidly, and sometimes on rought load drops computer reboots. I think the problem is in CPU power management, because when I set a fixed FID(any of them, actually), system work absolutely stable. But the problem is when I set FID too high(17x or 19x) processor heats up quite violently up to 75C when idle.

The only solution I can find is to manage CPU FID's with sime external program, not default OS power manager. Programs like CrystalCPUID and RMClock are intended to do exactly this thing, but unfortunately they do not support my Core i5 processor, every time CrystalCPUID tries to change FID state, it drops to 17x, regardless of my choise, RMClock just cannot recognize my CPU.

But Throttle Stop works really cool, it has even cool feature to tweak profiles, the only problem - why do you not implement a feature to switch between that profiles dynamically based on current CPU load? It is not a very difficult feature, but your Throttle Stop will be the first one to implement it for Core i5-i7 family.

 

Thx for your answer.
I didnt test for too long yesterday but it seems like spinning both coolers to 6000 partially solve the problem. Also removed overclocking on my gpu so it doesnt generate additional heat.

Another thing that seemed to help is setting multiplier to "Turbo" and "disabling turbo boost". It seemed like temps are with 80-90 and not going 100 after that. Maybe i just didnt notice it.

 

Your CPU heatsink is not installed correctly. That temperature is way too high at idle so when you put a load on your CPU, it will get too hot and it won't be stable and it might randomly crash or reboot. You need to fix that problem. Core i CPUs are designed by Intel to rapidly change multipliers and they work great but they don't work great if they are not properly cooled.

I've never found a reason to change profiles based on load. Core i CPUs are very smart and when they enter the C6 sleep state, voltage and power consumption are zero. They are much more efficient than the original Core 2 mobile CPUs so software like ThrottleStop can not make them more efficient.

 

The thing is when I enable EIST/C1E, temperature is always below 30C. Just as intended. The problem is standard windows power manager manages CPU FID, changing FID's abruptly(more than 10 times a second) which causes my CPU to fail. Note that when it reboots, it's temperature is always low(30-40C), reboots are NOT connected to temperature, that's for sure. And note that under heavy load(any CPU stress tests) laptop works absolutely fine, because the FID is set to 19x and does not fluctuate.

I have found a solution to prevent my laptop from rebooting: to set FID manually via Throttle Stop. But when I set FID manually to 17x-19x(maximum), of course it starts heating even when idle, because FID is fixed and OS cannot reduce it via native power management. I consider this behaviour to be absolutely natural.

So I assume it would be good if Throttle Stop was able to change FID automatically based on CPU load, instead of standard windows power manager, which changes it way too abruptly and too frequently.

 

I'd like to try this utility on a intel core 2 duo T7250 to reduce average core temp and, at same time, optimize the cpu performance.
Is it a replacement for rmclock or can be used in "combination" with it ?

Are there some possible "drawabacks" using it ?

 

ThrottleStop is a simplified alternative to RM Clock that supports the newer 45nm Core 2 as well as the Core i CPUs which RM Clock does not support. You can use ThrottleStop with RM Clock but you are better off using one program or the other so the two programs are not trying to fight over control of your CPU. For the older 65nm CPUs like your T7250, you are probably going to be better off sticking with RM Clock, especially if you already have it setup.

Suslik: Intel CPUs are designed to be able to reliably change multipliers hundreds or even thousands of times a second.

A fixed high multiplier should not cause this to happen. Can you post a screen shot of ThrottleStop and include a ThrottleStop log file while idle so I can try and understand what is going on.

When using ThrottleStop, you need to use the Windows High Performance profile and set the Minimum processor state to 100%.

Have you tried using the ThrottleStop PowerSaver feature? It's designed to lower the multiplier when the CPU is lightly loaded. This can be adjusted in the Options window in the PowerSaver C0% box.

 

Yeah, I know. Unfortunately my machine seems to have some problems with it: guys form service center replaced my motherboard, CPU, power unit and so on more than once already, but I still have those rebooting problems when OS is changing FID's.

Sorry, my bad. It heats up to 75 degrees with a fixed x17 multiplier and under a heavy load. When idle and 17x it heats up to 55C. Is it normal? Should I post a screenshot/log? In intel specs I have found that my Core i5 450m is quite "hot" - only temperature above 100C is considered critical for it.

Yeah, I know. Done. Moreover, I had to unlock hidden options in windows power management in order to disable windows' FID manager, because it interfered with ThrottleStop's and ThrottleStop was unable to set any fixed FID. When I told windows not to adjust FID, throttle stop started working properly.

Yeah, the feature name looked very promising. But unfortunately it did not work for me at all: if I set "Set multiplier" checkbox, it just sets my FID to the value I set. When I check and uncheck "Power saver" button, it does not change anything. How was it inteded to work? That probably is exactly the feature I need: to lower multiplier when needed, but by Throttle Stop, not windows power manager.

 

Show me a picture of ThrottleStop on your system at idle and at full load. Just push the Print Screen button, go into Paint and paste the image in, crop it, save it and upload it somewhere like ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting and then post a thumbnail here so I can see what's going on.

Some laptops use very low fan speeds when lightly loaded so this might be completely normal for your laptop. If you have disabled some of the low power sleep states then higher than normal idle temperatures are not surprising.

An Intel Core i CPU should be able to run reliably right up to 100C without any stability problems. They all have the same rating. What sort of stability testing have you done? You might have a bad memory module or some other issue. Windows power management is working reliably for everyone else so you need to find the real problem. It might be memory or some other problem with the board.

