The ThrottleStop Guide

Unclewebb, thanks a lot for the detailed answer! For me, only the 4 demolition and undemolition buttons are available, as well as the C1E checkbox. Do you think any of the demolition options could help with whine? With the C1E so far, I've found out that it actually helps with the whine if I switch it ON.

 

Where can I get beta 2?

 

If the bios is unlocked then you can click on the C1/C3/C6 button in the C States window and play with that. I haven't played with the promotion and demotion options. I did a copy and paste of the Intel docs to name these but it hurts my brain when I try to think of what they actually do.

Meaker: I will send you a PM. Beta 2 lets you access the 8 to 12 multipliers on the Ivy CPUs but I don't think you will ever see any significant difference in power consumption if you decide to use these.

 

so i can adjust my package power limit up to 60 but the risk of that is overheating right? I have bd prochot off and playing BF3 on ultra got 2 cores to 99 degress celsius and 2 to 96 degrees celsius. Is that still safe or am I about to fry my cpu?

As you can see, I've also set the alarm in option. I was aiming that it would switch to profile 2, which is default settings, if the temperature reaches 90+ but it seems that that didn't work since it still reached 99 degrees. Did I do anything wrong?

I gotta say this thing really works. I used to lag on BF if I turned on the anti-aliasing. With this and my gpu(GT540m) overclocked I can play it smoothly with no lag whatsoever. Kudos!

EDIT: Oh btw, what's wPrime and how do I use that? Do I use it with throttlestop or do I use it on it's own?

 

OK, it's clear now, thanks a lot!

 

Hi UncleWebb, great program.
However, after using it for 1 day I now get an expired message and it will no longer run. (This is the version 5 beta)
Do you know what is causing this?

 

you can run at 99C but you are going to burn it out. I dont run my 920xm more then 85C. I try to keep it at 80C or less because I want it to last. I am currently limited to 2.8-3.33GHz until i can come up with a better method of cooling.

 

bogartzin: The maximum Turbo Power Limits for the 2nd Generation Core i Dual Core CPUs are 36 watts for the long term limit and 44 watts for the short term limit. The Quad Cores are 48W - 60W for the non-Extreme CPUs.

If you are going to use 2 different Profiles and an Alarm setting to switch Profiles then you will need to make sure that Profile 2 is set slow enough so it prevents your CPU from going up to 99C. That's too high and is probably reaching the 100C thermal throttling temperature briefly. Adjust the multiplier low enough on Profile 2 so your CPU doesn't get this hot.

wPrime is a popular benchmark program that can fully load your CPU. It's results tend to be fairly consistent from one run to the next.

Download | wPrime

It's a good program when playing with TDP - TDC settings. You can watch the multiplier in ThrottleStop as wPrime is running. You might need to hold the Shift key down on your keyboard if wPrime hangs when first starting up as it tries to detect your hardware. Either that or run the v.1.55 which I don't think has that issue.

 

beta expired =)

 

There should be a new beta up later today when Brian at Tech | Inferno has a chance to get it uploaded.

The beta is only for Ivy Bridge CPUs. If you don't have one of them, continue using version 4.10.

 

Hi all, quick issue I would love a bit of input on:
Firstly, So long as it's running Throttlestop is absolutely always controlling my CPU, even when it's on turned off/monitoring.
That is to say that when it's off, if I make a change (turn on Disable Turbo for example) it's instantly reflected in my multiplier.
Second is that if I let it use Turbo, it will try and use ONLY turbo.
Whilst Throttlestop is running; (just monitoring or 'on') I have never seen my computer ramp up to use Turbo and then throttle back down without my telling it to. And I've seen it get up to 102C and shut itself off because of it.
It's got to the point where nothing I can do as far as a can tell can make Throttlestop do what I want it to. Which is namely, run at full speed (2.4ghz), using Turbo when there's a bit of room heatwise (2.8ghz), and come back down to 2.4ghz when things get a bit hot, but NEVER go down to 1.2ghz, which is it's favourite trick left to it's own devices. And it never really seems to recover once it goes down there.
I know there isn't a lot of wiggle room for me heatwise, as I have a Sandy i5 Acer machine, but with a decent cooling pad I can stress it at 2.4 and never get over 90, and run at 2.8 for about 15 minutes at a time without hitting over 95. So naturally I would like the best of both. 2.8 all the time I can get away with it. Any thoughts on what's going on with TS here? Doesn't seem to be doing what it's supposed to be doing...
Cheers all
_______________________________________
Acer 4830TG - i5-2430m. 8GB, GT540m @ 820/1020

