The ThrottleStop Guide

Something is up with that Skylake testing for power consumption that you showed there. I saved 20W at idle by enabling C-states on my Skylake build, I also didn't lose any performance by enabling C-states. Enabling C-states provided more idle power savings than running 'power saver' Windows profiles and more saving than enabling Speed Shift. In my view & in my testing enabling C-states is the first thing (& only thing) you should do to reduce idle power consumption of the CPU - combine this with running Windows High Performance profile to ensure no downclocking of CPU, then this is the highest performing configuration that sacrifices no performance while reducing idle power consumption - as shown by my testing in Post #1 at the following thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...eatures-vs-performance-responsiveness.803030/

 

SO really I had a placebo effect ??

what if i change the settings and it blows up my laptop?
Did you say throttlestop has no effect on 3rd gen CPUs?

Hey this works great on the i7 2670QM...but thats a second generation? I thought throttle stop doesnt work on anything less than 4th generation...
It saved this laptop thank you !!! back to 48C...and not 98C at 200% fanspeed, not sure how that was calculated !!

Also do i need to schedule a task on throttlestop at start up? Didnt someone say that you can only revert if you delete the ini and do a hard restart?
How do i run it in the taskbar? I see the temp there, does it mean its running? Just No program icon

 

Would just like to note that ThrottleStop 8.50, while having every functionality working as expected, still seems to have issues regarding dpi awareness, with thread columns and rows not fitting inside the window while system dpi is set to 125%. Screenshot added as example.

 

On various 3rd gen (Ivy Bridge) Clevos along with all the standard button functions (Profile switching, hotkeys, Disable Turbo etc) I have been able to:

-> Alter turbo multipliers
-> Alter TDP, short/long turbo power limits and time
-> Add "max turbo voltage" in ~3.7mV steps
-> "TDP Level Control" if the CPU supports

What this means is:
-> permanent 3.8ghz multicore on 3720QM and 3.9ghz on 3740qm (because bios allows infinite turbo power, and "partial unlock" +4 turbo bins)
-> profiles of up to 4.5ghz on 3940XM with to up ~100mV overvolt via 'extra turbo voltage'


Recently I had trouble ripping some old DVDs and throttlestop was extremely useful in slowing the CPU down in 100MHz steps since running the rip below realtime avoided random errors in some of the problem discs

 

To be honest with you, I have NO idea what I am doing

Take the CPU modulation and the chipset modulation to 30-50% depending on the profile
AND the multiplier to just below the "T" marking (for turbo I guess?)

On the QUADCORE it runs nice and quiet, until I can open it up and clean the thermals

On the Duo Core, I cannot go too low of the system lags

 

Suddenly ThrottleStop refuses to start...

I am getting an error "Could not open WinRing0.dll"

I am using latest Windows 10 build with the last cumulative update from 15 Nov(a few hours ago).

I was playing with EVGA precision and Afterburner (installing/uninstalling/restarting computer) and suddenly I am receiving the aforementioned error.

Need help

 

Glad you said it. I kind of noticed this but didn't want to be mean about it.

Just for the record, ThrottleStop works correctly on Core 2 and beyond. The only limitation is that there is no voltage control for the Core i 1st Gen, 2nd Gen or 3rd Gen. Voltage control resumed with the start of the 4th Gen and beyond.

Sounds like end of days for our beloved ThrottleStop. Time to go pull the network cable out of my main computer so I can disable auto updates.

Last time this happened, running OpenHardwareMonitor in the background allowed ThrottleStop to piggy back on its WinRing0 driver which is hidden within that program.

I agree 100%. If you want to reduce power consumption, enabling the C States is the easiest way to do it. No need to down clock the CPU to 800 MHz if the C States are enabled.

@tribaljet - You are just the guy I am looking for. I didn't forget about this problem. The new smaller foot print version of ThrottleStop might be better or it might be worse. I might do some testing later today or maybe in a week or two. I have already spent too much time on ThrottleStop this week. If Windows 10 is going to kill any software that uses the WinRing0 driver then ThrottleStop will be dead anyhow so it won't matter how it looks.

 

OpenHardwareMonitor did allow me to start ThrottleStop. What we are gonna do now

 

Who is this "we" you are talking about? The user community has already spoken. They want ThrottleStop to be free software so that means I will not be investing any of my money in new hardware to support this project and I will not be investing any of my time or money in acquiring a new signed driver to replace WinRing0. When Windows 10 kills off WinRing0, ThrottleStop will be officially dead.

I just updated my computer to Windows 10 Version 1709 Build 16299.64 and ThrottleStop is still starting up just fine without needing to run OpenHardwareMonitor.

If you installed and uninstalled programs that depend on WInRIng0, there is a good chance that Windows 10 has blocked this driver on your computer. Not sure how to go about fixing that. Might want to use AutoRuns to find and delete the driver and reboot a few times to try and convince Microsoft that all is OK. After that, try running ThrottleStop again.

