The ThrottleStop Guide

also is it possible to use any "advanced" power features with the intelppm driver disabled?

 

@0asjd0sajd I would also like to know if there are any settings that can influence the C-states. I have tested a lot off the hidden power plan settings and found that they often seem to have no effect.
In your case the setting may be for something different than you intend. It is apparently (Deepest idle state for Hyper-V) I also think that with newer CPU’s like skylake and kabylake many power management settings are replaced by new features/settings like SST (speed shift).

Have a look at page 213 http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-213 to see about the Intelppm

 

Can somebody help to configure i7-4700HQ? I've set the following settings, but sometimes have BSODs.

 

If you are under volting and you are having BSODs, the #1 cause of that problem is not enough voltage. Some of the newer CPU models will happily run at -100 mV or even -150 mV. My 4th Gen 4700MQ is more like -40 mV. I would leave the Intel GPU at 0 mV while testing and then try using -40 mV on the CPU Core and CPU Cache for a few days and see how that goes. If that is OK, then try -50 mV. The problem I have with my CPU is when fully loaded, I can run a much bigger negative offset and the CPU will happily pass stress tests without issue but as soon as the load is decreased, then I am much more likely to get a BSOD. This always happens when lightly loaded if my offset voltage is too much.

As for other tips, not sure if your CPU was mostly idle when you took that screenshot but if it was idle, the C0% should be WAY lower. Less than 1%. Use the ThrottleStop C0% data to hunt down and get rid of useless apps running in the background on your computer. Even a single bad driver can cause big problems. My original track pad driver was horribly inefficient. Some antivirus programs are also big CPU hogs. Next, you have Clock Modulation and Chipset Clock Modulation both checked. Why? Without either of these checked, run ThrottleStop with the Log File option checked and then look in the log file after gaming to see if either of these items are less than 100%. If your laptop does not use either throttling method then there is no need to check either of these off. Most recent laptops do not use either of these.

When plugged in, I would not use the Power Saver option. This option was designed for first gen Core 2 Duo CPUs from 10 years ago. When plugged in, I am a fast CPU kind of guy. The best way to save power and reduce idle temps is to clean up useless background tasks. Here is how my 4700MQ looks when idle.



You might not even need to check Set Multiplier. Clear this box and try setting the Non Turbo Ratio to 1 instead. That will keep your CPU running at full speed. My laptop is not burning hot when setup like this because the background processes have been trimmed down. As long as cores are spending 99% of their idle time in a low power C State like C7, the speed of your CPU when idle is not important. The reason I clear those 3 top boxes is then that allows me to run ThrottleStop without having to click on the Turn On button. TS overclocking and voltage control works fine in Monitoring mode. This is a more efficient way to run ThrottleStop if you can get away with it.

In the FIVR window, you have selected the 36 turbo multipliers. These are only available when overclocking and your screenshot shows that Overclock is not checked. If you want to overclock then you need to put a check beside the Overclock option. The multipliers should then be set to 36, 35, 34, 34 when 1, 2, 3 or 4 cores are active. Setting them all to 36 is probably not going to hurt anything but it probably will not help anything either. When not overclocking, the turbo multipliers should be set to 34, 33, 32, 32.

What works best for me and my CPU and my situation might not work best for you. These are just some random ideas that you can test out.

 

I have encountered a similar problem and am wondering whether it would be possible to work around this problem.
One idea would be to have high load-offset and a low load-offset, which could reflect the different undervolting possibilities.
A different idea would be to specify a constant voltage if the CPU drops under a specific load.
Yet another idea might be to set a minimum voltage that the CPU will be supplied with, regardless of specific offsets and dynamic voltages.

Would any of these ideas be possible to implement?

Thank you for your hard work!

 

I have thought about this situation too. During normal use, cores constantly switch back and forth from full load to no load. They go from the C0 state to the low power C7 state and then back to full power, again and again, many times per second. I think it would be very difficult to come up with a useful algorithm to try and adjust voltages without the algorithm becoming a CPU hog as it would need to constantly monitor the CPU. In other words, your ideas are good but I have not dreamed up anything yet that I think would be practical to implement. These kind of adjustments are best done at the hardware level. Monitoring software is too slow to react to rapid voltage and C state changes.