And I have tried setting it to change between profiles (one set at 28x, one at 24x) when it gets above 95C, but it just keeps yo-yoing between the two profiles, and jams the temperature firmly on 95, rather than possibly give it a minute to get cool, then coming back up to 28x for 10-15 minutes.

 

lbrooker14: Don't blame ThrottleStop because Acer created a crappy laptop with inadequate cooling.

The way Intel thermal throttling works is it can let your CPU run for hours at the maximum safe temperature which for Sandy is a core temperature under 100C. If ThrottleStop "jams the temperature firmly on 95", that's a good thing. ThrottleStop is operating exactly as intended.

Here is the original testing I did a long time ago to prove that Intel CPUs are built tough. I ran Prime95 on a desktop E8400 CPU, increased the core voltage and did a 20% overclock to create some heat. The icing on the cake was disconnecting the CPU fan from the motherboard to simulate a worst case situation.

Guess what happened? Absolutely nothing. Prime95 ran flawlessly for 3 hours, continuously bouncing off the Intel thermal throttle temperature. Intel designs their CPUs so they can run reliably at full speed even when they are running hot as hell.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/276/hote8400fw5.png

So that is why ThrottleStop does what it does by default.

Now if you had taken the time to read the included documentation, you would have discovered this INI option.

AlarmWait=

Setting this to the appropriate value might let you do exactly what you are looking to do. Be happy that someone came along and created some free software for you to control your CPU and mop up the mess that Acer decided was OK to ship. There is only so much you can do when a manufacturer drops the ball like this. If you can find a better solution than using ThrottleStop, go for it.

 

I"ve got a i7 3610qm cpu in an Asus G75VW I"ll be testing out the Beta 5 shortly, PM me and I can do some testing for you.

Just tried the 5.00 beta but after installing i'm getting the error "this version has expired"

 

Did you download it from the address in my sig?

Too many other sites like to steal stuff and then distribute it as their own.

 

Got it now 5.00 Beta 3, All features work great as they did on my previous i7 640m.

 

Thank you so much for developing this utility. I'm so eager to support you!

I only want to use this for undervolting my retina Macbook Pro (Intel i7-3615QM). Sadly the VID line is missing on both 4.0 and 4.1. Does this mean it's disabled in hardware? Or might a future release support it?

 

I'm also getting "This version has expired"... Throttlestop 5.00 beta 2. Must have expired. Have to protect your product somehow!

 

VID adjustment was eliminated by Intel when the first Core i CPU was released in November 2008. Version 5.00 beta 3 includes support for your Ivy Bridge CPU so you can play around with multipliers and the turbo TDP limits. This is available for Mac owners but sadly, most PC laptops have decided to disable TDP adjustment by locking it out in the bios.

HTWingNut: I thought Beta 1 and 2 were originally intended to last until the end of July but I guess I am not very good at counting months. I must have got too excited to see if it would actually work on Ivy Bridge and it does.

Beta 3 is the same as beta 2 with access to the 8 multiplier and it is available from Tech | Inferno and is good until the end of July.

 

The TPL window lets me change and set things there on my Envy 17 with 3610QM.

Does that mean this is one of the few Ivy Bridge "PC laptops" that ThrottleStop supports?

 

Excellent! Thanks again.

 

I always like when users prove me wrong, especially if it means adjustable Turbo Power Limits.