What laptop model do you have? You shouldn't need to manipulate the CPU with ThrottleStop just to get it to run reliably.

 

As I have said earlier, my laptop reboots approximately once in two or three days. However, sometimes it reports "WHEA-Logger Event id 19 : Cache Hierarchy Error" in system journal. It is just a warning, not an error, but I have noticed: the more such warnings it posts, the more reboot probability is. If I set FID multiplier to fixed, it does not report any of such warnings and does not reboot at all. If I let OS manage FID, sometimes(once in an hour or two) there are such warnings and sometimes laptop reboots as soon as gets one of those warnings.

I have written some engineering software that uses CPU FPU modules and RAM very heavily. I've computed some task with it, it took about three days, and there were no a single warning in system log, but as soon as it finished computing it started spamming them again and rebooted after a few hours.

Packard Bell EasyNote TX86 with Core i5 430m. Ofc those dances around CPU are not the thing every random user is supposed to do in such cases. I have taken the laptop a few times to service, they have replaced a few times CPU, Motherboard, Power Unit and a few other components. Rebooting issue persisted and they have advised me to replace it in market, but it is impossible, because it is a present, I do not know where it was bought.

The only thing I can do just now is to find some kind of workaround. Setting FID to a constant value seems to be one. Changing it in adaptive way would be even better.

 

I've been having a problem with ThrottleStop "stopping"... or perhaps the BIOS taking over?

I'm running a Gateway 6860FX with BIOS v94.31 and Win7 x64 SP1.

I can run throttlestop without any problems and OC my X9000 to 3.4Ghz. Once everything was all setup I figured I would have ThrottleStop run on Windows boot and then auto close after a bit.

First I tried setting it up as a service (per the guide) to be started on Windows boot and that that seemed to work well. ThrottleStop would load, then auto close after 30 seconds. All my OC settings would also remain.... for a time.

Basically I've found that after an unknown or even random amount of the time, the BIOS settings will reset and my CPU will be back to stock VID and speeds.

I then tried to simply add a ThrottleStop shortcut to my "startup" folder and that seemed to work a little bit better (keeping the settings longer so I thought I fixed the issue), but again after some time the settings are reset to default and so I have to load ThrottleStop again and again.

I'm not sure of the trigger causing this, but it seems to happen after playing a game through steam. I first noticed that my TS settings would be enabled on starting Borderlands, but then after playing a bit and on exit would find that the BIOS defaults were again in place. Today I was playing Portal 2 and the same happened.

I've tried running some tests by loading the games and then exiting... or loading them and playing for a little bit, but each time I run a test the TS settings remain so I can't even be sure it's game related at this point.

Any thoughts?? I'd like to be able to have TS auto close to keep system resources cleaner.

I'm sorry if this has been a known issue... I just started using the program and have been very happy with how it works until I noticed this problem.

 

Take a look:


Power management profile is set to "Maximum performance", windows FID management is disabled.

"Power Saver" checkbox is checked but multiplier is fixed at value of 17 and remains the same regardless of load. What am I doing wrong?

 

@teknomedic
I experienced the same behaviour of Throttle Stop(TS) with my HP EliteBook 8530w.
I solved the problem as described in my post
http://forum.notebookreview.com/7409269-post630.html
Maybe this works also with your notebook.
The settings set by TS remain until next Power on or Resume after Windows was suspended to Hibernate or Energy save.

 

thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look at the post and settings, but I dont' use Hibernate or any Energy save settings. I use the "performance" profile and edit all the settings for "always on" and etc.

The funny part is that the settings of TS never seem to change if I stay within Windows, but after I play a game for a half hour or so and exit, then it's defaulted.

 

teknomedic: Run ThrottleStop with the Start Minimized option checked. Let it run for a few hours while gaming or whatever and then open up the Task Manager and have a look at the CPU Time column. You might have to turn that column on by using the View - Select Coumns... menu item. ThrottleStop is one of the leanest if not thee leanest monitoring tools on the planet for CPU Usage and memory usage. Disable GPU monitoring if you want to save some more CPU cycles. I realize everyone wants a lean system without any junk running but why not just leave ThrottleStop running while gaming? As soon as you exit ThrottleStop, it turns control of your CPU back over to Windows and I have no control of what Windows decides to do with your CPU when ThrottleStop is not running.

I am not familiar with this setting. Can you show me where it is or is it a registry mod? This setting has disabled all of the sleep states in your CPU. ThrottleStop shows the C0% at 100.0%. At the very minimum, most CPUs use the C0 active state and the C1 sleep state. A CPU will be in the C0 state when it is working on something and as soon as the CPU has nothing to do, that core will enter the C1 state to conserve power. When you force a CPU to spend 100.0% of the time in the C0 state, power consumption and idle temperatures go way up. The ThrottleStop options like Power Saver, C1E and EIST are mostly ignored when you lock your CPU like this.

I don't have access to a Core i CPU to test. You can try enabling FID management, setting Minimum processor state to 100% and then adjust the C6 button to C1 or C3 with the Power Saver feature checked. Also increase the Power Saver C0% number to a high number like 90% for testing purposes. With Core i processors and limited or no bios options to disable specific C States, it might not be possible to get a steady low multiplier at idle like you are looking for.

HandsomeBOB: ThrottleStop supports the newer Sandy Bridge CPUs but many laptop manufacturers have decided to lock these CPUs so they are not adjustable like previous generations. Intel has included a variety of lock bits that can be set by the bios. The maximum multiplier has always been locked on the non-Extreme CPUs but now most manufacturers lock the TDP/TDC turbo power limits too. If these limits are not locked by the manufacturer they are still barely adjustable because of the maximum limits that Intel has set at the hardware level. All you can do is try ThrottleStop and see what it shows for your CPU.