I think a fixed minimum voltage might be the best way to solve this issue. There might even be a register in the CPU that controls this but I do not have any documentation to confirm that. Disabling all of the Package C States might also help stabilize things. If I ever dream something up, I will add a new feature to TS.

 

Thank you, @unclewebb, for this incredible software. I have been experimenting with it now for a few days over XTU as you allow separate cpu core and cache voltages. I downloaded from your signature link and have been opening from the .exe file, but none of my settings are saving. Do you know what I might be doing wrong?

 

@leftsenseless - Did you unzip the download into its own folder? After running ThrottleStop.exe a few times, did you move the ThrottleStop folder to a different location on your hard drive?

In the FIVR window, do you fully understand what the 3 options at the bottom right do? The options in the Save Voltage Changes to ThrottleStop.INI section. What do you have this set to?

I created a ThrottleStop folder in my C:\Program Files (x86) directory. All of the ThrottleStop related files are stored in this folder. If you are having problems with settings being saved, I would delete the ThrottleStop.INI config file and then run ThrottleStop.exe so it can create a new config file for you. When you randomly move the config file to different folders on your hard drive, Windows likes to do you a favor by changing the read write permissions on the files within the folder. It often times deletes the ability to write to this file which will prevent ThrottleStop from saving its settings. Your problem is likely that or how you have the FIVR save options setup or perhaps you did not unzip the folder so it can not save its settings into the original zip file. Let me know if you get this solved so I will be ready to help the next user with this problem. Hopefully you end up with better performance compared to XTU so these hassles will all be worth while in the end.

 

I believe it is the ini file that is causing the issue. I'll delete it when I get home and post about it after to see if it corrected the problem. I already tested it a bit when I had the chance. It seems to work great. I posted my highest benches yet using ThrottleStop, but my temps were higher than I like, so I won't be pushing it again until I can resolve my thermal bounds. Thanks for the response and for creating the software. I have read through this thread a bit, and I continue to be floored by how amazing this community and its members are.

 

@unclewebb, I believe it's fixed! Thank you. I had to fix your profiles issue though - performance, game, internet, and BEAST. hahaha. No battery power for this machine.

 

Booted up today and everything is perfect! Thank you for the quick suggestions, @unclewebb.

 

Hi Guys,

As I was looking for an solution to run throttlestop in normal way and all what I've found was scheduler. I decided to dig a little and found solution which fits my needs the best, as I've icon on notify area and still accessible.
So, U need to create a file, let say named ThrottleStop.bat and insert this into it.

start /B /MIN C:\ThrottleStop_OBSIDIAN\ThrottleStop.exe
exit


Ofcourse you need to insert proper path for ThrottleStop.exe file. Beside good idea is to untick "Task Bar" in options and setup ThrottleStop.exe to be run as administrator. Don't forget to move this file to autostart folder

Cheers.

 

@unclewebb, I've come across another strange bug. I haven't set ThrottleStop to boot up automatically yet, so I've been launching from a desktop shortcut. I have to launch and give ThrottleStop permission twice before it will run. Any suggestions to correct this? Thank you.

 

Who are you giving permission to? When I want to run any program on my computer, including ThrottleStop, I just start it, run it and life is good.

Do you have UAC enabled? Last time I used this Windows safety net, I wasn't impressed because there was no way to add a .exe file to its safe list because it doesn't have a safe list. It thinks everything is bad and gives users lots of warning messages that most users ignore. If UAC is complaining about ThrottleStop, I am not surprised. What is the second message? Another UAC related one or are you running some antivirus program that is also trying to save you from the evils of ThrottleStop. I use Avast with the majority of its safety features turned off because nanny software trying to protect me drives me crazy.

Try using the Task Scheduler to auto start ThrottleStop.

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

You can use it to give the appropriate privileges to ThrottleStop so maybe this will allow it to fly under the radar with less nagging. ThrottleStop is accessing voltages and many other things that it probably shouldn't be accessing. It is difficult to work around this without a few complaints from Microsoft, etc. If ThrottleStop ever becomes a commercial app, then I will have some extra cash so I can afford to release a signed version of ThrottleStop.exe which includes a signed certificate to keep all of the nanny software happy.