Let me re-phrase my statement. Many of the 2nd Generation Core i laptops locked this feature. Hopefully some of the wiser manufacturers like HP will leave it unlocked so users will have more control of their laptops.

 

Apple has it unlocked on all mid-2012 MBA 11 and 13s. Full on Turbo FTW!

 

Too bad the awful (cooling) design of all apple products won't allow that for long...

 

That teeny weeny heatpipe of 10cm can support a 2.0GHz i7, what a breakthrough.

Thermal throttling occurs at 105C for IB.

Hey the last time I had unlocked Turbo was on Arrandale i5-460M.

 

Somethings strange, I've been running F@H while running TessMark. Once the CPU reaches 90 it throttles a bit, and 93+ I only get 2.7GHz (normal is 2.9GHz turbo). Usually I get 25x99.77 CPU freq while 89 and below, but it throttles at 90 and above.

I decided to check on the TJmax for a 2450M, it's 100c. I wonder why this throttles?

Basically I want to prevent throttle or if possible turn it off.

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

This is in your Macbook?

Try an apple specific cooler...

You don't want to disable the throttling - this is what is keeping your notebook alive.

 

It's my N43SM, I already removed the fan filters for better airflow and using a Notepal U3.

I don't see the point of throttling a CPU if the temperature is below the TJmax.

I just want it to go @ 2.9GHz full-time on 97c below, 98c and above throttling is understandable, but below anything below 97 is unacceptable

 

Hmmm...

A 35W part in a 14" notebook - I would be blaming the cooling design of the notebook here...

Also, the sensors are not always accurate - what is reported (and/or where it is reported from...) is not always what the processor bases its throttling decisions on).

Also, it depends on how effective the Notepal U3 is with your specific notebook and the ambient temperature where it's used.

Overall, I would say you're doing pretty good with a 35W part in a 14" chassis and hitting 93% (sustained?) maximum of the Turbo limits (turbo is dependant on all the things discussed above).

All I can think of to recommend is that a different cooler is used and/or the notebook is taken apart and thoroughly cleaned (fans/ducts/etc.) of dust/debris. If you can take it apart to this degree - a quality application of fresh thermal paste should also help (at least a little) too.

Turbo limits are not what the notebook is guaranteed to work at (sustained) - just what it can hit if all the variables allow it to.

From my point of view, your system is performing to spec.

Good luck.

 

Do you have BD PROCHOT checked? This is a signal path that lets other items on your motherboard tell your CPU that it is hot and it should throttle even if it has not reached the Intel specified throttling temperature.

You might simply be running into the Turbo TDP limit. Intel's 2nd and 3rd Generation Core i CPUs have two different TDP power limits. You can not run at the higher Turbo TDP limit indefinitely. After a fixed amount of time, Turbo Boost will be reduced which decreases power consumption to keep your CPU under the lower Turbo TDP limit.

Many laptop manufacturers have decided to set a throttling temperature in the bios which is lower than the Intel specified TJ Max temperature. I disagree with this but a manufacturer can do whatever they want and consumers are free to return junk that doesn't live up to the hype.

Intel individually calibrates their CPU's core temperature sensors and bases thermal throttling and thermal shutdown on data from these sensors. ThrottleStop reports this info in the DTS column. When the Digital Thermal Sensor counts down to zero, your CPU will start to throttle, guaranteed but as mentioned, it might also throttle for a variety of different reasons sooner than this.

 

I have BD PROCHOT unchecked like you told me to a few weeks ago (throttle under GPU load)

F@H consumes about 30W while doing furmark on the 630M raises temps from 86 to 92 (the load on the GPU is what causes the extra heat, but I still want the CPU not to throttle >_< )

I just want to sustain turbo at 2.9GHz while 97 and below

I mean 93c as in the temps, sorry for the misunderstanding.

This laptop is new and really hard to disassemble @_@

 

Hi uNcleWebb

Just to say that your last beta 3 finally allows me to run at full turbo on my Clevo W170ER. Beta 2 did not work.

