The ThrottleStop Guide

Need help with more limit reasons. I recently got a VR CURRENT limit reason in CORE. This happened while I was stress testing for stability. Also, I have BD PROCHOT in both CORE and GPU after a game of csgo. However, none of the max temps of gpu or cpu are high. CPU max core was 78C and gpu was 55C

 

You almost had the solution on your own questions in #10453
Increase the power limits in TPL window and do the same for IccMax in FIVR window. Its just a power limit. Nothing will break if you increase it. Worst case... Higher Cpu temp or Temp throttling.

You can't expect that your shiny car will reach 200km/h if you yourself have capped it at 100km/t with some sorts of software you found on the web.

 

So if I keep increasing those worst case is thermal throttling? I am increasing ICC to 145 and power limits to 200 and still getting the limits. Is it still safe in those numbers? I am getting these in prime95 which is a usage I will probably never get, so I guess I should not worry too much about the limits.

 

As I said... worst case is Cpu thermal throttling. But remember also components as VRM's on the MB also will run hotter. They share same heatsink as the processor. If it run too hot... Try re-paste and re-pad. If it still run too hot... Sell it or accept that you bought a lackluster product.

 

The ThrottleStop thread is now 1046 pages and still going strong. Search this thread and search the internet too. There are not a lot of reports of damaged laptops. Listen to @Papusan and crank all of your limits up so your CPU can run at its maximum speed. The program is called ThrottleStop for a reason. You want to stop throttling, not create throttling. You are going to give this wonderful program a bad name if you use it to slow down your CPU.

When you close and exit ThrottleStop, it will no longer be able to monitor or control your CPU voltage or CPU speed. If you were using ThrottleStop and you set it to under volt your CPU -100 mV, that under volt will remain until some other program comes along and changes it. If you go into Sleep mode, when you resume, if ThrottleStop is not running, all of your offset voltages are usually reset. You can run another monitoring program like HWMonitor or HWiNFO if you wish to see what happens to your under volt when ThrottleStop is running or when ThrottleStop is not running.

I leave ThrottleStop running all the time. When it is minimized to the system tray, it is extremely light on memory usage and CPU resources. I know that it will make sure that my CPU continues to run as I want it to run. If you intend to use ThrottleStop to control your CPU, let it run. Let it control your CPU. Do not just depend on chance that your CPU will not be taken over by Windows or by some other program.

 

Exactly.

A nice small feature with ThrottleStop. If you run it the whole time... Go into Options in main TS windows and there you can enable Cpu temp monitoring who will show your Cpu temp in the system tray. This for those whitch is paranoid regarding overheating/scared their new toy running too hot. No need for special monitoring software if all you want is follow the Cpu temp.

 

Hey, I have a question limit reasons. What is the EDP OTHER reason for? I have always seen PL2 and EDP OTHER on CORE and RING whenever I turn my laptop on which I know it is fine, but lately, I have also seen EDP OTHER under GPU when I turn my laptop on. Also, after the first time I saw EDP OTHER under GPU, I was using my laptop for browsing and videos (had quite a few chrome tabs open 7+), and it suddenly restarted. No BSOD just video freezed and restarted. I bought the laptop less than a week ago.

Acer Predator Helios 300 2019
i7 7950H
GTX1660ti
16GB Ram

 

I’ve run into a strange situation, after installing and running TS on 2 different computers it uninstalled itself the next day and says the program has been removed or file location is changed.It did it by itself! Can’t even find the download anywhere on my laptop, this happen to anyone else?
It’s weird because it was running fine on both laptops.

 

ThrottleStop does not have an installer and it does not have any ability to uninstall itself. Are you using the same antivirus program on both computers? Something running on your computer thinks that ThrottleStop is bad news. Some manufacturers would probably agree. It sounds like some nanny software has gone rogue and removed the ThrottleStop zip file too.

EDP stands for Electrical Design Point. This one usually refers to the current limit. When PL1 or PL2 throttling is triggered, usually EDP OTHER on the RING lights up in red at the exact same time. If you see EDP OTHER light up in red across all 3; CORE, GPU, RING; that is usually a sign of an actual current limit holding your CPU back. I have mentioned before that it is not unusual for some of these throttling flags to appear after you first boot up or after you resume from sleep. Anything in yellow is not a problem. Only when you are stress testing and a throttling reason is glowing red, that confirms that there is an actual problem. A red box and a lower multiplier are like fingerprints at the scene of a crime. In this case, the crime is throttling which is pure evil.

 

Only antivirus I have is Windows Defender and don’t use anything else.