 

I'm sure it doesn't use many resources, but I'd still prefer the ability to keep the settings locked with TS shutdown. I don't suppose there'd be chance for a "ultra light" memory resident version of TS that could ensure locked settings, but allowing the bulk of TS to remain shut down?

If it helps... I left my laptop on the desktop since my last post (I also watched some Netflix and did some general surfing) and now about 12-16 hours in the TS settings are still set. So it seems it has something to do with either gaming or steam. Perhaps there's a mode switch, chipset call or graphics call that's allowing the BIOS to reset it's settings??

Oh well, I'll just let it run all the time then.

 

You didn't understand what I'm trying to say. If you exit TS the control is returned to Windows. This is explained in unclewebbs post http://forum.notebookreview.com/7517751-post566.html. If you start TS with the settings you like(highest stable multiplier with the corresponding VID) and you do a Windows restart while TS is running, the settings of TS for the CPU remain until power cycle or resume from hibernate or sleep(save energy). After the restart the CPU is controlled by Windows and not anymore by TS but the settings of TS for the CPU are still effective. That means you can use every performance profile(balanced, high performance or save energy) of Windows without starting TS again after the restart. Windows assumes you have a CPU capable of running at the max settings(multiplier and VID) you set with TS. My X9100 runs in the range shown(0.8 GHz to 3.9 GHZ) in the attached screenshots.

 

Can put ExitTime=5 in your Throttlestop.ini to have TS set your profile parameters then exit after 5 secs and give control back to Windows. I use this for both my dual-IDA overclock and my DC undervolt. Ensures no additional performance/usage overhead from TS. Works great

 

Still waiting on an update that added per profile multipliers for i7's I love this app but this is the only feature missing for me.
Thanks!

 

I think I'm following what you're saying (about restarting with TS running)... but I can't be sure.... ,but even following what your saying the settings still reset after playing steam/games.

I used the following setting "exittime=60" in the INI of TS and thought it was working well. Until I noticed that after a gaming session (I'm using a program called "Core Temp" to verify my VID and CPU settings without need to run TS again) my VID was locked back to 1.2v and my max CPU speed was 3.0Ghz (my default OC BIOS settings).

It's not a huge deal, I'll just run TS all the time. Although nondo4, I'd be interested if you use steam at all and if you've ever verified the settings are staying locked after a gaming session?

 

I have unlocked this feature via registry/

I do not know why, but windows seem to ignore this setting. I mean if I set "Minimum processor state" to 100%, it still uses all FID's available up to 19x. So the only way I have found to set a fixed FID is to disable C-States at all. Unfortunately my windows is russian and I cannot tell how exactly that option is called in english, but it is something like "Disable processor idle states".

 

@teknomedic

If you don't mind, could you please try my suggestion? I'm eager to know if this only works for me!

 

hello, i'm italian newbie....i have a 920 xm and i want to overclock to 2456 mhz a 26x , i have a 150w psu but i don't understant throttlestop come to utilize, i don't says.

that wich one that write step by step one guide????

thanks boys

 

133 MHz X 26.0 = 3458 MHz

Click on the ThrottleStop TRL button and adjust the multipliers. Click on the TPL button and increase the power limits. Download wPrime and run some benchmarks. Lower wPrime times are a good sign that your ThrottleStop adjustments are increasing performance. Higher core temperatures are another good sign of improved performance. Keep adjusting and keep running benchmarks until you are happy with the increased performance. Overclocking a computer is all trial and error so get to work. Run a variety of benchmarks and stability testing programs to make sure that you don't overclock too far. Make sure you can run some Prime95 tests without getting any errors and your laptop will probably be stable enough for most real world apps.

 

"Click on the TPL button and increase the power limits"
Value????

 

When you open up the Turbo Power Limits window, there are two values in there. These values control when your CPU is allowed to use full turbo boost. If you set TDP to 50 watts then whenever your CPU is drawing less than 50 watts, it will be allowed to use full turbo boost. When power consumption goes over 50 watts, turbo boost gets turned off until you are back under that limit. TDC works the same way but refers to current consumption and shows a value in amps. The default multiplier for a 920XM is only 15 so when you reach one of these limits, the multiplier will rapidly cycle hundreds of times a second between 15 and 25 or whatever you have the maximum multiplier set to in the TRL window. This helps to keep the CPU at the power limits that you have set. As you raise these limits, the CPU will be able to spend a bigger percentage of time using the higher multiplier so your average multiplier that ThrottleStop reports will increase and your performance will also increase.

Run wPrime on all 8 threads. While the CPU is loaded, have a look at what multiplier ThrottleStop is showing on the right hand side in the monitoring area. If you have set your multipliers in the TRL window to 25, 25, 25, 25 then when fully loaded, you should be seeing a multiplier of 25.00. If you are not then your CPU is turbo throttling either because it is running too hot or usually because it is running over the TDP limit you have set or the TDC limit you have set.

Increase both those limits 10 at a time and see if your wPrime scores get better. Watch what happens to the multiplier while this test is running. As you increase the power limits for your CPU, the actual multiplier should increase. If you have set a 4 core multiplier of 25 and if you increase your TDP limits high enough, you will finally get the full 25.00 multiplier. This might take values up around 90W / 75A which is going to create a pile of heat. I have no idea about the cooling solution on your laptop or how it was installed or whether you are running your laptop in the desert or in the Arctic. Temperature plays a big part in how fast you can go.