Well, seems like turbo was deactivated for a good reason cause it gets hot at full turbo when gaming

Anyway, thx for your great job.

 

I currently have the m11x r-2 i7 640um OC at 160HMz

I think i need some help. For some reason when I run the benchmarks With the TS bench I see no value change even with TS is on or off. Running 32m I get 44-46 secs with TS on, I get the same time with it off.

I thought this was pretty strange so i also tested on my friends notebook His ran at 32m 46-48 with it Off And 40 secs flat with it on. Same notebook and everything (M11x r-2 i7 640um OC at 160HMz)

am I doing something wrong? Force TDP at 4 TDP/TDC at 100/100.

Could it just be that some CPUs just are a little faster than others like how some can have a stable OC and some dont?

I've also tried TDP/TDC 20/30 And came out 45 secs with on and off. Seems the problem is I cant even tell if its working right. Though when i do set it to 10/30 I see a big decrease in speed about 55 ish secs

 

I've also ran some wPrime


1st one is on 2nd one is off

 

Hello,

I have recently upgraded from an i7 620M to an 920XM.
I was wondering what to do with throttlestop as i haven't figured it out yet.
I don't want to overclock the CPU, just want it to stay at full speed 3200mhz at all times in games.
Is this safe? if yes, how do i go about doing this? can you tell me what setting to put in there?

thanks in advance.

 

ssnr: Use wPrime when benchmarking. The M11x-R2 used to have a problem where the TDP/TDC values would get constantly reset to the default 10/30 values. Maybe the bios version you are using does not do that anymore.

When you exit ThrottleStop or click on the Turn Off button, it does not reset the TDP/TDC values. If nothing else is resetting these values then TDP/TDC will be at whatever values you previously set them to. This might be the reason why your testing does not show any difference.

There is no need to use a Force TDP/TDC value of 4 if this is not improving your wPrime times. Try testing wPrime with this set to 1000.

When testing, how about use ThrottleStop to set the TDP/TDC values and then exit ThrottleStop and run wPrime. You are seeing a big difference between 10/30 and 30/30 so obviously ThrottleStop is working for you but maybe you don't need to leave ThrottleStop running all the time. That would be a good thing. Maybe on your system you could run ThrottleStop once and immediately exit the program. Here's the original M11x-R2 Supercharge thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/524257-how-supercharge-m11x-core-i5-i7-um-cpus.html

tb303: You should do some wPrime testing too. Open up the Turbo Ratio Limits window and make sure those are all set to 24. Run wPrime and watch what average multiplier is reported. If you are not getting the full 24 multiplier then increase the TDP/TDC until you do. Your CPU may get too hot during this test and it might not be able to run fully loaded at the desired 24 multiplier. You need to do some hands on testing. Every CPU is unique so 90C during wPrime testing might be fine for one user but might scare another user. You need to adjust the TDP/TDC values to balance performance vs heat.

 

I ran into a strange issue (before my m17x R4 died from a bad BIOS flash)

When I enabled extreme edition in the BIOS, throttlestop indicated I could raise the Turbo Ratio limits on all cores to however I like. That was new to me. Also, package C state was also unlocked on the R4 vs the R3. However, none of my ratio limits would stick, as in I would have everything set to 40, I would turn it on and enable turbo through throttlestop, but the ratio wouldn't apply

 

Disable C1E, EIST, BD PROCHOT

Check Clock mod and Chipset mod to 100%

Check Set multiplier to Turbo

This is what ny ASUS N43 needs, maybe it will work in yours.

 

@unclewebb Wow thanks after messing around what you said is true, I only need to run it once then I can exit the program. Setting the force to 1000 also gave in improvement . Thanks again

Achieved 38 secs with TS test =)

 

technos: I have never owned or used any sort of 2nd Generation or 3rd Generation Core i CPU. Free software is a wonderful concept but the local computer store is not nearly as generous. I got tired of carrying the user community on my back so I stopped buying hardware for development purposes that I really don't need. No hardware + no documentation means that some features like being able to adjust the multiplier higher do not work correctly. Sorry about that.

ssnr: You're welcome. Supercharging the M11x-R2 was one of the highlights of ThrottleStop.

