The ThrottleStop Guide

Some of the throttling reasons within the CPU are hyper sensitive. When you click on the heading within Limit Reasons to clear these reasons from the CPU, does that box turn yellow again immediately or almost immediately? Generally I would not worry too much about it unless it is staying red continuously while you are gaming or trying to use your computer. Try running a log file if you are concerned and check the Add Limit Reasons to Log File option in the Options window. That way if this is a reason for continuous throttling, this info should be added to the Log File so you can check that after playing a game. EDP Other stands for Electrical Design Point which typically refers to a current limit. Other stands for a wide variety of other similar reasons that are not well documented in the publicly available documentation available from Intel. The best thing you can do is turn off as much background junk as possible and get your ThrottleStop reported C0% as low as possible. Some monitoring apps are a little heavy on system resources.

I ran a few UserBenchmark tests and overall it is a good, quick little test to show a person how their computer compares to other similar computers but it is only one very short test. The individual graphic tests within this benchmark only run for 3 seconds each. That is not the kind of testing one would do to determine if a computer has any throttling issues or not. No one sits down and fires up a video game and plays for 3 seconds and then says, oh, that's enough for today. Time to go outside and play. I think I will go run a 3 second marathon now.

Background CPU usage on my laptop is typically less than 1%. For a test I ran 2 Threads of the TS Bench test to put a load on my 4700MQ. While the TS Bench was running in the background, I ran a UserBenchmark test. Afterwards the UserBenchmark reported my Background CPU at 4%. What does that number mean? Who knows but it is useless information. As for what it reports for "CPU Throttled", I am not sure about that number either. During my tests it completely ignored both Clock Modulation throttling and Chipset Clock Modulation throttling. Based on that, I am going to say that the UserBenchmark would not be at the top of my list to determine a throttling problem.

You have a 7200U which has a maximum multiplier of 31 and during your brief testing, the multiplier is almost always at or very close to that value. At times it is hard to tell if your CPU is doing a tiny amount of throttling or is just bored with the light duty benchmark it is running. The UserBenchmark shows that your CPU is "Performing above expectations". In other words, it is what it is. It is a 2 core CPU with an Intel GPU so it is suitable for some mobile light duty computing / gaming and internet usage. Some modern laptops are completely miserable to use. They will drop the multiplier down to 8 or less and get stuck there for extended periods of time. That is the kind of throttling that you have to watch out for. Your laptop seems OK.

I am not sure if you have changed it yet but I do not know of any reason to run a Static voltage on a U CPU. I am not even sure if that feature works properly. Instead, I would switch that to Adaptive with the Voltage set to Default and then for Offset Voltage I would use a negative offset for the CPU Core and CPU Cache. I like keeping things simple.

ThrottleStop is known mostly as a tool for laptops but it can do some good things with many desktop processors too. I have been playing around with some old Xeon socket 1366 processors lately. My first ever 5 GHz overclock was the result.

 

Thank you for the information. I have already changed it from static to adaptive with -0.801mV for both core and cache.

 

Why VID is missing in TS 8.60? Those temps are really good. Its almost mirror image of Papusan's (24C).

 

When the 1st Generation Core i was introduced, there was no way to read or change the VID using software. I guess Intel did not think anyone would be interested in overclocking.

 

Hi Unclewebb,

Just to get back to you on this. Yes, I do have that setting enabled.

The issue I have with my XPS 13, is that after several hours of "sleep/standby" it automatically goes into Hibernate. When I wake it from Hibernate - that's when SpeedShift has become disabled, and I need to manually re-enable it to get it back.

 

Thanks for clarifying that. That TS feature was intended to work when resuming from sleep or hibernate. I will do some testing and hopefully get that fixed up for the next release.

@Coltaine79 - I just did some testing. When the "Enable Speed Shift when ThrottleStop starts" option is checked, my computer will re-enable Speed Shift whether I resume from Sleep or if I resume from Hibernate. It works for me either way. It should not make any difference if a computer goes from sleep to hibernate.

After you resume, are you checking the main screen of ThrottleStop to see if SST is green or are you using HWiNFO or some other way to see if Speed Shift is enabled? When testing, only use ThrottleStop. After resuming, when you open up the FIVR window, does it show a value for SST - EPP?

When you open up the TPL window after resuming, is Speed Shift checked? Is "Enable Speed Shift when ThrottleStop starts" checked?

If you are still having problems, try deleting the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file and then restart ThrottleStop so it can create a new one. Make sure that ThrottleStop is having no problems saving changes to these items. Exit and restart ThrottleStop a couple of times to check. Leave ThrottleStop open on the desktop and then go try a sleep resume cycle and after that try a hibernate resume cycle to see if Speed Shift gets enabled or not.