I also don't know what your overclocking goals are. Is this going to be a 24/7 overclock or are you going after a world record? You need to balance the TDP/TDC settings with the amount of heat you are comfortable running.

Do some wPrime testing and closely watch the info that ThrottleStop is displaying while a test is running and this should start to make some more sense. Post some screen shots and ask some specific questions. Tell us what sort of limits you're using and what sort of wPrime times and temperatures you are getting.

There are a lot of users in the Alienware M17x forums that are running the 920XM and have a lot of experience with setting up ThrottleStop to maximize performance. You might be best off to ask these questions in that forum if there are not enough 920XM owners in the MSI thread.

 

unclewebb, what exactly does the fourth button with C-State numbers on it do?

I know that Intel Core processors lack documentation about C-States, but can you possibly explain what each state(C0, C1, C3, C6, C7, right?) stands for? And how are C-States related to FID's?

And there is some strange but miraculous behavior for me - if I toggle this button to C1 or C3, windows stops switching FID's up and down randomly when idle, remaining at 9x. And correctly adapts FID under load.

Somehow if I do not do this procedure windows makes FID's fluctuate even when processor seems to be absolutely idle. It does the same if I leave the button in C6 or C7 states - multiplier is constantly fluctuating around 9-12x, jumping every few seconds up to 19x(Process Explorer shows that there is no a single process that takes more than 0.5% amount of CPU time).

When FID's had stopped fluctuating randomly, my system seems to have started working absolutely stable - more than 24 hours without a single WHEA warning!

 

sorry for the noobness, read the guide but just want to make sure I'm doing this the most simplistic way. I have a SB Core-i7 2820qm. I just want it to run 100% turbo. Should I just simply leave it in performance or game, and then check turbo and then turn on? Is that it? I feel like there's more to it.. thanks for any help and thanks for the program!

Just using it to game. It may not even be necessary since I'm bottlenecked by the GPU, but just curious what affect it could have on even 3Dmark11 haha

 

aznguyen316: ThrottleStop should not make any significant difference to the performance of your Sandy Bridge CPU. If you click on the TPL button and everything is locked in that window then you won't be able to make any significant changes. Post a screen shot of ThrottleStop and that window if you're not sure. Some laptops have left some adjustments unlocked so you might be able to get a tiny performance increase by adjusting this. I'll check out the docs for your CPU once I see a screenshot.

You could also run a ThrottleStop Log File while gaming or benching so I can see if your laptop has any throttling or overheating issues that are reducing performance. The 4 profiles are just for user convenience. Some users like to use different settings for different activities but I mostly just run the first profile and you can call it whatever you like.

Run some benchmarks and see if you get any improvements.

Suslik: Glad we finally found something that works for you. The C0, C1, C3, C6, C7 or C States as they are called refers to various sleep states that the CPU uses. When a CPU is in the C0 state, it is usually because it is working on a task. When the task is complete, it goes into the C1 state. In the C1 state, the CPU is immediately ready to resume working but it uses a lot less power at idle in this state as you have discovered. Are your core temperatures a lot better now compared to when you were forcing the CPU to spend 100% of the time in C0?

C1E or C1 Extended consumes a little less power and as the CPU keeps going down to the deeper sleep states, it will consume less power but take a longer amount of time to become active and get back into the C0 state. Intel CPUs work great so this microscopic amount of lag time is rarely noticed. In the C6 state, a Core i CPU will save what it's working on to some on chip memory and will reduce voltage to zero so power consumption is also zero.

I think what happens is that when the CPU is using C6, when it wakes up, it immediately starts using the highest multiplier. I think that's why you see the average multiplier jumping up and down when you are using this C State. I don't own any modern hardware so I haven't played around with this too much but I think that's what the average multiplier in ThrottleStop is showing. Threads and cores are always rapidly entering and exiting various C States.

The button in ThrottleStop that toggles C1/C3/C6/C7 lets you limit what C States the CPU package can use. If you set this button to C1, that prevents the CPU package from entering C3/C6/C7. That's what ThrottleStop is reporting for C3% and C6%. The interesting thing is that even if you use this feature to block the package from entering these C states; individual threads can still use C3/C6 so power consumption at idle isn't too bad. You would need to completely block C States at the bios level to prevent them from being used at all but most laptops don't give you any control over this in their limited bios versions. I always knew this rarely used feature would be handy for someone.

A couple of users also reported improved hard disk benchmarks when this was set to C1 but I think that depends on the chipset you're using. There were some big percentage improvements to SSD 4K benches but I haven't seen enough user testing of this. Many of the newer Sandy Bridge laptops have locked this feature so it can no longer be adjusted. ThrottleStop will then show this magic button grayed out.

 

Of course they are.

Thanks for thorough explanation on C-States magic. I was struggling with the laptop for half a year and now it has worked for two days under different load, its temperatures are cool, FID is managed properly and the system is stable. That's a relief. Throttle stop seems to be the only program(among: CPU Tweaker, CrystalCPUID, RealTemp, RMClock and ClockGen) that was able to solve my issue.

 

Trying to fix my CPU speed. I originally had a great CPU speed, but it dropped after updating my BIOS. I flashed my dell Inspiron BIOS with N5010A13.

Well, I stumbled across ThrottleStop Guide a few days ago...And I was really interested. I downloaded and followed all the instructions for tweaking.