 

I'm using eset for antivirus. I run everything as an app. My book asks for run permission from each app before executing. It doesn't seem to be hitting any walls preventing it from running, but it does take two tries before it actually pops up.

 

Is it a Windows UAC message or is it a message from ESET? ThrottleStop starts up immediately for me because I am not running either of those two programs. I think Avast originally took a moment to scan ThrottleStop.exe, it didn't find anything bad so it gave it the green light and automatically put ThrottleStop.exe on its safe exe list. Avast has not complained since.

You might have to switch back to Intel XTU. ThrottleStop still has a few rough edges and is not compatible with your setup. A version of ThrottleStop with a signed certificate is not going to happen until at least 2018, maybe longer and maybe never.

 

I took your advice and had it run at log in and that corrected the odd behavior. It runs before opening as shown by HWInfo, and it will start right up with a single call from the desktop icon. Thank you.

 

Hiya, I've looked up your previous posts and you said you have no plans to support Linux.

How about licensing your app under some copyleft license like the GPLv2 and releasing the source code then, so someone can take it and develop ports for other OSs?

 

Intel does not want their CPU voltage control secrets released to the public. If Intel wanted everyone to know this stuff, you would be able to easily find it in Intel's publicly available documentation. Intel leaves me alone so I have no plans to ever release any of their secrets.

 

Hi, it is possible to make TDP Level Control value that has been adjusted save for each profile. I want to set the value to 0 for high performance profile and 1 for low performance profile.

 

Hello, I have a Lenovo Miix 2 11 that has been crippled with a 4.5W max TDP. Why they even put a fan on this is beyond me, but I am glad they did. Using PowerCut I am able to run at the full 1.6 ghz clockspeed without the usual throttling to 900 mhz I would normally get after only a few seconds. Unfortunately, every time I turn the screen off I have to reactivate PowerCut and reboot to get it to work. Is there any way around this limitation?

 

I purely use Throttlestop to monitor temps and disable turbo on my laptop. For whatever reason, the newest version doesn't let me click any of the temp check boxes. Is there any way I can get around this problem?

 

@unclewebb :
Here's an interesting bit.
Using uCode 02 on a Haswell-H CPU and sleeping the computer causes a random "RESERVED" flag to appear.
What this does, it's limit the cache speed to the maximum overclock normally allowed for the CPU (36x for 4700, 37x for 4710, 38x for 4720).
Rebooting the computer clears this flag. However there is another way this gets triggered.
If I modify a throttlestop profile, close throttlestop, replace .ini files by another one (which may even be a copy of the same profile), causes the flag to get triggered.

Any way to solve this?
Also, if I turn off the computer completely and use the power button to turn it on, all my overclock settings get wiped and set to the maximum normal overclock by TS. I have to either set them again or replace the profile with a known working copy which triggers the "Reserved " flag. Can this "reset" behaviour be disabled or overridden?
Thanks.

 

@za8zak1 - The TDP Level Control was an experimental feature that in the majority of situations was of no use. The reason is that the TDP Level Control can be set in multiple locations within the CPU so if you use ThrottleStop to set this to TDP Level 0, it is still possible for the CPU to drop down to low TDP mode when fully loaded. Have you done any testing of this feature? There might be some laptops out there where this ThrottleStop feature works as intended but I have not heard of many (any?) success stories. I was not planning on allowing this to be adjusted on a per profile basis but if I get some positive feedback, maybe I will someday.

@hecksagon - Do you have to use the PowerCut feature? Is there no other way to solve your throttling problem? Can you increase the Package Power Limits in the TPL window? Is this register / adjustment locked or are these power limits overridden by some other power limits within the CPU that ThrottleStop does not have access to? Sometimes adjusting this and disabling the BD PROCHOT option can help some Lenovo devices.

The problem with PowerCut is that you have to be careful when you enable it. If PowerCut is enabled while the CPU power consumption is high, the CPU could get locked at a high power level which will force the CPU to constantly throttle even when there is little to no load on the CPU. To avoid this situation, I have left PowerCut as a feature that can only be enabled manually each time you need it. Trying to enable PowerCut automatically at just the right time after a stand by resume cycle, might be difficult to get this to work reliably.