 

This was posted a long time ago, but I have the same issue and can't find a solution. I'm running on Vista, trying to use ThrottleStop in a standard account.

Does anyone know how to auto-start ThrottleStop in a Standard account and still have a working tray icon?

Thanks

 

I just did some testing and the only way I can get ThrottleStop to run in a Vista Standard account is to enable UAC.

If UAC is not enabled, I can not get ThrottleStop to start at all in a Standard account. This might be a safety feature that was added to Vista by one of the 1001 Windows patches or maybe my antivirus software is secretly protecting me from evil. When testing on Vista SP1, I end up getting this error message.



Windows Vista has blocked the WinRing0 driver from starting. Without UAC, it doesn't even give me the opportunity to enter an Administrator account and password.

Edit: I did some further testing and found that if I had RealTemp running in the Administrator account which also uses WinRing0, I could go back into the Standard account and ThrottleStop would start up correctly without any errors or without having to have UAC enabled. Vista / WinRing0 incompatibility bugs? Time for some Windows 7 testing.

With UAC enabled, you need to use the Task Scheduler to get ThrottleStop to AutoStart. An example of this is shown in the second post of this thread. If you use this method, the system tray icon will be visible but you might have to use the Windows "Show All Icons" feature to find it.

You should be in your Standard Account when you create this task. There is no need to do the last two steps in post #2. The "Run with highest privileges" option doesn't seem to do anything anymore. You will need to go into your Administrator account and open up Task Scheduler there to turn this option on if you want to test this. Maybe that was fixed in SP2.

With this method, you still need to enter an Administrator password each time you log in or start ThrottleStop manually.

You don't have to tell me that this is a big pain in the azz or that this really sucks because I totally agree.

ThrottleStop should never be used in two different accounts at the same time because you could end up with two different instances of ThrottleStop trying to control the same CPU which would not be a good idea.

 

Thank you very much unclewebb for your fast reply and for spending time testing! Also, since you appear to be the author of ThrottleStop, thank you very much for all your work on it as well!

I should clarify that I'm using Vista 32-bit SP2 with UAC enabled. UAC prompts don't bother me because I use the Norton Labs UAC tool that allows recurring UAC prompts to be hidden. However, I don't want to have to type in the admin password every time ThrottleStop launches, that would be more hassle than a UAC prompt because it requires typing.

I did start with the guide in post 2, but it didn't work quite as described for me. I fiddled with the task scheduler for several hours, trying different options. I was not able to create a scheduled task unless running task scheduler as admin. I found that it was necessary to reboot to test different settings, because logging out and back in didn't always give the same result. In the end, I could not find a way to reliably and silently start ThrottleStop for multiple accounts, some of which are standard accounts.

I think the ideal way to solve this would be to split TS into 2 parts, where the guts of TS (the part that does the work and needs admin access) would run as a service, and the UI (tray icons) would run as a separate program which doesn't need admin access. That way we could install the service one time for all accounts, the tray icons would be optional and could be more easily launched from any account, and there wouldn't be a concern about accidentally launching multiple instances.

I have confirmed that TS can run as a service, even with the current version 4.1. For now that is my solution for getting it to work with multiple accounts. Here is the procedure for setting it up.

In general I followed this guide for using the SrvStart utility to run ThrottleStop as a service:
Using SrvStart to Run Any Application as a Windows Service - How-To Geek

Here is my ini file. Note that shutdown_method is different from what they used, because the winmessage method does not work with TS.

[ThrottleStop]
startup="C:\Program Files\ThrottleStop\ThrottleStop.exe"
shutdown_method=command

Using this method, TS runs silently in the background. There are no tray icons, but it does its job of voltage and clock modulation. (You can see ThrottleStop in the Task Manager process list if you show processes from all users. You can verify that it is working by using a monitoring tool like CoreTemp.)