However, I would like to ideally have two settings:

1) Performance Setting for Gaming/Video Editing/Graphics
(Current Settings: Clock Modulation Checked, Chipset Clock Mod checked, Set Multiplier Turbo, BD PROCHOT checked, EIST checked, C1E checked)

2) Battery Setting for Web Surfing/E-mails/Word Processing
(Current Settings: Set Multiplier 9.0, Power Saver Checked, EIST checked, C1E, checked)

3) Advanced settings(Options): AC Profile: 1, Battery Profile:4, Low Battery % is 5, Low Battery Profile is 4, Battery Monitoring check, Do not reset FID/VID checked, Start Minimized checked, Minimize on close checked, Unlock Bidrectional PROCHOT checked, Powersaver c0% 35, Force TDP/TDC is 8.

4) TPL Limits: Profile 1: 30/30 Profile 2: 10/30 Profile 3: 10/30 Profile 4: 10/30

Can someone give me the rough guides settings for my new laptop?
Intel Core i5 M 480 2.67GHz @ 2.7 GHz
MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3
8GB System RAM
Intel(R) HD Graphics

If you need more info, let me know! Thanks in advance!

P.S.
If Unclewebb post a reply back to me or pm's me I would be so happy and grateful!

 

Can you explain this statement better? What is a great CPU speed? Did this change at idle or at full load and what software were you using to determine your CPU speed. Some software ignores some of the C State changes and can be a little misleading.

1) Have you tested your CPU? Does it have either type of clock modulation throttling issue? This is rarely an issue for your laptop so if these are not being used to slow your CPU down then there is no need to check either of these boxes.

2) A lot of the settings that ThrottleStop lets you adjust may not make any difference to overall power consumption. A lower multiplier does not automatically equal lower power consumption if it reduces the amount of time your CPU can spend in one of the low power deep sleep states. Whatever settings you come up with, make sure to do some thorough testing of battery power consumption afterwards.

Using TDP/TDC settings of 10/30 isn't going to reduce power consumption very much on your CPU. These settings control the amount of turbo boost your CPU can use. The Core i5-480M has a fairly high default speed of 2.66 GHz and its maximum turbo boost speed is close by at 2.93 GHz. The low power UM processors use the 10/30 setting but that's because they have a very low default speed, usually between 1.06 GHz and 1.20 GHz. If you are hoping to reduce power consumption then you're probably better off using the Disable Turbo feature and turning turbo boost completely off when on battery power. Your CPU running at its default speed of 2.66 GHz is enough CPU power for most activities.

Not every feature in ThrottleStop should be used on every CPU. It's a multi-purpose tool and what works on an older Core 2 CPU might show little to no benefit on the newer Core i CPUs. The PowerSaver feature is an example of that. Unless you have some specific throttling issues that you are trying to solve then adjusting BD PROCHOT probably isn't necessary either. I don't know too many Dell laptops that use this throttling method.

If I had your laptop I could test all this out but I don't. Using ThrottleStop is mostly trial and error. There hasn't been any feedback about your CPU or laptop. On many Core i CPUs, ThrottleStop will not significantly change performance and it might increase power consumption. It's a very accurate monitoring tool and it's a Swiss army knife at fixing a variety of laptop problems but if you don't have any of these throttling problems and you don't have an Extreme CPU then you might not need to use it. The Core i does not let a user manipulate the core voltage so ThrottleStop is very limited when it comes to reducing power consumption for them.

Do some testing and let me know what you find out. Does the battery button in ThrottleStop show actual battery power consumption? That's the best way to judge your settings.

 

Hi I came across this while trying to get the IDA working on my P8600, this is a great achievement!
I a user of Rmclock and really my main concern is to undervolt the CPU to lower temps...but i also want to be able to achieve max performance when needed and in this regard I'm a bit lacking with RMclock..hence tried your software.

I have to say your software is a lot more efficient than RMclock. However I'd like to point to a few things I've noticed with throttlestop.

1) I can never get the temps of my machine to as low as when i use rmclock. This is after selecting the battey profile, power save. Is there any way of setting the intermediate FID and VID like in RMclock? I know you say this is negligible since the processor goes into sleep, any other reason why i have higher temps?

2) this is probably the more important. Running in battery mode with EIST and powersave enabled, when i try to play a FLV with throttle stop running my processor always hovers around 2Ghz or thereabouts...without Throttlestop and using rmclock the processor can get back to a lower clock level such as 800Mhz.....i never see these lower clock rates in this situation with throttlestop, the processor is always running high?

Hope you appreciate the feedback and hope you continue to develop this!

 

First off, thank you Unclewebb for your reply. I am much obliged.
I will try to answer all your answers in chronological order:

1) I have been using Novabench to do a quick benchmark of my computer. I know there are others like wprime and passmark etc... But Novabench was free and looked nice Long story short, I flashed my BIOS from A12 to A13 and installed a bunch of new software that I needed. In addition, I was using TuneUp manager and changed a setting on my password which didn't let me logon causing me to do a system restore so that I could log back on. During this process, my Novabench mark which were consistently hitting 650 before dropped to 375 consistently. I had no idea why and thought my CPU BIOS must be throttling my CPU integer operations, floating point operations...So I found ThrottleStop to try to fix it.

2) From what I understand then, the Core i5-480m that I use in my Dell Inspiron does not use any throttles? So I don't need to checkmark the clock modulation? And you mentioned adjusting the TDP/TDC settings would not really boost my performance or help save battery consumption? Now, I am sad
Well, at least, I tried right? Let me know if you have any suggestions moving on from here.