Do you mean that you are using PowerCut, you go into stand by mode and when you resume from stand by mode and then you have to reboot to enable PowerCut again? On my Lenovo laptop I can manually enable PowerCut again after resuming from stand by without any issues. Can you explain your problem some more? Maybe I can come up with a fix that you can try. I do not do much programming in the summer. I am in the middle of adding a new feature to ThrottleStop so it might be a few months before I have anything new to release.

@bflt123 - Clean your Windows Icon Cache and your problem will be fixed. The link should be in the ThrottleStop folder you downloaded. Here's how to fix this problem.

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

Intel releases updated µcodes to fix bugs within their CPUs. If you choose to use an early µcode for Haswell overclocking purposes, you have to live with some bugs. It sounds like the RESERVED flag randomly popping up is one of these bugs. I never see that happening on my 4700MQ. It is using µcode 0x1C.

Not that I know of. If I flashed my bios with µCode 0x02, I could probably fix ThrottleStop so it is more friendly with this type of overclocking. Unfortunately, there is not enough money in my pockets in case something goes wrong while flashing so I am still sitting on the sidelines. Maybe someday. A laptop burning through my lap at 4.5 GHz would be useful during the winter months here.

 

My device is a Lenovo Miix 2 11 tablet. It has an i5-4202Y. Whenever I go over a 6W TDP the "TDP Throttle" indicator comes on. After 28 seconds the cpu slows down until the TDP drops to 4.5W or less. Typically this drops me from 1.6 ghz to 900 mhz. I have done some undervolting that allows me to only throttle to 1.2 ghz and still stay under 4.5W, but it still locks the GPU at the lowest clock speed to keep it under 4.5W. No tuning of any of the values you indicated above changed this behavior. The only thing I have been able to get working is PowerCut.

PowerCut works well but will only work after a soft reboot. PowerCut will show enabled as soon as it is turned on, but will not have an effect on the CPU until a soft reboot is performed. Completely shutting down the tablet or using hibernation resets PowerCut to disabled. Putting the tablet into sleep will also reset PowerCut to disabled. Once this happens the only way to re-enable is to turn it on and perform a soft reboot.

 

I also found a hex edit to my EFIVARFS that allows advanced settings in my bios. Attached are the relevant pages from my bios. No matter what I set in custom TDP it just slows the computer to a crawl. I can literally watch the bios menus drawing.

Not sure how embed photos so... https ://goo.gl/photos/EAmRqjxEFTyz6VLk7
https://goo.gl/photos/chovjUQ3MSx5H3qz5
https://goo.gl/photos/fevb9i8LiVYyPyyP6
https://goo.gl/photos/f4oJSatARoRvMTVJ8
https://goo.gl/photos/ddzEUWPGkHcd3oWy6

 

I am sorry if it has been stated but does Undervolting work on Skylake CPUs. I have 6700HQ and I see no difference when I undervolt the CPU core. Maybe I am doing something wrong?

Thank you!

 

Yes. The trick is to undervolt the CPU core and CPU cache equally. If you only undervolt the CPU core, it is usually ignored by the CPU. You might also have success if you undervolt the CPU cache more than the CPU core. For example, -100 mV core and -120 mV cache would be OK but do not do the opposite. -120 mV core and -100 mV cache would either be ignored by the CPU or it would only undervolt both of those to the -100 mV level. Load the CPU with a benchmark and if voltage control is working, you should see a drop in temperatures.

 

Hi @unclewebb

 

Thank you unclewebb. I was able to create two profiles(AC/Battery) both running at -135mV(Core) and -140mV(Cache) using the Speed Shift(ac-64/battery-160) and it works wonders. The Skylake CPU is really cool even in that tiny chassis (MSI gs60 6qe). Now, it can't go over 70C after running a 30 mins prime(3.1 ghz all cores). I only wished it could have the multiplier for all 4 cores bumped to 3.5ghz like my previous 4710.

Best Regards!

 

Reflashing a BIOS is less of an issue now. Even those cheapie Arduinos can reflash you a whole SPI BIOS. (That's how I recovered mine after messing with the ME settings while attempting BCLK OC ). It's important to have full SPI dumps though.