Edit - Another trick is to move ThrottleStop and all of its associated WinRing0 files to a different folder.

 

I appreciate the time and effort in developing and supporting a tool I gain benefit from on a daily basis and would like to repay that in a meaningful way. As I have with Prema.

Since you mention money... do you accept users' gratitude by way of donation? If yes, why can't I find a link? Is the email in the readme linked to a paypal account?

 

I do have to say I have been curious as to under the hood changes that might've occurred in the smaller footprint version, that's for sure. Regarding this particular issue, it being OS-agnostic (barring any new GDI updates) but dpi-centric ought to make testing easier to a certain extent, but I'm naturally more than glad to give any and every feedback that might help things out.

Lastly, about the whole free software matter, I've wondered if a tiered approach with basic monitoring and multiplier controls for free, power state and bin adjustments for "advanced" and the complete package as "total", could be a viable approach. Alternatively, there could always be hardware generation support differentiation akin to the previous version that I happen to be using on my laptop. Just some loose thoughts and ramblings, of course.

 

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In my view & in my testing enabling C-states is the first thing (& only thing) you should do to reduce idle power consumption of the CPU - combine this with running Windows High Performance profile to ensure no downclocking of CPU
I agree 100%. If you want to reduce power consumption, enabling the C States is the easiest way to do it. No need to down clock the CPU to 800 MHz if the C States are enabled.

SO where can learn how to do this?? I have survived so far without blowing up my laptops, so i need a quick definitive guide please...I prefer to run laptops cooler, not to overclock them

 

@unclewebb
I think the newest windows 10 update (build 16299.64 I believe) has once again blocked winring. I just hope there is a workaround/new windows update fast

Edit: Can't read looks like everyone already found out. Sigh... Any alternatives for undervolting software?

 

I, for one, would definitely pay for it. I've gotten so much out of the program over the years. Put a donate button in or make it shareware/commercial. I can announce it on NBC to bring attention to it.

 

Thank's @Eason +rep

If people can't find correct information with Google search (Can't post it on the forums because it is against forum policy to post donation data ****), they can simply click on @unclewebb's profile name, and then start a conversation with him. That's how I've done it myself + a very few others. Several times.
A few nice words (feedback are welcome) and some questions mentioned by the moderator in the post below are all that is needed. Recommended long time ago, by moderator in this older forum post #2658. You all should read it.

 

You can go into your BIOS and check to see if C-states are enabled. If that option doesn't exist in the BIOS, then maybe C-states are already enabled - you can use Throttlestop to check if your CPU is entering C-states - if I recall correctly there's a C-state button on the main screen of Throttlestop, you click on that & then look to see if your CPU is spending any time in any of the C-states.

 

With the latest windows 10 update, throttlestop (I think xtu too) has stopped working. Any alternatives for undervolting?

 

Both of them work for me after the latest update.

 

Are you using the latest version? We might have to wait for further updates after this recent Fall Creator's build.

 

I am not sure what is going on because I am using this exact same Windows 10 version on my desktop computer and ThrottleStop is still starting up just fine. What antivirus software are you using?

The WinRing0 issues are the reason that I have decided to make ThrottleStop 100% free and why future versions will not have any expiry date. I am not going to charge for a program that might not start tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. Microsoft is in control. If and when they decide to pull the plug on the WinRing0 driver, they will, and that will be that. Your only option for under volting then is to give Intel XTU a try. It has a few issues like not restoring settings after a stand by resume cycle but it could be the only option very soon if not already.

I like being part of NBR and NBR policy does not want its members soliciting donations. I am OK with that. TS is just a hobby. I work full time and my wife Lisa works full time so we are definitely not starving. I appreciate the donations that I have received during the life of this project but there are hungry people everywhere that need to eat far more than I do. If you feel compelled to donate, go buy a burger for a hungry guy on the street and tell him complements of unclewebb. He will have no idea what you are talking about.

@tribaljet - The problem you are having is that the individual rows in the monitoring table are a little too tall. Normally, there is enough space for 8 rows of data. Because your rows are too tall, only about 7 rows fit so then an ugly scroll bar is thrown in at the end and that causes another ugly scroll bar to appear at the bottom. This is a weird problem because every computer I have access to draws this correctly whether I am at 100%, 125%, 150% or 175%. Just curious, what version of Windows are you using?

In those lists, adjusting the width of each column is simple to program but Microsoft left out the ability to easily adjust the row height. What I intend to add is the ability to reduce the row height by a pixel or two. As soon as I do that, all 8 rows should show up correctly with no ugly scroll bars. You might have to restart ThrottleStop a couple of times while adjusting this. That's the master plan so far. Before I do that, it is also possible that this problem has taken care of itself in the version that I am working on. The new version of Visual Studio has a "DPI awareness" option. Not 100% sure exactly what it does but it probably cannot hurt to try this. This issue has bugged me for a long time and it has finally made it to the top of the heap of things that I want to fix. It is very obvious in screenshots from certain parts of the world. Some areas seem to use fonts that are slightly taller so the rows automatically adjust which causes this problem. Hopefully next week I will have a solution for you.

