The ThrottleStop Guide

I dont recommend messing with the system BIOS with a clip, the 3.3v rail that powers it powers a LOT of other chips, and you are backfeeding power into the chipset and the CPU, for system BIOS I always remove the flash chip and read/write it on a SOIC ZIF socket, with the clip you either get mangled results because there is a lot of load on the SPI lines, no result at all because your programmer cant power all the 3.3v devices, or a dead chipset due to back-feeding power..

 

So I should desolder it, flash and resolder it back?

Also this is the BIOS chip right?

 

It should be, but confirm the marking on the chip first.
There might/should be at least another flash IC with the EC firmware, and you might have another one that has the TB3 firmware.

 

What are you trying to accomplish? BCLK overclock? It won't go high since other important systems also get overclocked... 4-5 MHz seems to be the average maximum you can squeeze out of it

 

Yeah your Flash Descriptors are locked - idftool from coreboot (in Linux) can unlock them all via command line quickly. This still requires a programmer however because you cannot flash back the full dump with the descriptors unlocked on a machine with the descriptors currently locked.

My Razer BIOS chip is rated 3.3v-5v ... I don't see why his would be any different. Read and wrote to it many times! Just pull the power cable to the battery/remove CMOS to make sure there's absolutely no power in the machine at all. If for some reason MSI BIOS chips are 1.8v (like NVIDIA VBIOS chips for eg) you'll need an extra part to that bundle you linked called a 1.8v adaptor or you'll fry the chip and then definitely need to desolder it.

As for location - my main BIOS chip was poking out of the heatsink with it's own little square cutout near where it says "ICC" on the heatsink itself - hard to miss on a RB pro but not sure about MSI. If you dump the contents of the chip and it's 16mb it's the main chip, if it's 1mb it's likely VBIOS.

 

Less actually. 2.98 seems to be the limit for BCLK overclocking.

So 40x102.98 = 4119.2 mhz all core
Or 45x102. 98 = 4634.1mhz single core

It's not a tangible difference in any real life workload but I have some time and this is what I enjoy doing

So I can unlock it permanently? How do I go about doing that?

And I've just cancelled my order for the programmer set and ordered this set.



Here's the full image of the motherboard I took when I first took my GS75 apart. There are quite a few chips in the soic 8 format.

http://imgur.com/a/flJKLbz

Btw, does anyone know how to edit the EC firmware to remove a power draw limit? My performance is still limited by the total power my laptop is allowed to draw by the EC (230w) even if I use a 330w adapter. I've asked Svet for help making a custom EC firmware but he hasn't looked into it.

 

Its different because there is a lot more load on the 3.3v rail in some laptops the 3.3v that feed the BIOS flash chip also powers everything else and in those laptops you wont get decent reads, much less programming the chip.

Its a warning/a thing to check, not a dont do this or that.

 

If I decide to use the clip. I could read the chip multiple times then check the MD5 value to make sure it's correct right?

Then if it flashes unsuccessfully I can just reflash until it works right?

 

You should always read at least 3 times and them compare the files with something like HxD, or compare the checksums.

Same for flashing, I always flashed twice, and I used a TL866II programmer.

 

Double yes.

 

Thats a pretty serious looking heatsink + fin stack. No wonder if does well even with your shunt mod good job msi. Also good contact with all the VRMs.

Wish mine was slightly better designed. On mine not all VR mosfets have good contact with heatsink. Have had a couple of attempts trying to put thermal pads but had some complications due to poor heatsink<->cpu contact which i only realised later on. in the midst of troubleshooting i undid my attempts at better vrm cooling. going in for 3rd try soon and hoping for an improvement. I hit cpu vr thermal limits well before i hit cpu thermal limit so i can't sustain all core 4ghz for more than 1-2minutes.

My bios has a setting for platform power limit. Not sure if this is from the EC or a locked region, but its the one that controls system max power draw. Does yours have anything like that?