As for the reserved flag, I could help you out. Do you still have that MSR dumping tool? I could take a snapshot of a freshly booted system with overclocks applied and what happens if I close TS and reload a copy of that same profile. There must be something that changes and triggers the RESERVED flag.

 

I notice that undervolting the Intel GPU will not work on my computer. I have the Intel HD Graphics 520

Say, if I set the GPU to -80mV in Throttlestop, the changes reflect in the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility; however switch back to the 'normal voltage' after a few seconds.

I can even say that if I run a stress test on my integrated graphics processor and set the GPU to -250mV, the system freezes instantly, meaning that the voltages are actually changing.

Has anyone else tried undervolting their integrated graphics processors?

 

@Che0063 - When you undervolt in ThrottleStop, Intel XTU might not be aware of this change. That is why it is not a good idea to run 2 different programs that are both writing different values to the same CPU register.

You say that under volting doesn't work but then you confirm that your computer locks up when you use a large under volt so obviously it does work.

If you are going to be using ThrottleStop, exit XTU. If you need to use both together, ignore the voltages that XTU is showing you because they might not be correct. Instead, look at the monitoring panel in the upper right corner of the ThrottleStop FIVR window. Those values are updated in real time. TS constantly samples the CPU so it is reporting the actual values that are in the CPU. XTU does not do this.

@villahed94 - When I get back into doing some TS programming, I will look into your problem further. Who knows, maybe I will get adventurous and flash my own bios with an early µcode.

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough. Voltages do change, but revert to normal after barely two seconds. I've tried undervolting without ThrottleStop and only using Intel XTU, and the voltages change momentarily before reverting to the nominal voltage.

I can confirm this change with GPU-Z for both XTU and TS. On normal stress testing with Furmark, (The fluffy donut) the iGPU uses 11W. When I undervolt it to -80mV, the power consumption drops to 9W, and then jumps back to 11W. This is not random, and the undervolting is certainly changing something, albeit for a short time. When running ThrottleStop, I can confirm that there is not XTU.exe service running the background. When running XTU, I have not started TS at all.

 

Sure, take your time. If you need help with how to properly mod it for older microcodes,drop me a line. I find deleting microcode entries from a BIOS to cause lots of issues. It's better to replace BIOSes and add padding accordingly.

 

Does Throttlestop work with Ryzen CPUs?

 

I have a thinkpad with i5-7300u. I have tried throttlestop 8.30 but it says my cpu not supported. I am using 8.48 but it won't minimize to tray. It just takes up room in my taskbar. Have tried the notification area cleanup .bat which doesn't solve anything.

Also was wondering what the "turn on" button does. Because I have my CPU undervolted under FIVR and it just unervolts automatically when the program is running, no need to turn on anything.

 

you need to uncheck the task bar option in the left side panel to minimize it to tray , also u can enable minimze on close in options if you want.
the turn on is for the clockspeed modulation and other options in the left side panel, turn off means it will only keep monitoring (tip: turn off monitoring when u r not using , will reduce little cpu usage)

 

unclewebb Thank You for this awesome software .
there are few things i wanna find out ,
1. does the igpu undervolt affect the cpu core undervolt?
2. when undervolting i dont have any problems when stress testing , but my laptop hangs when the load drops , is this how it is ?

my cpu is i5 7300hq i can only manage -90 to -100 mv undervolts , ive seen people posting about -150 mv undervolt is there im doing wrong or missing?

 

@Che0063 - Furmark is an excessive amount of stress for a GPU. Have you ever tried running a milder stress test / bencmark? I like looping the Heaven benchmark just to test things out. When testing with Furmark, are you using Limit Reasons? I am just wondering if maybe your CPU or GPU starts throttling and that might have something to do with the voltage changes. There also might be something within the GPU driver that is causing this. Without XTU or GPU-Z running, does the ThrottleStop - FIVR monitoring table show the voltage switch from under volted back to normal? Does it ever switch back to under volted again? If you stop Furmark, does it switch back after a few seconds? Post a screenshot or two of the FIVR window so I can have a look. Show me in TS when under volting is working and when it has been reset to zero. Do you also have the Intel Thermal Framework driver installed? That might be messing with the iGPU voltage.