This method works for both admin and standard accounts. There are no prompts for UAC or admin password even on standard accounts, at least not on my Vista machine. And there should be no worries about multiple instances since the service is only started once even if there are multiple users logged in.

If you need to access the UI for any reason, you can go into services and stop the TS service, then just run TS as a normal program.

Thanks

--------------
Edited to revise task scheduler info and add service info.

 

So... new AnandTech review.. they used Throttlestop 5.0 AnandTech - Dell XPS 15 L521X: A Detailed First Look enjoy

 

Yes, I saw this too.

Congrats unclewebb! ThrottleStop is going primetime! (Hope it translates into some $$ for you for all your hard work on this software).

 

I updated post 1190 to add info about running ThrottleStop as a service. Here's a link to that post.

The ThrottleStop Guide - Post 1190

 

Hello everyone,
I just installed Throttlestop and it is working just fine, but I have a hardware related question. My Lenovo notebook (SL 510) throttles down to 12,5% clock modulation whenever I connect the power supply. This is most likely neither temperature nor load related. When I googled for similar problems I noticed that a lot of people have solved it by exchanging their power supply, or maybe upgrading it from 65W to 90W.
Is it possible that setting the clock modulation to 12,5% is completely intended by the manufacturer and possibly used to prevent overstraining a weak power supply? Is it likely that I will damage my power supply by resetting the clock to 100% with ThrottleStop?

Best regards

 

I have a Dell Latitude D830 and when switching from AC to battery power, it sets Clock Modulation to 75%. This lasts for approximately 10 seconds before it automatically returns Clock Modulation to 100%. This is done deliberately by Dell and I have to assume that it is a safety feature designed to protect the battery from sudden changes in power consumption.

How long does your laptop stay at 12.5% Clock Modulation? Without knowing exactly why manufacturers do what they do, no one in a forum can guarantee you the likely hood of anything. All I know is that a lot of people have been using ThrottleStop for the last few years and I can not remember any complaints about permanently damaged power supplies due to ThrottleStop. Some Dell owners, mostly extreme overclockers, have had their power supplies trip and have had to unplug and plug their power supply back in to reset them. A 65W power supply is in the barely adequate category. If you are worried, buy a 90W power supply or play it safe and don't use ThrottleStop.

chumley: Thanks for that update. I will add a link to the second post in this thread so other users can run ThrottleStop as a service if they need to. If you ever need to run 2 instances of ThrottleStop for monitoring purposes, you can trick it by renaming the .exe to ThrottleStop2.exe or whatever you want to call it. If you do this, ThrottleStop won't complain when you try to run multiple instances of it. It will create and use a different INI file but doing this might be useful for monitoring purposes.

I find it funny that throttling has been an issue on a wide variety of laptops for the last 3 years and FINALLY a mainstream media source thinks it is time to start mentioning this in their laptop reviews. I asked the senior editor at Tom's Hardware years ago to investigate this issue and they brushed it aside like it was unimportant. Thank-you AnandTech. What took so long?

Here's the thorough paper by Randall Cotton that motivated me to come up with a solution for this throttling stuff.

Free Cloud Storage - MediaFire

 

Thanks for the reply!
I fully understand that nobody can guarantee me that a software like this will not damage anything.
To answer your question: In the first few seconds after I connect the AC, the clock modulation stays at 100%, then it goes to 75%, then 50%, down to 12,5% and there it stays until you pull the plug again. I wasn't able to test if it also returns back to 100% when the battery is fully charged, yet.

And thanks for making this tool, I will keep using it for now because using the notebook at 12,5% clock modulation is really not an option

 

Clock Modulation at 12.5% would be brutal. There is obviously a problem so you might as well use ThrottleStop with Clock Modulation checked and set to 100%. At least your laptop will be usable.

 

Hello unclewebb,

Thank you for your hard work, the 5.00 beta 3 has been working great so far. However, the beta version has just expired, is the 5.00 finally release scheduled for these days?