The ThrottleStop Guide

Which option did the trick?

 

Setting Speed Shift EPP to 0. After bios update it seems it has set my laptop to balanced mode even though I changed the settings in windows to high performance. Don't know whats wrong with this but TS solved my problem and thanks to you as well.. hehehe..

 

I don't have a ThinkPad but have a few ideas to try. You can find more details on the throttlestop thread:

- FIVR - Reset Intel GPU undervolt to 0. Undervolt here can cause latency so not always stable

- TPL - You can try enabling Intel Power Balance. Looks like you can set the CPU & GPU between 0...31. I set my CPU=31, GPU=13 and system is snappy. If my GPU is below say 10, things get laggy.

- SpeedShift EPP 128 - is the halfway point but might not be doing what you expect. EPP=0 is max performance. EPP=256 is max energy savings. On my laptop EPP 128 locks out max CPU clocks which may not be optimal for thermal management. EPP 78 is highest that allows my system to hit max turbo clocks but you need to expermient.

 

Since Starlight only has iGPU I'd advise to set GPU power balance to 18 or 21 for optimal power delivery and performance.

 

Many people think that low CPU power consumption can be achieved if they treat their CPU like it is a car. Slowly putter along like grandpa and gently press on the accelerator pedal as if it had an egg underneath it. When it comes to CPUs, this is exactly what you do not want to do. When a CPU has a task to do, it is done most efficiently by mashing the gas pedal into the floor and getting up to full speed ASAP. Drive it like you stole it. As soon as the task is done, get off the gas and let it idle again. This is the logic behind the new Speed Shift function. It allows the CPU to get up to an efficient speed quickly when it needs to process a task and allows the CPU to get back into one of the low power C States (C7) as soon as possible after the task is complete. The old method of forcing the CPU to a low speed makes for a sluggish computing experience and does not save power the way one would think it should.

I was going to suggest playing around with the Power Balance feature. I have not used this feature for a long time so let me know if it helps any.

With only ThrottleStop running, what sort of C0% does it report when your CPU is idle? There might be some other tasks running on your computer that are keeping the CPU and iGPU active. I got my wife's 7500U down to a miserly 0.4% in the C0 state when idle without having to stop too much Windows bloat.

This might be a new Windows 10 feature. Glad to hear that you are able to use ThrottleStop to run your CPU at the speed you want it to run at.

 

unticking C1E is ideal settings if you want high performance?

 

@0lok - C1E enabled or disabled does not make any significant difference on most modern CPUs. If a CPU has the ability to go into a deeper C State like C3, C6 or C7 then it is going to do that and will spend virtually zero time in C1E. This C State was more important about a decade ago when there were no other C States available. It is not very important anymore.

My screenshot above shows that a fast CPU is not so bad. It will not run hot or consume a lot of power when it is idle because the cores are spending 99% of their time in C7 at 0 MHz and 0 Volts. That is the key to reducing power consumption. Use the ThrottleStop data to find junk on your system so you can maximize the percentage of time that it is spending in C7 when idle.

 

Thank you very much.. I am learning.. hehe
.

 

I can't get my computer into anything deeper than C3 even if I sneeze at it
Unless there's something I'm missing in the Bios, even with adaptive voltage, it won't drop to a deeper state And that's with all state flags enabled, including C3 undemotion (whatever that is).

 

I wish I knew more about what controls this. I think it is usually a Windows issue but it can also be a bios problem. If you have some time to kill check out the Intel BIOS Implementation Test Suite or BITS for short.

https://biosbits.org/

It can tell you what C States are being used before Windows is loaded. This can help troubleshoot whether Windows or the BIOS is to blame for lack of C States.

 

Thank you. I"ll get on that as soon as I can find something to boot it with. Memtest86 on one flash drive, windows 10 fall abortion's edition on the other

 

@unclewebb Will deeper C states give more battery life, I'm curious to know. On my PC, only C6 is deepest available C states.
With proper fine tuning, I am able to get only 8-13hrs on 92Wh with Wifi turned on and enabling airplane mode (with ethernet connected), I can only max out 15-16hrs on same battery with 6700HQ with optimus. In theory, will transitioning to C10 give more battery life ?
Am I asking for too much from Windows 10? BTW, on linux I can very briefly transition to c8/c9/c10 when my package C state is locked to c6.