Edit - Here is the last update I installed from Microsoft and ThrottleStop is still starting correctly.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4048955/windows-10-update-kb4048955

 

Hmm. I'm using Windows defender. Would that cause issues?

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

That was going to be my first guess. I am using the free version of Avast and I am not having any issues starting ThrottleStop. A few more replies regarding this topic would be interesting. We might find something in common.

 

Alright. When I get home I will give that a shot. Does the file location matter if I'm using an admin account? It's in the programfiles(x86).

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

I also have the ThrottleStop folder in Program Files (x86) without it causing any problems.

 

Well I can assure you that TS is working in FCU and CU , just throwing my cents here

 

Same AV, same lack of issues with TS across every Win10 update over the multiple systems it's used on over the past year for me from Core 2 thru Skylake.


Fair enough on the donation point. It seems to me like you were a bit affected by negative sentiment recently and that's a wrong that needs righting. You need to be confident in knowing it is the grateful that are the majority, and the whiners are just noisy outliers

 

I'm on the latest Windows 10 and am also running Windows Defender, but no problems running TS whatsoever.

 

Nice!

 

Not windows defender. I personally use WD and EMET.

 

How do i change the C-state?
1. for the i5 3210M, its locked at C7
2. for the i5 Y-XXXX its locked at C10?

Btw, set up a paypal account and let those who can donate, donate

 

Here-->
Or

Simply unlock your BIOS [If possible]

 

Currently using Windows 8.1 Pro x64 pt-PT. I'm definitely puzzled at this situation as well, and I do wonder if some underlying change occured on 8.48 and 8.50 since 8.40 did not display this issue. I should also add that while columns are displayed as per Microsoft's default UI scheme, they cannot be adjusted at all.

In theory, DPI awareness ought to do the trick, and I'm hopeful it will. In any case, time will tell

 

I guess mine is locked in the bios? BUT I have no options there.
AND what is C7?

Also how come it doesnt start up with windows if the desktop link is in the startup folder?

Please see the attachment and advise on how to keep a quadcore nice and cool and quiet please !

 

My Windows 10 is not offering any additional updates when checking - so I guess that I am up-to-date for now - and I am running Windows Defender, but my Throttlestop is working 100% fine.
I am running HWInfo in parallel, so maybe there is some synergy that corrects this, but I have never experienced Windows blocking the Winring0

Let's hope it stays this way.
And thank you very much for your hard work, unclewebb!
Should you ever consider making Throttlestop a payware, I'll gladly buy a license.

 

No, that seems set up ok, you CPU is entering C-states, both on the cores & as a package. C7 on the Package is a state of sleep where the CPU cache (L3 cache) is flushed & shut down (if I recall correctly!) - personally I prefer to have my CPU not enter C7 as I noticed some lack of snappiness on the general desktop, but I think C6 is a good limit. Your circled bit in the pic is showing C7 as the limit, but your CPU isn't spending any time in C7 - I'm unsure as to if a C7 limit in Throttlestop means the CPU will enter C6 & not C7 or if C7 will be entered - but your CPU isn't entering C7 in that pic anyway, so seems fine. If that screenshot you did was during idle, then you should probably expect the CPU to enter sleep for a greater percentage than what is shown in your pic - perhaps you have stuff in the background consuming CPU cycles either necessarily or unnecessarily. Seems fine though in terms of your CPU being set up as having C-states enabled. I would just recommend making sure you're running the Windows High Performance Power Plan now, to make sure you get max performance - the CPU will still enter C-states to save power at idle.

 

That is by design. I locked all the columns to the same width so they cannot be adjusted.

ThrottleStop needs special permission to run so the best way to auto start it when Windows starts up is to use the Task Scheduler. If you are new to the Task Scheduler, try reading this tutorial.

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

Your screenshot shows Package C State Limit- Locked. That means your bios has set this to C7 and it cannot be changed by any software after you boot up. Leave the Request value at C7. No point in telling the CPU to request C1 or C2 or C whatever because it is locked at package C7.

Changes to ThrottleStop happen all the time. By the time I ever hear about a problem, so much time has passed that I have no idea what changed when. I do know @Papusan is involved in this mess. I used to leave a few extra pixels in the monitoring table in case someone's font was a little different than the norm. Papusan didn't like this. He told me to clean it up, so I did. Kind of like a bad haircut, I must have taken a few too many pixels off the top. Lots of snow on the ground here so this time of year, I spend more time inside programming. With your help, I will get this fixed up.