 

My ge72vr have 3.3V bios chip and from my experience ch341a did the job when I was reflashing bios with some more options unhided.
But it is up to you if you want to desolder it.

 

Hey! It has been some time, but everything started working again. About a week ago, my antivirus (AVG) updated, and since then, my speedshift and C0% states have all been working normally. I'm glad it wasn't that big of an issue - it was probably the antivirus. Anyways, thanks for the help! Here's a photo of everything working again:

 

How do i know if its 3.3v or 1.8v?

 

The dedicated heatpipe over the mosfets definitely helps. I've also changed all the stock pads to Gelid GP Extreme.

Im not sure if theres such as setting, I havent spent much time crawling through each bios setting. I'll keep and eye out for it, thanks.

Edit: Crawled through the bios and enabled FW flashing.




I flashed it and nothing changed. I checked outimage.bin with FIT and it still only had default ICC profile.

I tried building and image several times and it still only has the default ICC profile so for some reason FIT isnt building an image with the modified settings.

 

Could you send me your bios with the fit tool you have used. I will take a look at it by the weekend

 

I've included the CSME system tools, default (fulldump.bin) and modified bios (outimage.bin).

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bHWuk6_77mkKiUnwWYefipgQs8j704H9?usp=sharing

 

had a look at your outimage.bin vs your fulldump.bin. Can you try again?

Starting from fulldump.bin, open it in FIT, go to ICC tab, add a new profile, set the type as overclockingext and set the boot profile to "profile 1". leave failsafe on profile 0. Build the image and try flashing again and check ICC options in bios after reboot.

 

It doesn't apply. Can you try on your side and verify that the outimage.bin is built properly?

 

HI
I started to prepare your bios as per OC skylake guide, but unfortunately Intel CSME System Tools v12 r24 are not able to build the image with new settings.

What we can try is, if someone have previous fit version we can try we older V12 tool, second you need to first unlock your bios, for example as per oc skylake guide and than create a dump as mayby there is some lock which is preventing bios to be overwritten

Edit: I asked about this on winraid and hopefully we will get some answers

Edit 2: till now nobody anwsered :/

 

In FIT-ME region-Configuration-Boot Guard choice Profile 0, No FVME.

 

@unclewebb I found a bug in TS 9.0, that if the laptop wakes up from hibernate, the turbo ratio limits are reset to default. If I open the FIVR window and click ok, they will be set back to what I set them to. Not sure if other options are also reset maybe and not set back to what they were meant to be set until you open the FIVR or TPL windows and click ok once. I always use the collect data on, so it is not stopped. Maybe there needs to be included an event check, that TS notices, the laptop woke up from hibernate, and then initiate all settings at least one time again. Not sure if this bug also happens after S3 wake up, didnt test that.

 

I did some testing and when my laptop resumes from sleep or hibernate, the overclock, CPU multiplier and turbo ratio limits are restored immediately after resuming.

Code:

   DATE       TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  CHIPM   BAT_mW  TEMP   NVIDIA GPU     VID   POWER
2020-07-15  22:19:58  34.87   11.8  100.0  100.0        0   41       0     0   1.0457   10.1
2020-07-15  22:19:59  35.20   14.7  100.0  100.0        0   33       0     0   1.0463   14.7
2020-07-15  22:20:06   1.00  100.0  100.0  100.0        0   35       0     0   0.8864   14.7   Resume From Standby
2020-07-15  22:20:07  32.80   41.0  100.0  100.0        0   36     980    25   1.0457   26.2
2020-07-15  22:20:08  35.01    2.8  100.0  100.0        0   34     980    25   1.0504    5.3
2020-07-15  22:20:09  34.87    6.6  100.0  100.0        0   36       0     0   1.0463    8.3
2020-07-15  22:20:10  35.04    1.7  100.0  100.0        0   34       0     0   1.0504    4.4

Code:

   DATE       TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  CHIPM   BAT_mW  TEMP   NVIDIA GPU     VID   POWER
2020-07-15  22:23:20  35.43    0.6  100.0  100.0        0   36       0     0   1.0457    2.9
2020-07-15  22:23:21  34.24   26.7  100.0  100.0        0   42       0     0   1.0458   22.8
2020-07-15  22:24:00   1.00  100.0  100.0  100.0        0   42     980    29   0.8821   22.8  Resume From Hibernate
2020-07-15  22:24:01  29.00   44.5  100.0  100.0        0   54     980    29   1.0414    1.2
2020-07-15  22:24:02  35.57   14.2  100.0  100.0        0   48     980    31   1.0458   17.0
2020-07-15  22:24:03  35.35    1.8  100.0  100.0        0   40     980    31   1.0463    5.0
2020-07-15  22:24:04  34.53    7.1  100.0  100.0        0   40       0     0   1.0457    7.5

Default max multi is 34 and when overclocking it can go up to 36 when 1 core is active. After resuming, the multiplier is up over 35 so in both tests, on my laptop, this is working OK.

There already is. Is your laptop using anything different like connected standby? I do not own a laptop with this feature so I have not been able to do any testing of this.

I will have a look if I can do anything different but it might be difficult to solve this problem for you if I cannot recreate it.

If you want to help, can you post some screenshots of how you have ThrottleStop setup? Leave ThrottleStop open on the desktop and then do a hibernate resume cycle. Use something simple like the TS Bench 1 Thread test to put a mild load on your CPU. Show me another screenshot of ThrottleStop while loaded after you resume.

Edit - Are you using any Dell or Intel software that might be interfering with your CPU?

 

@unclewebb No other software, no Intel, but the Dell power service which I never open though, it wont interact while using the laptop, maybe it has an internal event trigger for hibernate wakeup, but I dont know why that would be the case. If this might be the case, why wouldnt it reset the other settings then too, like turbo short long power limits for example. Modern standby wont reset it for me.

Just tested it again and I can always reproduce it:



This is after hibernate wake up. Opening the FIVR window, youll see the settings I have, then clicking ok, and it sets it again correctly:




All other settings seem to be restored fine, or live through hibernate, all but the turbo ratios. The 33x for all cores work until triggering hibernate and wake up again. Not sure how many times TS sets the ratios, if it does it just one time (every start, ok click and resume, or if it checks it frequently), maybe adding a delay timer of 10 seconds or so after hibernate wake up event is noticed by TS would help. Not sure what resets it, if it is the EC of the laptop, I dont use any other software. Might be the Dell Power Service, which notices a resume wakeup after TS notices it, and TS is a tiny bit "too fast" setting it. But I cant say if this is the case of course. Maybe you could add a delay restore settings option to enable, +10 seconds for example after hibernate.

 

@maffle does relaunching throttlestop apply your setting? As in TS is already running but u tried “running” it again. Just taking a punt here.

Because if it did then u can possibly add a task scheduler trigger for resume/login.

 

@maffle - ThrottleStop already applies the turbo ratios when it resumes from sleep or hibernate. I will try applying the turbo ratio settings a second time after a 5 or 10 second delay to see if this fixes the problem you are having. Thanks for posting that info.

 

This was not the problem.

 

What should i make it run stably at 3.4 because it drops to 2.7 after 30-60 sec when i enter in a game?
In cinebench is stable at 3.4.


Ps: https://imgur.com/a/WkKDYx2

 

@HagsterZx - I would go into the TPL window and enable Speed Shift. After that, go back out to the main window, check the Speed Shift EPP box and to the right of that box, set EPP to 0 for maximum performance. If you want your CPU to slow down when it is lightly loaded, set the Speed Shift EPP variable to 80.

In the Options window, enable Nvidia GPU monitoring. Turn on the ThrottleStop Log File option and go play a game for a while. When your computer slows down and starts to run like crap, continue playing so the log file will have a record of this problem. When finished testing, exit the game and then exit ThrottleStop so it can finalize the log file. Have a look in your ThrottleStop / Logs folder. Attach your log file to your next post or upload it somewhere so I can have a look at it.