ThrottleStop is only for Intel CPUs.

@silverwolf0 - Make sure Task Bar on the main screen is not checked. It is just above the Save button at the lower left. The Turn On / Turn Off button only applies to the Clock Modulation, Chipset Clock Modulation and Set Multiplier features. I know that this is kind of confusing. It is a feature from the early days when Dell XPS users were scared to run ThrottleStop because they thought their new laptop might blow up. I added that button to try to reel in some new users to club ThrottleStop. Now the program has been around for a while and I don't have to twist too many arms to get people to try it.

@Docktor - Intel typically does not reserve their best cores for the Core i5 HQ series. Every CPU is unique so there is nothing to be ashamed of if your CPU can only safely undervolt -90 mV or -100 mV. My 4700MQ is only good for about -40 mV. It is also normal for a CPU to be able to use a larger under volt when stress testing compared to when idle. When a CPU core is idle, it is designed to enter a low power C State like C7 where it is disconnected from the voltage rail, basically getting 0 volts. Too big of an under volt can result in a BSOD or your laptop will simple hang when it tries to transition from C7 back to C0. All quite normal. You need to find an undervolt that your CPU will be happy and stable at whether it is idle or fully loaded.

 

what about this ?

 

As far as I know, the voltage going to the CPU and iGPU are completely separate. Do some testing and post your findings.

 

Hi,
Could anyone help me to set up the ThrottleStop for my laptop (Asus ux330 with i7 7500u). I just bought it for a few days but my CPU keeps getting a low frequency of 0.3 to 0.4 Ghz (the laptop freezes so hard for about 10 secs) when I just open like 5 tabs in Firefox and watching videos on Twitch or Youtube. It occurred a lot like every 3 to 5 mins especially when I have video on fullscreen and QHD resolution.
Any help or suggestion is much appreciated.

 

I think its hitting its TDP limit. Try changing the screen res to FHD and all Windows Animations to a bare minimum.

 

Yes I did think of that but the temp stay under 60C most of the time so could it trigger the throttling? I changed to FHD and it did help a lot (rarely stuttering). My point is why manufacturing a QHD laptop when the hardware can't handle it even with just the sole task of video streaming in fullscreen QHD...
I'm sorry if this irrelevant to the topic.

 

Attract customers by giving eye candy screen. My sister has ULV chip too, usually it could play gaming at max performance when we bought it, after months the CPU performance is bad. I'll check out and report back after experimenting with my sis's laptop.

 

How can I help you with ThrottleStop if you do not post any pictures of how you have ThrottleStop setup? I recently bought a Lenovo laptop with a Core i7-7500U. After a few minor adjustments, it was a little beast. It had no problem running the world's most demanding application with both cores running at their maximum speed.



If you cannot use ThrottleStop to fix the throttling problems you are having, I would ship your new laptop back to Asus. Laptops from 10 years ago run faster than 0.3 GHz to 0.4 GHz. Maybe Asus could hire me as a consultant and I will show them how to design and build a laptop around one of these low power U CPUs. They do not have to run so sluggish. Intel has built some wonderful technology for low power devices. It is up to Asus engineering to do their homework so their laptops can get the most out of this technology.

 

Your link isn't working, @unclewebb

 

I'm curious about this. How is it you got package power to 28W? Also, max turbo frequency (1 core) is listed as 3.5GHz but two core turbo should be 3.4GHz, it seems you have two stress processes running but are still managing 3.5GHz, how is that?

 

@selfassembled - CPU World shows that the 7500U can use the 35 multiplier whether 1 or 2 cores are active. That is also what ThrottleStop reports.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core i7 i7-7500U.html

Intel lists this as a 15 Watt CPU but as long as a manufacturer does not lock it to 15 Watts, it can go way beyond that. I was as surprised as you when I discovered what a 7500U is really capable of. That begs the question, what is Asus doing throttling it down to 0.3 GHz or 0.4 GHz? They need to get real.

Here is a link to an interesting low power U CPU.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core i7 i7-7567U.html

The Core i7-7567U is a 28 Watt processor. The U series is quite capable of running at this power level if it is set up properly.

What link? The 7500U picture I posted? selfassembled is able to see it.