 

Hmm...switched to avast free and still no. Reinstalled using links in your sig but still no. Ran HWInfo at the same time and still won't let me open winring. Any other troubleshooting steps? Wait a minute, this is weird, my windows just updated, but winver says I'm running build 15063.726. Maybe my windows version is outdated somehow and the auto update sucks?

 

That would explain a few things. That is the previous Creator's Update Version 1703 branch of Windows 10. Build 16299.15 is part of the Fall Creator's Update Version 1709. This new version may not be available to everyone yet at Windows Update. I think there is some sort of trick to get it though. How bad do you need ThrottleStop?

 

To manually install the update to the Fall Creators Update (2017):

See:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Click the 'Update Now' button and follow the steps.

 

The culprit is most likely Windows Crematory "Fall Fail" Update (FCU / RS3) itself. Mico$haft wants to prioritize its own trash start up and screw up the system. Maybe get rid of a lot of the bloat included in Windoze X ? + unwanted bloat from the OEM' itself.

Below from a thread posted by @j95
"FCU/RS3 new startup behavior many times overrides delayed tasks (5~10 sec) depending on resource load (applications must comply with M$ startup performance conditions in order to receive certification). Hence 13 sec delay."

Nope. The whole <new> OS (Update) is utter trash!!

 

Hi everyone!

I have a problem i'm using ThrottleStop (not obsidian) on my notebook for gaming especially with emulators... is very good for few days but it started a few lagging and the temperature fall to normal and my games worsening the fps. I damaged my notebook? I very sad because some games working perfect and now is a crap. How to solve this?


PS: Sorry about my english I'm not a native speaker.

 

As @unclewebb and others have repeated, post some pictures so he/others can start working on this problem you have found. Start with post pict from all settings (all windows in ThrottleStop). Or this will be a guess competition.

 

I don't have a print or picture
What you wanna know?
my specs?

Is a low end pc
I3 3217U
Hd graphics 4000
4GB

 

Specs doesn't give much info to work with (Used TS before or first time?).

Need... Pictures from ThrottleStop window (MAIN WINDOW, FIVR, TPL, OPTIONS). As in this guide.

How to take a screenshot on Windows 10.

Upload an image from your computer (note: this option is not available until you have posted 5 messages).

 

Hi thanks!

I've been using for 1 week first time
it was great! but the bad issues come up and delete the folder of my note
because I think this solve the problem but not
I using other version not this showing on the prints.

 

Just a heads up @unclewebb THat used to happen to me a few weeks back, but I thought I just didn't copy the executable file properly. It fixed itself suddenly.

There was a cumulative update that rolled out a few days ago, now the non-insider version is .64, not .19

 

Software control of voltage is not possible with 3rd Gen Intel CPUs. You might be able to test something with the power limits (it's seems you can, and Power limits long and short is as I can see it put to 15 - Should be 17 for i3-3217U). Core i3 does not use turbo boost so your options to change anything of importance in TS seems limited.

If your CPU is not thermal throttling, and you only see lower performance than what you had before... IF you updated to Windows 10 (Fall Creator's Update) right before or when this started, maybe Microsoft pushed on you unwanted drivers + screwed up your power plans. If you still can, maybe see if you can roll Windows back to a point before those changes happened. And as I can see in your pict... Uncheck the box where it stands BD PROCHOT and don't forget turn on TS. I can almost smell a mickey mouse pushed on you from the Morons in Redmond (MicroSoft). Aka check if you can roll your OS back where everything worked better.

For veryfing that your cpu work as intended... Run same benchmarks and compare the scores with i3-3217U as showed in the review link. Good luck.

 

Not that bad. Without undervolting I peak into the low 90s with full fans, when gaming it's around 85. But lower temps is always better, especially when it's free right? I'll give the manual update a go and see if that fixes it.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

Thank you so much!

You mentioned the windows update. I noticed that after the update that started to have problems with the games, however, I can not be sure what was really the cause.

I'm very rookie and I have some doubts

1- Do you think that I should restore de OS ?

I'm uncheck the BD PROCHOT

2 - Where I find the "power limits" to change the parameters 15 to 17?

 

Quite well known that Windows OS and performance can be screwed by Win updates. I can't see that there is anything else that has f**** up your performance. But who knows.

Try this first...
1) How to Roll Back or Uninstall a Problematic Windows Update.

If not, maybe a clean install and well known GOOD drivers/software... NBR Windows 10 Clean Installation Guide - Windows 10 Tweaks and Fixes (Index post #1) - O&O ShutUp10 (do not use Windows 10 without it) - How to prevent Windows from Automatically Updating Specific Drivers - How to Stop Windows 10 From Automatically Updating Hardware Drivers

2) Change Power limits in ThrottleStop TPL window (you find it where it stands 15 as in your own pict)