 

In theory, the deeper the C State, the lower the power consumption will be. Unfortunately, some Intel CPUs have had problems with the deeper C States. Here are a few examples from the Mobile 4th Generation Specification Update document:







There are other bugs where going into a lower C State actually increased power consumption when it should have decreased. Based on problems like this, I am not surprised that some manufacturers have decided to disable some of the deeper C States.

Some CPUs can limit what package C States are available depending on whether the iGPU is being used, how many monitors are connected or even what display resolution is being used.

I cannot remember seeing a ThrottleStop screenshot that shows a CPU in Package C9 or Package C10. I do not think that this is a bug in ThrottleStop. There might be very few devices that are using either of these two C States. Most consumers do not know or care what C States their CPU is using. They only care if their device is stable or not.

The package C State lock seems to be ignored on some CPUs in some situations. Not sure why.

 

I've noticed that fixing maximum processor state at %99 does not limit turbo boost feature on Windows 10 and Broadwell CPU. It used to work back on Windows 7 and Haswell CPU. I don't know why it works like that now but anyways thanks to Throttlestop I am able now to disable or enable turbo boost with just one click. Thanks again!

 

iGPU Performance can be set in the Intel HD Graphics Control Panel. It is the only useful tab in the entire program, in my opinion. More on that later.


I have a bug with iGPU performance too. When the graphs power plan is set to Balanced or Maximum Battery life, regardless whether on AC power or battery, the the HD 520 chip locks itself down to 300MHz.

Maximum Performance never forces the 520 to be at 1000MHz/1050MHz Boost. It still idles at 300MHz, though it does change clock speeds more aggressively.

I prefer using the Intel HD Graphics on games that don't require high grapcics settings or high performance, since, contrary to popular belief, Intel's HD Graphics are VERY efficient (in terms of Frames per watt) when not running at maximum capacity. In my game, I can get 60FPS with the iGPU using 5W, compared to the dedicated GPU using about 15W.

Then again, the dedicated graphics is more power hungry but MUCH higher performing when running at full capacity, in terms of frames per watt. Nvidia's 9XX series don't do so well at lower clock speeds. I've measured and my GeForce 945M uses 3-4W when idle.

Tip: NEVER EVER disable your dedicated graphics card in Device Manager in an attempt to "save power". All this does is force optimus OFF whilst having your iGPU drive the display. The dedicated GPU will be idling doing nothing. This keeps the dedicated graphics card on and wastes power. Enabling the dGPU and hence enabling optimus completely turns the dGPU off. Go figure.

(Optimus is a feature that turns mobile GeForce GPUs completely off when there is no program running on the GPU AND when there is another iGPU)

Back to Intel's HD Control Panel being useless, it really is. Custom Resolution is still broken in the control panel and only available through CRU.

Obviously an 800x600 resolution running at 25Hz is just too much for my eDP cable... except that I can run at 1080p 60Hz... HAH. This was a feature argued for many years until Dec 2016 when Intel finally released a driver allowing EDID overrides.

 

Does this picture really say C10 is working on Linux using Powertop or is it just a bug?

 

Hey everyone. So about 4 months ago I started to use throttlestop but I did not like it as I had to use it with Open Hardware Monitor, so I simply deleted both it and Open Hardware Monitor one day. I didnt do much heavy gaming during these months and now when I run demanding games such as The Witcher 3, my laptop BSODs after 3-4 hours of gaming. I think it might be due to the undervolts set when throttlestop was installed previously. I re-downloaded it but it says that the voltage offset is at 0 for all profiles. I understand that this data is stored in the INI file and if the previous INI file was deleted, throttlestop should have no way of knowing if the CPU was previously undervolted or not. So my question is, is the undervolt now what I set it to in throttlestop (currently -80mv) or is it -80mv on top of the previous one (say it was -100mv)? And when I deleted throttlestop previously, did it reset my undervolts, or have they remained the same all this time?

 

Once you delete ThrottleStop and shut down your computer, your CPU should boot up at its default settings with no voltage adjustments. In Windows 10, hold down the Shift key on the keyboard when you select the "Shut down" menu option in the Start menu to make sure that Windows 10 does a full shut down and not a hybrid shut down.