I am just taking some wild guesses. It is difficult / impossible for me to fix a problem if I cannot recreate it. Hopefully a few more users can try these tests to see if they have this bug too.

 

hai

 

It's weird how my temps range in the mid 40's when i have an intel core i3. Maybe undervolt did it.

 

Thanks for all the insights/suggestions. I'll do some testing over the next few days and get back to you!

 

I am running into constant EDP limits.

Is there a way within TS to increase current limit? I can seem to pin down a means.

Thank you.

 

Which CPU? ThrottleStop can do this on the 4th Gen Haswell CPUs and probably the 5th Gen too. For the newer CPU models, give Intel XTU a try.

 

Ahhhhh Gotcha.
,
newest Kaby ULVs

(specifically 8650u).

Constantly slamming up against EDP limits, with rare thermal and TDP stops. It seems XTU is far less reliable in holding settings after a reboot, and, ultimately feels less reliable than TS.

PS great work and thank you.

EDIT: Question, based on intels datasheet; the Iccmax is not a hard spec, but, rather an aggregate of samples for guaranteed indefinite performance. If undervolting, especially on the order of almost 90mv and increase in current would be needed to sustain clocks under load. 64A is the the data sheet spec for 8650... what would be a safe increase to try and reduce EDP limits and clock supression?

 

Fun! @unclewebb @Mr. Fox @Papusan @Vasudev + Other people who like to maximise performance.

Just got my Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro a few days ago. I had to downgrade the BIOS to an old one because for some unholy reason Xiaomi decided to lock the voltage and prevent the user from changing power limits.

Well here I am with my 15W CPU. Look at that screenshot above.

I think all laptop manufacturers should learn from Xiaomi. Xiaomi left all the settings literally unlocked. (Excpet for the BIOS) I can change my CPU TDP with ease, the Motherboard VRMs don't ever overheat, the CPU can run at 40W with no throttling, and look at that cooling. Even when drawing 40W, the CPU stays at a (relatively) cool 83C. My friend has the 7700HQ in his Aspire V NItro, and it shoots up to the 90s when drawing 45W.My laptop was designed to dissipate 15W from the CPU. It can dissipate 40W.

I don't really think the 8250U was an 'innovation'. Yes, I can get it to perform like the 7700HQ (Passmark CPUMark) but there is no point, since I have to up the TDP to 40W to do so. I feel like Intel is just selling 7700HQs in laptops with a 15W TDP limit. There really is not much improvement for performance per watt. With the 15W limit, the CPU limits itself to 1.6GHz to stay within the TDP limit. Take this as you want, this is just my opinion - don't hate me for it.

I should add that everything above was with a repaste of MX-4 (Yes I already know, terrible) and with a -125mV undervolt.

 

When TS is ON you will see major drop in temps.

 

Hi all.

I have an Intel m5 6y57 Skylake and had some issues with TDP throttling which seemed to only happen in the last month (Windows update?) so I first tried to use XTU but then found out about your excellent software @unclewebb and after spending many hours reading and tweaking things I seem to be back to where I was however I was wondering if I should be looking to do anything else to boost my CPU when on AC ?

I have only done the following so far and this seems to have removed the PL1 throttling as seeing when running TS Bench....

• Unticked BD PROCHOT
• Set Speed Shift - EPP to 0 and SST is green
• In TPL changes Package Power Long to be 12 (was 6) which is the same as Package Power Short was and I unticked Clamp
• Clicked Enable Speed Shift when ThottleStop Start
• In FIVR I have ticked Unlock Adjustable Voltage and ticked Adaptive for CPU Core CPU Cache and Intel GPU and set the first two as -60.5 and GPU as -20.5

Even after a lot of reading I wasn't sure if tweaking the other two settings in FIVR such as Analog I/O and System Agent would give me more performance on AC and as I'm now not hitting PL1 and / or TDP Throttle is it was worth undervolting more?

Thanks

 

Personally, I don't think Windows is the issue.

On your Y CPU, apart from increasing the TDP limit via the aforementioned using RW-Everything to change the FED15900 Offset 160 method, I don't think there is much you can do. Undervolting might help but not by much on your 4.5W CPU. No, Analog and System Agent doesn't really increase performance.

If you aren't hitting any TDP limits, is there anything to worry about? There is no reason to disable BD-PROCHOT unless that value is set ridiculously low. Is your m5 passively cooled?

Dell had some magic on their m5 CPU which would let it use 11W of power, up from the 4.5W.