3) Yes, from my knowledge ThrottleStop does show the actual battery consumption.

I have been advised by a few different sources to just do a fresh install of windows 7 premium and update everything again if I wanted to restore my CPU benchmark scores. However, I installed so many softwares that I would have to reinstall again. Its seems like its not even worth it at this point...So I was wondering if there was anything you suggest that might be a possible solution without doing a fresh install. I was hoping ThrottleStop could solve the problem, but I'll await your response. Thanks so much.

 

alnug: Are you using the same program when testing to monitor your temperatures? Can you post a screen shot at idle with RM Clock controlling your CPU and a second screen shot with only ThrottleStop in control and can you include RealTemp in both screen shots so I can see the difference?

RealTemp 3.67
http://www.mediafire.com/?jibd769x6z7n0c8

When using ThrottleStop, have you set Windows to use the high performance profile? Does the ThrottleStop battery power consumption feature work on your laptop? I found power consumption is also a good way to compare.

2) I know the MHz will be much higher when using ThrottleStop while watching a movie but is there any significant difference in power consumption? I didn't find any when testing. On my T8100, I compared 600 MHz to 800 MHz to 1200 MHz to 2300 MHz and I didn't see a huge difference in power consumption. I found that on the newer 45nm Core 2 CPUs that MHz is not always a good indicator of power consumption and can be misleading.

That was based on testing my T8100 and I also tested with a Kill-a-Watt meter which showed similar results. On your CPU, this might not apply so I am interested in seeing your test results or any test results.

If you are using Dual IDA mode then that could consume slightly more power than RM Clock since RMC does not support that option but it still won't be a huge difference. You can also use Battery Bar which uses the same Windows function that ThrottleStop uses and will report the same battery power consumption numbers.

Osiris Development - Home of BatteryBar, the most accurate battery meter for Windows

onfire4jc: Do you know if you changed the Windows Power Profile from high performance to balanced or something else? I'm not familiar with Novabench but that is just one benchmark. You could run ThrottleStop and check the Log File option while this benchmark is running so you will have a record of your CPU performance. Leave ThrottleStop in monitoring mode only and send me the log when you are done so I can have a look at it. I downloaded Novabench and gave it a try on my desktop and found that it was only fully loading 2 of my 4 cores so it doesn't seem to be an overly demanding benchmark and shouldn't be the cause of any throttling problems.

What I tried to say before is that if your laptop does not show any signs of either type of clock modulation throttling in the ThrottleStop log file then there is no reason to check either of these boxes. It won't hurt to check these boxes but all you'll be doing is wasting CPU cycles trying to cure a problem that doesn't exist.

A 10/30 TDP/TDC setting might make a tiny change in power consumption but it will likely be insignificant. It depends what type of load you typically have on your CPU. For many light load uses, the above setting will make zero difference and going beyond 30/30 probably won't improve your benchmark scores because Novabench does not seem to fully use the CPU anyhow. This setting only controls the Turbo Boost feature. Using a setting of 10W does not mean that your CPU will consume 20 watts less than a setting of 30W.

I'd rather someone poke me in the eye with a pointed stick than have to reinstall Windows and all my apps one by one. There is rarely any reason to do this. Before you start a benchmark test, what does the Task Manager show for CPU Usage? You might have something running in the background slowing your CPU down. A ThrottleStop log file might show what's going on.

A benchmark like wPrime that fully loads your CPU will show if your CPU is running any different than similar CPUs.

http://www.wprime.net/Download/

 

Hi unclewebb....thanks for the quick reply!

had a few minutes so had a quick test with the wattmeter.

First I ran with RMclock, lowest 6x multi on 0.925v, 7x on 0.95v, 8x on 0.975v and max 9.5x multi on 1.0375 (using reg hack for the half fids). testing on idle with the wattmeter the reading was a solid 17W (I removed the battery) on watching an FLV file it peaked at 28W and quickly dropped to 20W.

With TS I set the windows profile to max performance, enabled the powersave and fixed the max 9.5x multi to 1.0375v. On idle it was fluctuating 17-18W..not very conclusive but on running the FLV it also peaked at 28W lingered longer than RMclock and then settled to a voltage fluctuating around 21-22W so using slightly more power possibly due to the processor using the intermediate vids...i'll try to do more tests with Realtemp for you...but there does seems a tangible difference in power usage.

 

If you are seeing a tangible difference then why not continue using RM Clock? It's a good program for controlling the Core 2 Duos and after you do the reg hack for the half multipliers, it should work correctly with your 45nm CPU.

ThrottleStop was designed to be simpler to set up and its original goal was to deal with the throttling issues in the Dell laptops. You could try increasing the PowerSaver C0% value. That might make ThrottleStop more competitive with RM Clock in terms of power consumption. I probably won't get around to adding individual multiplier support to ThrottleStop like RM Clock has.

 

no problem Unclewebb....TS is still a great program and the Dual IDA setting is brilliant, thanks for all your help! and I'll keep an eye out for developments

 

Unclewebb,

Windows Profile is set to high performance. And I went in and checked marked everything to maximum performance.

I ran ThrottleStop TSBench and 32 MS took 108 secs.
I also ran Wprime 32 MS took 58 secs.

I don't know but that sounds pretty slow to me for an i5-480m and 8 GB ram. But let me know thanks!