The under volt shown in ThrottleStop is what your CPU is seeing. ThrottleStop cannot do an under volt on top of an under volt. The monitoring panel in the top right corner of the FIVR window shows you in real time what the current under volt is. The data you see there is the real under volt and I would trust that info more than I would trust any voltage data seen in XTU.

Your laptop is doing you a favor. It is telling you to get off your butt. Sitting that long at a computer is slowly killing you.

@Vasudev - Perhaps you have discovered the secret C10 C State, in Linux at least. In Windows you can use RW Everything to read the CPU's Model Specific Registers.

MSR 0x630 - C8 Counter
MSR 0x631 - C9 Counter
MSR 0x632 - C10 Counter

Those 3 counters are kind of like a stopwatch. The instant a CPU spends any time in one of those C States, those counters will start counting upward at a rate of billions of cycles per second. If you check these registers and only see zeros, that means your CPU has not spent any time in those C States since you pushed the power button on. Find a similar CPU register reading tool in Linux and you can check those registers to see if they are counting up when idle.

 

Thanks for the reply! That clears the doubts in my head about all this. And thanks for keeping this software continuously updated too!

Well yeah but I did buy a gaming laptop and I expect it to be able to game for 3-4 hours continuously without giving me errors. And also its only on free days that I spend that much time gaming. What I am worried about more is that the laptop is giving me BSOD errors.

 

Well I'm ecstatic. I just unlocked the PL1 of my i7-6500U to 25W I think. That's the laptop running the AIDA stress test with the iGPU and CPU loaded with 0 undervolt.(dGPU disabled for thermal issues)

And here it is running LinX with GPUTest loaded on the iGPU...

Interesting to note that the Package throttles to 18.6W for about half a minute like this:


before finally letting the CPU run at 3.0GHz and the iGPU at 1000MHz.

I did it my changing the 0xFED15F50 value in Memory from 00000001 to 80000002

I did it before, but I forgot to add the 8 as the lock bit. Lol the old days. Thank you @unclewebb for your post here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-278


Now to fix the thermal issues... You may or may not have seen my repasting thread last month... I was really happy with the initial results of Arctic MX-4. Now, I'm not. The thermal performance is worse than stock paste, with the CPU reaching 97C and thermal throttling. I'm waiting on this thermal adhesive and I'm going to mod my laptop and add anoethr heatsink. I'd get IC DIamond but it is too expensive. *Sigh*.



EDIT:

Well it throttles down to 15W if I also have the dGPU stressed with 'EDP Other' in red. I guess my motherboard/90W AC ADapter can't handle so much power.



And this is the result of disabling the dGPU. The CPU Package power shoots up to about 24W And of course thermal throttling kicks in a few seconds later. I think Acer's heatsink should be able to cope, the exhaust air at the back is only warm, not hot. I think the MX-4 has simply gone bad for some reason. I've repasted in 5+ times in the last month. Initial results are good, but after a few days temperatures rise

 

See if its overheating or not? Check temps in TS and see if there's a tick mark in PROCHOT 97/100/105?

 

Yes it does overheat. Can overheating lead to a BSOD though? I stop gaming when it starts reaching overheating temps, but it only gives me BSOD errors when I'm playing a game but throttlestop doesnt show its overheating. I searched for my error code and got to know it was a driver error, so I guess I will look into that now.

 

MX4 is complete garbage on laptop with poor HSF pressure.
Take a look at this thread and decide which paste to buy http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nd-apply-traditional-and-liquid-metal.806840/
It is based on experience of Enthusiasts and OC'ers present here and you're getting actual performance numbers and its constantly updated.
I am using MakerGel Nano from Cooler Master which I got it from amazon india for ₹800. https://www.amazon.in/Cooler-Master-Thermal-Compound-Grease/dp/B019PZ1P54
Its expensive these days. You can check my review at amazon.

 

Yes I agree, it might be good for desktops which rarely get moved, but its runniness probably causes issues with laptops. My laptop seems to have poor mounting pressure, and perhaps that grey goop eing squished and sucked back into the CPU die with the contortions of my laptop. I move it around quite a bit.