 

I have been using Windows Defender for a few months now and as far as I know, files and programs have not been disappearing off of my computer. It has not complained about ThrottleStop. Not sure what happened to your computer. I just know that ThrottleStop did not delete itself. That would not make any sense.

Did you try downloading it from TechPowerUp and running it again? I saw one site recently that added an extra .dll file to the download. It did not look legit.

 

You do know that Major Geeks hosts Throttle Stop right? I submit updates to them

 

I know that.

The W1zzard at TechPowerUp signs the exe so I always recommend downloading the version of ThrottleStop that TechPowerUp hosts. Some sites are not hosting this version.



Edit - I just downloaded TS from MajorGeeks and they are not hosting the signed TechPowerUp version. Using a signed exe probably helps keep some of the antivirus programs happy.

 

Maybe Windows Defender is angry at under volting software. It does not like Intel XTU either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/d1ib7k/trojan_in_xtu_and_awcc_on_dell_g5/

Maybe I should post, "Removing XTU from your system is doing you a favor!"

 

I’ll give it a shot, I did download it from the link in the first post and hopefully it sticks.
Love TS and used for a lot of laptops so I’m not giving up.

 

The amusing with this... Dell use Microsoft Store to push out their software to their customers Afterwards will M$ own antivirus flag it as malware once the users have download it from Microsoft Store, LOOL

 

AI suffering from digital schizophrenia.

 

Hi guys, especially @unclewebb ! I last wrote the throttlestop guide in 2017 for notebookcheck. I'm going to be updating the guide for my site, Ultrabookreview, and there's a few features that have been added in the last 2 years for sure.

Personally, the way I use TS has not changed over the last 2 years, but if someone is familiar with the features would like to highlight some of the main changes since then, I would be super appreciative! Thanks much to anyone in advance for any help!

 

Custom Logo Feature... http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-880#post-10796492

 

That's a good one.

Anything else? I particularly need to cover the functional usage of the TPL panel in modern laptops. I haven't bothered messing with that

 

The throttlestop guide (2019) has moved here and is currently being overhauled for organization and readability ! If you could update the link in your post, it would help me out a lot .Thank you! <3

https://www.ultrabookreview.com/31385-the-throttlestop-guide/

 

Is there any way to stop Throttlestop from monitoring in the background?

 

Did you try clicking on the Stop Data button? This does not completely stop monitoring but it changes it to only once per minute. ThrottleStop is such a light weight app that on a modern CPU, there really is no practical reason to do this. When ThrottleStop is minimized to the system tray, CPU and memory usage are not significant.

Done. Thanks for helping users by updating your guide. I renamed your link to The ThrottleStop Guide (2019). The other link in my signature to this forum is called ThrottleStop Forum. That seems to make sense and will hopefully get a few more people checking out the new and improved guide.

 

Oh, okay. Is there a way for Stop Data to remain checked even after a restart? Because it goes back to Start Data with each restart of the system.

 

You have found a bug! It only took a year and a few hundred thousand downloads for someone to report it.

The Stop Data status is not being saved immediately like it should be. This means that when you restart Windows, ThrottleStop does not have a chance to save this info before Windows restarts. Windows 10 is just too fast at shutting down.

After making a change to Stop Data, you will need to exit ThrottleStop so it can save this info properly. It saves the status of this button in the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file.

StopMonitoring=1

Try clicking on Stop Data, exit ThrottleStop and then restart ThrottleStop. After this test, leave ThrottleStop running and then try restarting Windows. If all goes well, after booting up when you start ThrottleStop, it should be in Stop Data mode.

I will look into getting this fixed up in the next release. I will try to send you a one off special next week for bringing this to my attention. Thanks.

 

I followed your instructions and after a restart Stop Data remained! That fixed it. Thank you. Also, what exactly does the turn on and off button at the main window do? If it is set to off does speed shift and the set EPP value still work? When turned off I noticed that any values changed in the C10 window are being ignored.

 

To be honest, not very much anymore. I added that button to ThrottleStop during the early days of development to try to trick users into giving ThrottleStop a try. Some people were afraid that TS might make their laptop go nuclear so they needed some encouragement. Now that everyone uses TS, I will probably ditch that button.

Check out the Search feature for all the details.

Do you mean the C State window? The majority of items that you can check and adjust in the C State window do not do very much regardless of the Turn On Turn Off button state. The C State data is useful information but that window could use a make over too. I cannot remember anyone saying that they depend on any adjustment within that window.

 

I see, well with C1 Auto Demotion ticked my all core clock speeds go below boost levels under load. With it ticked off they stay at boost levels. Hence why I asked and mentioned about the turn off button since it seems to affect the C State window.