TDPs really don't mean anything anymore lol. Manufactures throttle their CPUs so much and so weirdly the TDP number just becomes confusing. My CPU's TDP is 15W but I can make it run at 40W, yet on my friend's laptop with the 8550U the TDP is supposed to be 15W but Dell cripples the performance so much that it Voltage Regulator Module Throttles, causing the CPU to throttle to 800MHz

 

Disable speedstep and c1e too.
In case you didn't turn off hibernation, type this cmd in elevated cmd prompt or powershell

Code:

powercfg -h off

Turn off iGPU undervolting and see if it helps.

 

I have never heard of this program or method before and a quick Googling doesn't seem to show me what to do so any pointers? Also by undervolting have I increased the TDP or was that done via the change I did with changing Package Power Long to 12 to match Package Power Short?

Yes my CPU is passively cooled as is also in a Dell Latitude 11 5179 tablet and the AC adaptor is a 30W one so maybe that lets it work a bit higher?

Ok well I'm just trying to get the best I can when on AC.

By iGPU I guess you mean Intel GPU yeah?

Thanks all

 

By undervolting, you decreased the voltage but kept the current the same. Thus your CPU uses less power under the same workload. You now have a bit more headroom.

Package Power Long basically tells your CPU how long it can stay at an extended TDP. I don't know if that setting in Throttlestop actually works.

Sorry. For the TDP unlocking, go to the 6th post of http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-563
Unclewebb has a method of changing the TDP.

Can you post a screenshot

 

Yes.

 

Ok thanks again both.

I did something like this for an older Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet I think but my screenshot is below...



So looking at my results above AND the 6th post by @unclewebb you mentioned I make it that I have a TDP of 6 and 12 so should I just use XTU to set this?

 

You must clearly know how to use RW Everything otherwise ask @Falkentyne He accidentally disable battery monitoring and other risky stuffs.

 

I wish there was a way to UV Nvidia Pascal on notebooks, I`m not talking about manually alterning curve\"Overclock", but to reduce base voltage a little bit so temp would be lower and GPU would utilize PB a bit more, but not with a fixed curve.

 

Va

Values in RW-Everything are in hex. A value of 30 in RW-Everything translates to 6W. That's your long term power limit.

Your second C8 value of 60 translates to 12W. That's your turbo short time power limit.

If you read Unclewebb's post, you'll see how to convert your values.

But I think a passively cooled laptop will struggle to cool 12W. If you do want to test, change the long term power limit to something like 00D8060.

I forgot to add, anything you do here can be dangerous. Changing the wrong values may damage your laptop. Proceed with caution, just like Vasudev said. (I'm not trying to discourage you but be careful.)

@taraquin Isn't there MSI Afterburner + Ctrl F which would reveal the voltage curve?

 

Yes all understood. I changed the Package Power Long to 12 within TPL in Thottlestop as per my earlier post but it would seem that didn't work so would it if I click clamp or do I need ot do manual reg change or use XTU just for that?

 

Noooooo Package Power Long within TPL in Throttlestop is different. It is not the TDP. iirc that's the time or current limit or something. I have mine set to 2000 but on some laptops things in TPL Throttlestop don't work. No registry change will ever change how your CPU functions. You can use XTU to change current limits or TDP or whatever, but I just think RW-Everything is easier

 

I know on my old Dell Venue 11 Pro i5 4300Y tablet there was a thread over here that suggested using grub shell and entering some commands to permanently change / disable the long term limit, Package Power Limit Lock and thermal throttling threshold so when you then used Throttlestop and set Package Power Long to 12 and Package Power Short to 15 these values stuck. Would something similar work for Skylake based CPUs?

 

There is no harm in trying.

Your skylake CPU is two generations newer than the haswell i5-4300Y based tablet. Be aware than in 2 years of development, Dell has probably found some way to lock things down even further. When modifying your bios, please be careful. Some programs will happily erase your bios. If your thermals are ok, then I think the best thing to do is open RW-Everything (Or XTU if you want) and change the TDP when you want extra performance, but I think a tablet will struggle to cool 8W+ of constant heat passively

 

That's impossible.

When you undervolt the amperage drops proportionally too. Each chip has a range of usable voltages/amperage where it's stable (i.e. not just the official voltages...). The reason that the defaults are higher for a specific cpu are so that a higher percentage of chips can get sold instead of junked...

 

Sorry. Just forgot my fundamental electric knowledge lol. If Voltage drops so does current.

 

Bingo! it was some hypervisor setting, fixed.