This other guy on NBR had his application of MX-4 on his laptop degrading in days, so I guess it isn't just me

 

Hi! I've just bought an ACER laptop a515-51g and I need some help to remove power throttle from 8250u. It seems that this is the right place to ask. Thank you in advance!

 

Hey guys
I'm having a small issue with my battery profile on throttlestop. After ~15 minutes of usage, if I'm on AC and I unplug the laptop (throttlestop is minimized on the quicklunch, this does not happen if I have it open on the taskbar) throttlestop jsut exits instead of switching to the battery profile.

I'll be leaving some screenshots of my settings.

Imgur album of screenshot settings: https://imgur.com/a/sPYOn

Thank you.

Also guys, any software recommendation for monitoring battery life?

 

Batteryinfoview and HWinfo64 are both okay. Batteryinfoview has more information which may have unused registers.

 

@OmarEVG - Are you using the Task Scheduler to start ThrottleStop? There are a few options in there that can cause issues. If you are using the Task Scheduler, check out this guide and make sure you have your task set up correctly. Check out item 10) in that guide.

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

Thanks for posting those screenshots. It might take a few days but I will try to duplicate your settings to see if I can figure something out.

The sad news is that you may not be able to remove the power throttle. The 8250U is a 15 Watt CPU and at times it might throttle to far less than that. Post some pictures including the TPL window so I can see what options are available. Many manufacturers will lock these CPUs so there is no easy fix for the throttling problems. Try turning on the Log File option in ThrottleStop and then go play a game or whatever so I can see what sort of throttling you are talking about. Turn on GPU temperature monitoring if that is supported. Attach or upload the log file somewhere convenient and then post a link so I can have a look.

 

8th generation U CPUs have double the cores with the same TDP as previous generations. Of course it is going to throttle. I mean why would manufacturers up the TDP of the U CPU and put in that extra $5 worth of a heatpipe right? @JEDI87 Try to change your TDP to 25W and you might see improvements, unless you are thermal throttling.. unclewebb made lots of posts on this, I think the one I used was on page 264 of this guide.

 

@unclewebb the issue was, as you mentioned, the task scheduler giving the program the condition of stopping it if the system is on battery.
Thanks for your time and for the amazing software, been learning a lot from it!.

Another question if I may, would undervolting the igpu cause anything at all? because it might not be working on my system. I've been setting it to -250mV and nothing weird happens at all.

 

BALANCED
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Y568q2aKO1eTp6I0ZIcw16KoSFb5LNMu
CUSTOM PLAN (high performance)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FcnkoJjNoyRvbsJj9VqOMJeT0B-4m2Ji
SCREENS

 

Screens (sorry for the size)
https://i.imgur.com/JalK9Wq.png[/img]']
https://i.imgur.com/JalK9Wq.png[/img]']The problem
https://i.imgur.com/JalK9Wq.png[/img]']Some tools I experiment with.
https://i.imgur.com/JalK9Wq.png[/img]']TPL
What I want (kicks in just for seconds)
IDLE
Thank you for your help guys!

 

Replace thr first value of FED15900 from 01000000 to 80000002. Yours is funny. My laptop had 00000001

As unclewebb said on Skylake, the first digit is the lock digit. If it is 8, you cannot change your TDP Value. Fortunately it looks like you can. If it doesn't work, try 82000000.

For me, after setting the 8 as the lock bit, I cannot change the value until a full reboot. Your

Argh been typing on QWERTY Phone Keyboard whenw I'm used to DVORAK. Sorry for short post.


EDIT, Sorry, I was wrong. Now I'm now on my laptop. Go to address FED15F50, and then change the first value to te above values. Like this.

 

His screenshot shows Address = FED15900 so in his picture, the TDP Level control, FED15950, is where my red line is. Setting that to 80000002 can make a world of difference as long as nothing else over rides it.

@JEDI87 - For Package Power Limits, I would avoid checking the Clamp option. In the TPL window, I left the power limit adjusters in ThrottleStop wide open but I am not sure what the CPU will do if you use sky high values. It might decide to ignore your adjustments if it finds values way outside the normal range. The power limits at FED159A0 and FED159A4 appear to already be set to 32 and 32 so I would use these same values in ThrottleStop and I would set the turbo time limit to something simple like 28 seconds.