Here is the ThrottleStop log before during and after the Novabench:


05/27/11 22:56:45 19.86 77.9 100.0 100.0 0 56
05/27/11 22:56:46 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:56:47 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:56:48 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 57
05/27/11 22:56:49 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 57
05/27/11 22:56:50 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:56:51 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 57
05/27/11 22:56:52 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:56:53 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:56:54 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:56:55 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:56:56 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:56:57 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:56:58 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:56:59 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:00 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:01 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:02 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:03 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:04 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:05 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:06 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:07 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:08 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:09 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:10 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:11 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:12 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:13 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 58
05/27/11 22:57:14 19.94 85.6 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:15 20.00 98.4 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:16 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:17 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:18 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:19 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:20 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:21 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:22 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 62
05/27/11 22:57:23 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 62
05/27/11 22:57:24 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 62
05/27/11 22:57:25 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 62
05/27/11 22:57:26 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 62
05/27/11 22:57:27 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:28 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:29 19.99 97.7 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:30 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:31 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:33 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:34 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:35 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 63
05/27/11 22:57:36 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:37 19.96 84.9 100.0 100.0 0 57
05/27/11 22:57:38 18.16 11.5 100.0 100.0 0 56
05/27/11 22:57:39 14.77 4.5 100.0 100.0 0 55
05/27/11 22:57:40 18.38 18.0 100.0 100.0 0 55
05/27/11 22:57:41 17.26 12.5 100.0 100.0 0 55
05/27/11 22:57:42 18.51 17.7 100.0 100.0 0 55
05/27/11 22:57:43 19.88 78.5 100.0 100.0 0 57
05/27/11 22:57:44 19.71 54.5 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:45 19.98 97.4 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:46 19.93 89.7 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:47 19.95 93.9 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:48 19.94 92.1 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:49 19.81 72.5 100.0 100.0 0 61
05/27/11 22:57:50 19.96 92.7 100.0 100.0 0 57
05/27/11 22:57:51 19.66 66.3 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:57:52 19.93 90.4 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:53 19.63 61.3 100.0 100.0 0 56
05/27/11 22:57:54 18.82 32.7 100.0 100.0 0 55
05/27/11 22:57:55 19.69 65.2 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:56 20.00 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 60
05/27/11 22:57:57 18.98 36.4 100.0 100.0 0 56
05/27/11 22:57:58 18.96 35.0 100.0 100.0 0 56
05/27/11 22:57:59 18.62 28.4 100.0 100.0 0 59
05/27/11 22:58:00 19.34 48.6 100.0 100.0 0 55

My power settings are maximum performance on A/C.
And my processes are slimmed down to the essentials no extra bloatware.
Firefox is the most heavy hungry process. Then desktop windows manager. Then desktop gadgets. Then windows explorer. Any suggestions would be so useful at this point. I'm running out of ideas why my CPU is being throttled.
Also I restored my BIOS to default settings and EIST is enabled. I'm stumped!

 

onfire4jc: Based on your benchmark scores my best guess is that half of your CPU is disabled. This is a common problem.

When ThrottleStop is running, on the right hand side in the table, does it show 2 lines of data or 4 lines of data? If it only shows 2 then that is the problem. The i5-480M is a Dual Core CPU but it supports hyper threading which means each core can work on two different threads at the same time so a program like CPU-Z should be showing 2 cores - 4 threads. If CPU-Z shows 1 core - 2 threads then that's it.

To fix this you need to use msconfig and click on the Boot tab - Advanced Options and make sure Number of processors is not checked. After you do that, reboot and Windows should start using the rest of your CPU.

When you post a log file like above, try using the code html tags before and after your log like this.

[code*]
copy and paste your log file between these tags
[/code*]

Remove the * from each html tag and then your log will be easier to read and will take up less space.

alnug: Can you try one more test? Can you compare power consumption when you are using Dual IDA mode at 1.0375 volts vs RM Clock with your above settings while watching the same FLV file. I've never been able to see a significant difference but if you can then maybe I need to do some more testing and consider adding individual FID/VID for Core 2 owners. Most RM Clock owners are happy so I never saw the need to reinvent the wheel but I might. RM Clock uses the wrong value for TJMax on the 45nm CPUs. It uses 100C when it should be using 105C.

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=35568

What this means is that it will report your core temperatures 5C too low compared to ThrottleStop. Keep that in mind when testing.

 

Hello everyone I just have a quick question regarding overclocking my Alienware M11xR2 using Throttlestop.

I altered the OC in the BIOS menu to 150MHz and I altered some settings using ThrottleStop. I ran the wPrime 1024M test and it took about 1095 seconds with all four cores running at 100% the entire time. None of the four core temperatures surpassed 76 degrees. Is it safe to say that my CPU is stable with the settings in ThrottleStop and BIOS that I used?

Thanks.

P.S. I apologize if this is not the best thread to post this question in, I am new to these forums and to overclocking in general.

 

An overclock of 150 NHz for the M11x R2 is fairly conservative so you probably won't have any stability problems. wPrime is just one test. You might want to try a few others like Prime95 or LinX or IBT. They'll give your CPU a more thorough work out.

The Supercharge M11x thread might have some more info for you.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/524257-how-supercharge-m11x-core-i5-i7-um-cpus.html

alnug: Here's some interesting info which shows what I discovered a long time ago. A slow inefficient 45nm Core 2 Duo is not always the best way to minimize power consumption.

http://darkstone.tweakblogs.net/blo...p.html&usg=ALkJrhhsFq-lWwRSCPlNIwauttqd_JODow

The website is Dutch but the graphs will make sense or you can use Google Translate.

 

Thank you for your quick reply. Yeah, that's actually the thread I used to help set up my ThrottleStop settings.