Your CPU seems to drop Intel Turbo Boost after a while. This is a common throttling problem in many Lenovo laptops. Their engineers must have thought that the majority of people would not notice a drop in CPU MHz if they were busy playing a game that covered the full screen. Different Lenovo laptops used different throttling methods to accomplish their reduced CPU performance goal. Hopefully using Speed Shift can help your CPU maintain its full rated speed.

Edit - You should also check the FIVR - Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits feature.

 

After after I ticked speed shift,and play a game for a few minutes, cpu is still maintained at full speed.
Disable and lock power turbo limits will reduce fps a bit right?
Thank you very much for your help

 

Another Lenovo laptop saved from the evils of deliberate turbo throttling. Shame on you Lenovo for not giving your customers the performance that they are paying you for. That is a very dishonest business practice.

I sure hope not. I try to avoid recommending ThrottleStop features if they are going to reduce performance. I prefer to increase performance. There is a secondary set of power limits that some manufacturers use for throttling purposes. Not sure if your laptop is using these, probably not. It is always a good idea to check this box to make sure that these secondary power limits are not being messed around with by Lenovo or anyone else.

Your CPU and Nvidia GPU temps and performance look great. There is no need to under volt the iGPU Unslice. The Intel GPU is not used when gaming. If you ever think you need to under volt the Intel GPU when you are not gaming, you need to under volt both the Intel GPU and the iGPU Unslice equally. If you only under volt one of these, your under volt request will likely be ignored.

Remember to check, "Enable Speed Shift when ThrottleStop starts". For your laptop, using Speed Shift is a good thing. It allows your CPU to run as Intel intended it to run. When running on battery power, try creating a profile in ThrottleStop with Speed Shift EPP set to something between 80 and 128. I prefer 80. Some users use the default 128.

Edit - I would bump IccMax up to 100. The present setting of 68 is very conservative and might cause throttling when stress testing. All this throttling is not necessary.

 

and for CPU Cache?defaut is 11

 

Hello @unclewebb,

I really wanted to thank you for your effort on TS and the daily support you give to us. I have been using TS in my Dell XPS 9550 since the beginning of this year and I regret that I have not come to know it before 3 years (when I bought my laptop). I finally feel my laptop is light and fast, thanks to you.

I have a suggestion though, which I am not sure if already suggested by others, it would be nice if you can make TS works with program parameters where we can set, for example, a profile number when we execute the ThrottleStop.exe file. This will help link a profile to a program/game's executable file. I mean we can simply add the TS command line, e.g. "C:\Program Files\ThrottleStop>ThrottleStop.exe -p 2" to switch to profile 2, to a game shortcut. Besides, it will not use the system resource. You can also add other commands for specific TS settings or something.

In my experience, I find myself opening a game and forget that I have to set profile 2 in TS until I realize it is too hot or it starts to throttle. I know this is not a big deal but it would be nice if we have it.

 

I do not have access to proper documentation from Intel. What ThrottleStop reports for Cache IccMax is a mystery to me. I have no idea what this really is.

I found a register within the CPU that I thought might contain Cache IccMax information. I decided to include adjustment of this register in ThrottleStop just in case someone, somewhere with some CPU needs to adjust this. On my 7th Gen desktop CPU, I tried setting this high and I tried setting this low. It did not seem to do much of anything. It did not cause any throttling or fix any throttling issues. You should probably leave it at 11 if it is not causing any problems. Your CPU is running great at the full 34 multiplier when gaming so I see no reason to adjust this.

@Ahed - My programming skills are limited. Really. If ThrottleStop was not already running, it would probably be fairly easy to add some command line options to ThrottleStop. The problem is that if ThrottleStop is already running, I do not know how to send profile request information to the currently running version of ThrottleStop. I probably should have stayed in school longer to learn about things like inter-process communication.