Hopefully the TDP Level Control fix works for you.

@OmarEVG - You could try using Intel XTU to set the iGPU voltage. After you do this, open up the FIVR window in ThrottleStop while XTU is running and look at the voltages displayed in the monitoring table at the top right. It is OK to use both programs at the same time when testing. Just make sure that Unlock Adjustable Voltage is not checked in ThrottleStop so TS is not trying to control your iGPU voltage. I think for some CPUs, XTU will set 2 different voltages simultaneously when setting the iGPU voltage. Have a look for that in ThrottleStop. There are multiple places for voltage control, some which TS is not aware of so if the above does not work out, you might need to use Intel XTU if you need to control the iGPU.

 

ThrottleStop thermal solutions - nice cameo during video review of 2018 Dell XPS 13 (9370)

 

Absolutely useful tips "unclewebb"! I appreciate your instructions, although it seems that acer locked the above cell, as it returns to default. Don't know if there is another suitable setting about TDP or I checked everything I could. Perhaps if I save some watts from the igp, or remove the emedded battery. Also my brick supports 65w. Should I hope for a bios update or even a modded one? Just a shame Acer, despite this awesome laptop (including mx150), I can't use the full potential of it! Anyways... thank you so much my friend!

 

@JEDI87 - I noticed in the above screenshot that it shows TDP Level Control set to 2 and the Lock option is checked. Do you remember if you applied this setting or was it like this when you first ran ThrottleStop? If you locked this register, you might have to do a full reboot and delete the ThrottleStop.INI config file before running ThrottleStop. After that, see if you can use RW Everything to set register FED15950. If this works, before applying Lock, make sure both ThrottleStop and RW Everything have the TDP Level register set to 2. Then try setting RW Everything to 80000002 to lock it. After that try running some tests to see if it worked and after that, try setting the Lock option in ThrottleStop again. Sometimes you get lucky and might find a way to trick the CPU into submission.

Your laptop is running exactly as Intel and Acer intended. The U series is known for some short bursts of speed and then they are designed to throttle down to 15 Watt. Acer will never write a bios to fix this problem because to them, it is not a problem. It is working exactly as intended. Some under volting can free up some watts which will slightly increase speed.

This power shortage is not related to your battery or power adapter. It is just a low power 15 Watt U series CPU working as intended. Sad because a lot more is possible when the U series are not throttled.

 

Today I migrated my harddisk from a 6700HQ laptop to a 7700HQ laptop and after that for some reason my system isnt boosting above base clock. I created new powerplans but they arent working correctly it seems. Even though i did a reset on those.

If I set the multiplier manually on for example 35 it works fine but it wont throttle down when needed and only on balanced settings.

 

I think it needs a clean install of windows because all the settings and registry keys are still related to 6700HQ CPU. Did you try to resetting your windows without formatting it through [Reset this PC] option? maybe it will resolve this problem while keeping all your files

 

Well, i have so much applications and settings that it isnt really an option for me at this time.

Is there a way i can reset just the power management or do it with throttlestop?

 

Try put it back to balanced power plan and restart, then shut of. Restart then make a change in bios save, restart, then go back again into bios and reset it to default.
Edit. Don't forget to Exit ThrottleStop and delete ThrottleStop.ini file in TS FOLDER + scheduled task and then reboot first.

 

I thought that was the whole point of ThrottleStop. Stop the throttling.

With a 7th Gen CPU I would click on the TPL button, go in there and enable Speed Shift. After that, push OK, head out to the main screen and make sure it says SST in green. The EPP (Energy Performance Preference) setting can be used to control your CPU speed. A value of 0 is for maximum performance and a value of about 80 is similar to the Windows Balanced power profile. You can increase this value if you prefer that your laptop feels sluggish when lightly loaded. I prefer performance over energy savings.

 

Thank you for your reply. I noticed that even after reinstalling windows and loading up my old throttlestop it would mess a bit with speedstep.

Upside, got a fresh windows install. now back to installing all my stuff .

Its nice if my CPU stays on 3500mhz ofcourse So yeah it definitely works! But needed to save some power from time to time.