It is different indeed - the device i have is actually the eve V. its passively cooled, and set to the TDP up of 7w.

https://eve-tech.com/pages/eve-v/

You've actually been a great help! i learned a lot by using throttlestop and figuring out what all the options and doodads mean and do.

Anyway about the overheating, that actually seems to be a quirk with that comes with having a passively cooled Y processor - the box is almost never empty.

It'll probably make sense after you see this; its a graph i made out of a random 3 hour log i captured where i wasn't really doing anything:



there are more below, i'll describe what was going on in each.

all of these were done with only a 57mv undervolt in cpu and cache with throttlestop. speedshift was at 63 (plugged in, best performance battery setting) except one of the LinX runs, which was at 0. everything else was left untouched.

This is a five minute run of TS bench:


5mins where i opened 4 tabs of youtube loading with 4k60 videos:

computer was in the middle calculating a moving average, i think. looks singlethreaded at first then multi later:

LinX runs: like i mentioned - i'm not sure why they dipped to 1.8Ghz like that - there didn't appear to be any reason to throttle, just a PL1 Limit.

LinX @ 63EPP


LinX @ 0EPP



settings:

Intel(R) LINPACK 64-bit data - LinX v0.9.1 (MKL: 2018.1.009)

Current date/time: Fri Mar 02 15:04:48 2018

CPU frequency: 3.280 GHz
Number of CPUs: 1
Number of cores: 2
Number of threads: 4

Parameters are set to:

Number of tests: 1

Number of equations to solve (problem size) : 32717
Leading dimension of array : 32728
Number of trials to run : 1
Data alignment value (in Kbytes) : 4
Maximum memory requested that can be used=8566754464, at the size=32717

=================== Timing linear equation system solver ===================

Size LDA Align. Time(s) GFlops Residual Residual(norm) Check
32717 32728 4 455.109 51.3043 8.989363e-10 2.984896e-02 pass

Performance Summary (GFlops)

Size LDA Align. Average Maximal
32717 32728 4 51.3043 51.3043

Residual checks PASSED

End of tests

 

Hi all,
I have a Thinkpad X230 with the standard i5-3320M that I wanted to undervolt for better battery life and less fan noise under medium load, however ThrottleStop 8.50 doesn't show the "FIVR" button on my machine.
Does this mean that this processor can't be undervolted using ThrottleStop? Or is access to the function somehow locked?

 

The FIVR button will only appear if you have a 4th Generation or newer CPU. Your 3320M is a 3rd Generation Core i CPU so you cannot use ThrottleStop or any software that I know of to under volt it.

Me too! I have learned a lot by developing TS. It gives you a much better understanding of Intel based computers. It can do a lot of interesting things with a wide variety of chips that Intel has turned out during the last decade.

 

lol i forgot to ask, do you have any idea what might be causing the drop to 1.8 in the linx run? i checked the logs, there was only the PL1 limit, it doesn't look like it should be throttling.

 

I was wondering why you posted all them graphs. I usually have to beg people to provide me with some info so I can get clued in to what is going on. In your case I can finally say, "Too Much Information!"

Just kidding. LinX is an obscenely over kill app for any device packing a 7 Watt CPU. If ThrottleStop is showing PL1 throttling then that is what is causing the throttling. Some mobile CPUs could use 50 Watts or 100 Watts to run LinX at full speed. 7 Watts doesn't go very far when running this app.

 

Lol yeah, I did see yo umention that multiple times about posting info - I actually only intended to make the first few, just to see if there was anything interesting.

I ended up with a bunch more because I forget to turn off logging. I just saw found that I logged an 8 hour period yesterday heh.

 

Hi fellas. I'm giving undervolting a go with my new Clevo, and I generally understand it, but are there anywhre I can get a good "start" value for a 8700K? As I understand it, it's CPU Core, CPU Cache and iGPU that I undervolt FIVR on. Are there any general starting points and max etc?

Also, what are the relation between CPU and GPU? Do I lower one till it crashes, then the other one etc?

 

@Muyfa666 A while ago I made a post about overclocking my Dell M6800 using ThrottleStop. It may be helpful for you, so check it out: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/throttlestop-overclocking-dell-precision-m6800.812606/
If you only want to undervolt it, without using PowerCut feature, then just reduce the voltage offset a bit at a time. There is no such thing as "start value". Each cpu will start becoming unstable at different points. If you want to alter VCCIN value (and presumably to override CPU's power limitations by enabling PowerCut), then you should start with a safe value (which gives enough power to your CPU to start with). While I can't tell you about a "safe" starting point, you should document yourself about your cpu's default parameters (you can find it on Intel's website).