 

@geust123455 - The On Off button should not make any difference to C1 Auto Demotion but anything is possible. On my 4th Gen, C1 Auto Demotion does not seem to do anything. On newer CPUs, maybe Intel uses this more now, whatever it does.

Can you post a couple of screenshots so I can see what you are seeing. For testing, try using a consistent load like 1 or 2 or a few threads of the TS Bench. Show me as much TS info when idle or loaded as you can.

 

Hello, can the TCC Activation Offset at MSR 0x1A2 be adjusted with ThrottleStop?

 

No.

 

Hey guys, I know it's been a while if you remember this.

Turns out the issue might have resided with my PSU. Last week I started the RMA process with EVGA and got a new unit with a transferred warranty today. While the old one only passed one out of five firestrike tests, this new unit has passed twenty out of twenty tests. The real test will come this weekend when I get back to proper gaming.

@unclewebb I did skim your reply. Will this be a problem in the future or could it be related to my old unit? Haven't done any real testing nor have I reenabled BDPROCHOT yet which I should actually be doing later today after work.

 

bit of a random question but i was wondering if anyone could possibly give me a fix: I have an HP Spectre X360 with an Intel I7 8550u processor, I used to be able to undervolt around -95mV for both the core and the cache. This would get me lower temps and even when playing games like overwatch I would be able to manage ~60fps or greater without the fan blowing up. Nowadays, with the same undervolt, my fans are much louder, the temps are higher, and my fps/performance has tanked by comparison...all of the latest drivers/updates/everything are installed on my laptop so i was wondering if there was a change in throttlestop? I have not changed any other settings in the program other than the cache/core voltages in FIVR...thanks in advance

 

Any bios, driver, or os updates can affect this.

 

is there a workaround/fix possible that could get things back to how they were? or is the solution to simply mess around with voltages/undervolting again until i see similar results? thank you! (i understand uninstalling updates/drivers is an option as well)

 

I don't know your hardware, so someone else will have to chime in on specifics. All I can recommend doing is rolling back your updates in this order: bios, drivers, os.

 

Why? I cannot think of any reason to enable BD PROCHOT. Whether this is enabled or not, if your CPU ever gets too hot, it will throttle and slow down just as Intel intended it to do.

There has not been any new releases of ThrottleStop so something else has changed. Turn the Log File option on in ThrottleStop and go play a game. When you are done testing, exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize the log file data. Have a look in the ThrottleStop/Logs folder. Your log file should be in there. Remember to enable GPU temperature monitoring in the Options window if your GPU is supported. Does the FIVR monitoring table still show that your under volt is being applied? Post some screenshots so I have something to go by and upload a log file to www.pastebin.com or somewhere convenient so I can have a look. Maybe bouncing your laptop on your knee has loosened up your heatsink and fan so cooling is not as good as it used to be.

 

My notebook's default power limits are PL1 60 W, and PL2 90 W. I've increased them to 100/100 in ThrottleStop, and it used to not make a difference. Now, however, my CPU is limited to 50 W, and I've lost around 200 points in CB R15. Does anyone have any idea why this might have happened?

 

@Ionising_Radiation - Did you update the bios recently? There might have been a change in the default long term power limit. Does the FIVR - Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits feature do anything on your CPU? I think many Dell laptops ignore this trick.

If you want to help uncover the mystery, hold the Shift key down and select the Shut down option in the Windows menu to completely shut down and reset your CPU. When you boot back up, do not run ThrottleStop or XTU or any other software that might be messing with your power limits. There might be some Dell specific software (fan control?) that you are using that has been updated recently that is changing your power limits so watch out for that.

After you boot back up, download and run the Dump program that was written by Dufus a long time ago.

Dump
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0dpSo9k93jDX1Fpa1FpTmo1Qk0

You might need to right click on Dump.exe and specifically run it as Admin. It will go through and create a small file that will show all of the contents of all of the various registers. To most normal people, it will not make much sense. If you send the Dump.txt file to me, I can have a look in there to see what your power limits are set to. Send it to me in a private message if you do not want the world to see it.

The bios sets the turbo power limits when you boot up and usually they do not change when you resume from sleep. If no other software like ThrottleStop or XTU is running on your computer, these power limits should stay the same. On some computers, some people have noticed changes depending on whether they boot up cleanly or resume from sleep. If you think your laptop might have this problem and if you want to test for that, send me two Dump.txt files. The more the merrier as long as they are clearly marked. It is always fun to learn something new and maybe find a way to overcome whatever is holding your CPU back. The big wigs at Dell are probably gritting their teeth!

Some laptop specific software might also change these power limits when you change to different performance modes like full speed and quiet, etc.

 

Just a quick question, how come you can't enable Throttlestop to load up on boot directly from the app like how Rainmeter does it and have to go through the task scheduler to do it?