I tried that but it didnt work unfortunately. But now it is running okay after a fresh install.

 

@unclewebb thanks so much for making throttlestop it's a very cool piece of software. I'm using it on a dell 7577 right now and pretty happy with the undervolt I'm getting, but feel like my temperatures are high when using 0 speedshift epp. I guess it's my background processes that are keeping c0 high? I'm not too sure of how to interpret the c7 tab yet too under Core C State Percent I see it ranging from about 50-90 in c7, but then below that in Package C State percent I see 0.0 in c7.


Could you give me any tips for lowering c0 or cleaning up background processes? Thanks a ton

 

Throttlestop increases my battery life and reduces heat using speed shift and undervolt. Thanks @unclewebb for this magic software. Same question regarding package C state. My laptop is MSI GS73VR with 6700HQ GTX1060 SSD+HDD 4K screen. My stats are basically the same as tekigun's. Core c state can reach and stay in C7 so I assume the problem is not background process. Initially I was stuck at package C2 but after installing Intel AHCI driver I could get package C3. It never moves into C6 or above. Throttlestop shows that package c state limit is C10.

I have tried the following:
disable dedicated GPU
lower resolution to 1080p
run on battery
disable keyboard light
drag windows power slide to left
update BIOS
update ME firmware
update all drivers
clean install Windows 10
install MSI bloatware related to power management
boot with BIOS implementation test suites, doesn't have c state residency test under explore menu
disable then enable c state in BIOS
disable the HDD
unplug any accessory
airplane mode

I have played with Interrupt response limit before and nothing changed iirc. I'll give it a try again tonight.
Thanks in advance.

 

Download and use Autoruns.exe for disabling unwanted tasks. As well use O&O ShutUp10 for the Windows Spybox. And for gods name get rid of the Dell bloat (only install drivers). You don't need all the trash running in the background... Phoenix Software Updates

As well...
NBR Windows 10 Clean Installation Guide
Windows 10 Tweaks and Fixes (Index post #1)

@j95 guide to remove more bloat in
nVIDIA GeForce Drivers v 390.77 WHQL Findings & Fixes

 

@unclewebb I moved Throttlestop to running on the background as soon as windows starts. Not need to play with it once I configured it right. But this version also expire after some time similar to the old versions?

If so why does it expire?

 

If your screenshots are while your computer is idle then there is something seriously wrong. Here is how ThrottleStop looks while running on my laptop.



Somewhere around 0.5% in the C0 state is normal. The highest package C State this CPU uses is package C6 and 86% in that state is pretty good too. Click on the Details tab in the Task Manager and click on the CPU heading to arrange your tasks so you can see what is running on your computer. Task Manager showing 26% or 27% in the CPU column might be a crypto miner running wild on your computer. A CPU cannot enter the higher CPU package states if one core is always or almost always loaded. You need to track down whatever is running on your computer. On the Details tab you can also add an extra column called CPU Time. This will display the total amount of CPU time that each task has used. organize your tasks by that column and something suspicious has to be near the top.

@Kers - Some laptops disable the deeper package C States and I do not know how to turn them back on. It can be a driver issue, a bios issue or some obscure Windows power profile setting that prevents them from working as Intel intended. Some manufacturers might be disabling the deep package C States deliberately so their SSD benchmark numbers look better than the competition. Who knows. Consumers are not holding manufacturers accountable so they are able to get away with shipping laptops that are not working like they should. Hopefully you can post more info here if you are ever able to track down a bad driver or setting.

TS 8.50 will expire at the end of 2018. It will expire because it is beta software. There are known bugs that need to be fixed. Unfortunately there is only one of me so I never have enough time to work full time and program and thoroughly test ThrottleStop on a wide assortment of computers. The next release will not expire and if there are significant bugs, users will have to take the time to properly report them if they want them fixed.

 

Yipee TS 8.60 is finally ready, I hope Papusan and Mr Fox are busy testing new version.
Your CPU just kills my skylake CPU at any time of the day.
Did you add an Override function for Speedshift that can simply block Win 10 FCU's automatic control of EPP?

 

@unclewebb Even if we disable BdProchot on Bios or in TS program that yellow warm will still appear on TS?