Bear in mind that in my particular case, getting my CPU to 3.9GHz implied LOWERING the VCCIN (value was set to approx 1.365V) along with voltage offset set to negative (approx -45mV)., but once I wanted to breach the 4GHz barrier, I had to increase VCCIN to 1.4073V and also the Voltage Offset was minimal (-10mV .. -12mV). So, you see, is half science, half experimentation (call it art, if you like).

 

I already played around with it a bit and found some stable values. Problem is, I don't quite understand WHERE in the bios I should input them.

As you say, I only wan to undervolt with no bells and whistles. CPU/Cache and iGPU are the values I change in ThrottleStop and have a stable result.

 

@Muyfa666 I'm not familiar with how Clevo bios is and if it has any feature to allow you to tamper with this values, but why don't you just keep using TS? Ts is meant to run on your machine and apply the settings you have configured. Is not just a "testing" software to find out the values.
I personally have 3 profiles set and I keep it running all the time:
- Safe Performance (it basically overrides default settings, but with better power draw-to-performance ratio). I managed to get same long-run performance without overheating the CPU
-Overclocking (it will force the CPU to 4GHz), but at times it will get thermal throttling (when it automatically switches to Safe Performance for brief periods of time)
-Battery (limits frequency to 2.8GHz and power draw to 35W tops).

So, bottom line: just configure it right and make a shortcut in startup folder, so it will start with your system. It's footprint on memory or cpu is rather minimal (read that in not noticeable).

 

One more question: in ThrottleStop, I undervolt CPU/Cache and iGPU due to a guide. Is it really needed to undervolt the iGPU at all since I only run a discreet GPU?

 

Undervolting iGPU isn't needed at all. I saw zero benefit from it and sometimes you get strange UI freezes when iGPU was undervolted.

 

And iGPU is fully locked out from be used in Clevo LGA laptops.

 

Thanks fellas.

 

Open ThrottleStop, check the "system tray" and "start minimized" option. When you start it, ThrottleStop will do its work in the background. You do have to start it after a reboot and such, I believe there already are ways to automatically do it posted in here or on the first page (ex using Windows scheduler.


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Still wishing for Pentium 4-M support

 

Hi!
I got Throttlestop to work quite well with the P8600 in my HP HDX18. The problem is, although "Start minimized" is checked and it should always stay in the notification area, it likes to pop up on screen sometimes during use(temps are ok, no alarm goes off) and always at startup/wakeup. This is quite annoying...also, the "normal/default" profiles do not obey the VID I set for them(which is 0.987v, the value I know I can undervolt my CPU when it's running default speeds). The reported voltage actually stays higher than the "dual IDA" profile(1,025v, and works)...The extra 5% speed is nice to have, but it would be really cool if sone CPUgenie functionality could be added for C2D CPUs, for voltage fine tuning.
Thank you for the work!

 

Hello,
I'm playing with ThrottleStop and 7700k. I've noticed that when I disable SpeedShift and set constant clock multiplier, to i.e. 4.2Ghz, I'm able to use higher undervolt (-160mV) than when I leave SpeedShift enabled with 1 to 42 with EPP=80 (-140mV). Does it make any sense? How does voltage offset work when SpeedShift is enabled? Is it possible that CPU sometimes is not able to catch up with right voltage when shifting speeds too quickly so constant clock is undervolt-friendly?

 

I know ThrottleStop used to have this problem. I cannot remember "why" at the moment. You are the only person to mention this problem recently so first of all, what version of ThrottleStop are you using? Are you using the Task Scheduler to start TS when Windows starts? Did you follow the guide in the second post of this thread. I never have this popping up problem so I am trying to think what might be causing it for you.

ThrottleStop only works correctly on Core 2 CPUs when you are using the Windows High Performance power profile with the Min and Max processor state both set to 100%.

If you need CPU Genie functionality, you will have to use CPU Genie. If everyone that used ThrottleStop paid me $14.95 then I could afford to spend infinite time and money on this project and do even more with ThrottleStop than it already does. Sadly, that never happened. 8th Gen support is the end of the road for ThrottleStop. Time to move on.

That is not going to happen. I have already got 6 different computers in my living room alone and there are a few more in the basement. No plans to acquire any more computers for development purposes.

Speed Shift varies the CPU speed continuously so your problem makes sense. A CPU that is held to a constant voltage and speed should be more stable than one that is constantly varying its speed. It is impossible for the voltage curve a CPU needs to be exactly equal to what it gets at every point along the curve. A little bit of extra voltage to keep a CPU stable is normal.

 

I'll donate you one for development