 

I did, but HWiNFO and the Intel Power Gadget still reports PL1 and PL2 as 60 and 90 W respectively.

I have checked that box, but it doesn’t appear to do much. I usually managed to achieve a consistent 60 W power draw in games and Cinebench R15, and as the screenshot shows, in a properly-cooled room (need it because a 30 °C ambient temperature is terrible for benching), my CPU used to achieve a consistent ~1300 points.

At any rate, I booted with ThrottleStop disabled, and have generated two dump files, one just after a clean boot, and another after resume from sleep. A quick vimdiff shows differences, but I can’t figure out the encoding of the hex, so I’ll just upload them here.

Thanks very much!

 

Hi guys, Is there a way to set throttle stop to maximize turbo time ? as in , keep a few cores running in Turbo . For example if the turbo on a cpu is 4.5ghz for 2 cores, maybe one could disable the 4 other cores in the bios, then run only the 2 cores at turbo all the time , something along this line ?

 

@Ionising_Radiation - Thanks for the logs. MSR 0x610 is where the package power limits are hiding. In that register you will see the first group of numbers ends in 2D0 and the second group of numbers ends in 1E0.

0x2D0 = 720
720 / 8 = 90 Watts

0x1E0 = 480
480 / 8 = 60 Watts

That looks correct. If you scroll down to the bottom of the log file at line 0x1A0, you will see these same power limit numbers in the memory mapped IO so no problem there either.

Run ThrottleStop with Limit Reasons open while running Cinebench. Does PL1 or PL2 light up in red at 50 Watts or maybe there is another kind of throttling going on. Post a screenshot of that test while your CPU is loaded and throttling. Some other limit might have changed after a recent update.

@jcarn - Intel CPUs disable unused cores automatically so they can use more turbo boost and run faster. You can go into the bios and disable cores manually but there is very little to be gained. Anytime more performance is needed, if a core is disabled by the bios, you will end up with less performance. That is why most users avoid doing this. Intel CPUs do a great job without needing any user intervention.

I have no idea how to program that feature. At the time, writing a Task Scheduler guide was easier and less work for me.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/#post-6865107

There have not been too many complaints about this limitation. Does ThrottleStop really need this feature? I now have access to some code from the W1zzard at TechPowerUp. If I ever do some more programming, I will try adding this feature to ThrottleStop.

When the rookies get their computers stuck in a BSOD boot loop, I will send them your way and tell them, TheUberMedic thought this new feature would be a good idea.

 

@unclewebb, thanks for the quick replies.

I took two screenshots, scrolling down the core count. I have very uneven temps—two cores are up to 18 °C cooler than the other four. I always experience thermal throttling, but it always always ran at 60 W.

 

What was Max PKG Power? Higher clocks when the benchmark started and temps was lower? Test with a short benchmarks as Wprime 32M (remember select 12 threads in Options). Or just use the benchmark tool in TS.

 

Hmm, I ran the TS Bench using 64 MB, and the first time I ran, power draw went up to 60 W for a tiny moment and dropped back down to 54 W, and slowly decreased further to ~49 W.

 

EDP Other is Red. Try increase the PP0 Current Limit and the IccMax Current limits.

Prochot kick in and may ramp down Voltage (or the thermal throttling). Less voltage = Less PKG Power.

 

It's just something that'd be nice to have. When I was trying to get TS to work using task scheduler, it took a lot of hassle to get it properly working cause TS kept refusing to open using it. It's working now but it'd be nice for someone who's getting started with it.

 

@Ionising_Radiation - Look at Limit Reasons. The primary reason for throttling is THERMAL. PROCHOT 98°C shows that Dell set the thermal throttling temperature to 98°C instead of the Intel specified value of 100°C. The check mark beside PROCHOT confirms thermal throttling.

Your screenshot shows a core at 98°C. The processor is definitely hot! Your CPU is not being held back by a 50 Watt power limit. It is thermal throttling and slowing down because your heatsink and fan can only dissipate 50 Watts of heat. If you want to see more performance, you have to fix the cooling solution. It is inadequate.

If it was better before then something has changed. Is your room temperature higher? Maybe the thermal paste needs to be replaced and any dust needs to be cleaned out.

Edit - A wide variation in temps from core to core might indicate that the heatsink is not sitting square on the CPU cores.

 

@unclewebb, it was thermal-throttling indeed. In an AC room at ~20 degrees C, the CPU drew up to 70 W consistently in Cinebench and achieved a score of 1350 points.

I'm thinking of getting rid of the thermal paste (was Cooler Master Maker Gel Nano) and using graphite thermal pads. Good idea or not, what do you think?