Right now my computer is running the Prime95 blend test on its 15th hour and still no errors or overheating (I upped the BIOS OC to 166 before doing this). Has it been long enough to assume stability with my current settings? I have never used this type of testing program before so I'm not sure when it is reasonable to stop the torture test.

My ThrottleStop settings include setting the TPL to 30:30, set mutliplier set to turbo, forced TDP/TDC to 7, and I clicked the button between BCLK and DTS that has the C0, C1, C3, etc options to MAX (admittedly, I'm not sure what this does). With all these settings plus the 166 OC, ThrottleStop tells me that the CPU is running at around 2000MHz, nearly double the factory settings. Although the Prime95 test reveals no errors so far, can such a drastic increase really be safe?

 

Unclewebb, you have solved it! You are genius if I say so myself. Thanks so much for saving me from doing a complete reinstall!

 

onfire4jc: That's great news. I don't know why this is happening to so many people. You're definitely not the first person that had half their CPU disabled accidentally. That topic needs to be stickied. Now that you've found your missing cores you can do some benchmark testing with wPrime and see if adjusting TDP higher improves your times and increases your full load multiplier.

MoshPitDweller90: 15 hours Prime blend stable is way more than I ever do. I think your laptop is stable. 2000 MHz compared to 1000 MHz sounds like a big increase but even at that speed, these CPUs are running well within their design spec. The Core i design is more than capable of running reliably at well over 3000 MHz so at 2000 MHz, the CPU is taking it pretty easy. UM processors are no different than Intel's other Core i processors. Intel just reduces the multiplier and voltage and throttles them back to save power. You're not hurting anything by trying to let it run at closer to the speed that it was designed to run at.

The MAX setting in ThrottleStop refers to the Maximum power saving sleep state which is typically C7 if that is supported. When plugged in if you don't care about saving power then you can set this to C1 and might get better hard disk performance, especially if you have an SSD. Do some CrystalDiskMark testing to find out. For most users there won't be any huge differences no matter how you set this. It's designed to limit the CPU package from entering the deeper sleep states. When set to C1, the CPU package will be prevented from entering C3 or C6.

 

Hi Unclewebb, have been using ThrottleStop for some time. I have a few questions and am sorry if these have been asked before.

1. Are there any plans for an installer for ThrottleStop?
2. Is there an "Start ThrottleStop when windows starts up" option?
3. Can I customize the VID per multiplier?

Thanks

 

Omexis:

1) No
2) No
3) No

I hate installers for simple utility programs. I like dragging the folder where ever I want to.

If you want to start ThrottleStop with Windows then you can either drag a link to ThrottleStop into your Startup folder or add it to your Startup sequence using the Task Scheduler. The second post in The ThrottleStop Guide shows how to do this. It's very easy to do and gives ThrottleStop the appropriate privileges when it starts.

I don't yet plan to add custom VID per multiplier. On my T8100 I'm seeing a difference of only 0 to 0.5 watts of power consumption which is within the margin of error of the Kill-a-Watt meter I'm using. Reliable testing is difficult because as the CPU and GPU temperature changes, that can change power consumption and so can a change in the fan speed. I did a lot A-B-A testing of this on the weekend while watching the same 1 minute segment of a YouTube video in 720P and beyond normal random variation in power consumption, I couldn't see any difference between ThrottleStop and RM Clock.

I found for the 45nm Core 2 CPUs, you can have huge differences in the FID and VID settings but actual power consumption shows little to no difference because of the sleep states they use when lightly loaded or idle. Check out the two pics in this post.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6369641-post5060.html

An unlocked X9100 might be completely different but I don't have one of those for testing. If anyone has any reliable data that shows a huge difference in power consumption between ThrottleStop and RM Clock then I'll consider adding this feature.

Battery Bar can be used to keep an eye on battery power consumption.

http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/

If you need this feature right now then you will have to use RM Clock. With an X9100, you can use ThrottleStop to unlock your maximum multiplier, auto exit ThrottleStop and then start RM Clock and it will be able to see and use your new maximum multiplier.

 

unclewebb! First of all, a big thank you! Secondly, I've been out of the computer world for awhile, but I remember you well from my time over at the EVGA forums several years ago. RealTemp was out, and it was the best damn utility for monitoring temps. I posted the OT for using RealTemp

And now for a question. This may have been covered, but a search didn't yield it readily, and with 60 pages, I figured re-asking may not hurt.
I'm currently on an Asus G73JH. I'm having trouble using ThrottleStop (v3.00.1), as when I click on the TRL or TPL buttons, everything is grayed out and unusable. Here's a couple of screenshots so you know how I've got it set up.





Thanks!

ETA: I realized I don't have EIST checked in the pictures, but it doesn't appear to affect the problem one way or another.

 

magicstop: You're welcome. The mobile users needed a fairly lean app so I converted some of the RealTemp code and my i7 Turbo tool and created ThrottleStop with that. I try to keep all my projects fairly lean on system resources.

Unfortunately, the Core i7-720QM is not an Extreme processor. That means you can not change the Turbo Ratio Limits and Intel has also locked the Turbo Power Limits. That's why these settings are locked and disabled in ThrottleStop. There is nothing software can do about this since it is a hardware limitation of your CPU. Install a 2920XM and then you can have some fun with these ThrottleStop settings.

Asus uses the BD PROCHOT signal to throttle some of their laptops when they get hot. Try disabling that if you have this problem and then keep a close eye on your temperatures.

 

Great, thanks for the quick reply! I'm doing my best to avoid the upgrade bug right now, but it's getting harder and harder
Thank you!