To solve your problem, why not set up some keyboard shortcuts in ThrottleStop? When you are in game and you want to switch from profile 1 to profile 2, enter the keyboard shortcut you defined in ThrottleStop and ThrottleStop will change profiles for you. Remember to setup keyboard shortcuts that are not used in any games that you play. You could use CTRL+ALT+1 for profile 1 and CTRL+ALT+2 to switch to profile 2. This is a handy but rarely talked about ThrottleStop feature. You can find this feature in Options - HotKeys

 

This has probably been asked before, but how do I make TS start on windows boot? Win10 specifically

 

Follow the guide in post #2. Pay extra attention to the red text.

 

Ah thank you. Task scheduler, very useful. I dont know why that seemed so complicated a year ago...

 

I bought a new ssd and installed OS from scratch. I could only undervolt to -90.8. Now for fun I tried to set it -125 and I ran heaven for hours. How is this possible? I WANTED it to crash at some point. Why is this happening? It looks like i could even do better than 125.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Heaven is a pretty light weight test for a 6 core CPU or any CPU.

When setting voltages, try running Cinebench R20. Do you know that the 8750H responds well when you use a bigger voltage offset for the core compared to the cache. These two do not have to be set equally.

The cache is the limiting factor. Set it to -100 mV and start bumping the core offset. Every -10 mV or -20 mV, do another Cinebench test and see if your scores or temperatures have improved. Some users with this CPU have success with the cache at -125 mV and the core at -200 mV. No, that is not a typo. Too many people give up too early because they lost stability after setting both of these voltages equally.

 

I was able to capture a screenshot of the glitch that occurs with Throttlestop. This occur when Throttlestop is left running on the desktop

 

@zilla0617 - No worries. That bug has been found and fixed. The next version of TS should be ready next week. I am busy finalizing a few new features.

Check your messages. I will send you a link so you can test out a beta version of TS 9.1. You can do some testing and make sure that this bug has been taken care of.

If you want to continue using TS 9.0, try disabling battery monitoring and GPU monitoring and this bug will mostly go away.

 

Is the new PROCHOT Offset feature just changing [31:24] at at the 0x1A2 MSR or is there more to it than that? I see the feature is grayed out on my Haswell ThinkPad which I would like to increase the thermal throttling temperature from 92C at stock but just editing that MSR hasn't worked.

 

I could not get PROCHOT Offset working on my 4th Gen Haswell. That is why this feature is grayed out in ThrottleStop on those CPUs. I think PROCHOT Offset in Haswell only covers 4 bits, [27:24]. Newer CPUs use 6 bits for PROCHOT Offset data, [29:24].

I know that MSR 0x1A2 is duplicated in MMIO 0xFED1599C
Changing the MSR value automatically changes the MMIO value. I tried setting the lock bit [31] in the MSR but I get an instant BSOD in RWEverything when I do this.

Changing these values does not accomplish anything for me. I think with Haswell, the PROCHOT Offset feature only works if these registers are set by the BIOS before Windows boots up. You might have success if you can find a way to do a warm reset of the CPU while in Windows. I have not yet solved this mystery. I think you can also do some UEFI mods to get this register setup before Windows starts. My Lenovo thermal throttles at 99°C so I have not tried this trick yet.

For the newer CPUs, you only need to write the new offset to MSR 0x1A2 while you are in Windows and you are done. You can apply the lock bit at the same time. Lenovo owners are just learning about this wonderful new ThrottleStop feature. Some of their laptops are using a huge offset and are thermal throttling at 65°C. Disgusting.

 

I have also replicated that instant BSOD changing lockbit [31] to 1. It's a shame to be so close yet so far, I can even get Throttlestop to report the changed PROCHOT Offset but it doesn't work as it still thermal throttles at the same 92C temperature. Thanks for your help though, I'll try looking into the BIOS to see what I can find.

 

With the new TS 9.0 the "disable and lock turbo power limits" seems to be still not persistent after standby. I have a MS Surface Book 2 with a i7-8650u on Win 10 1909.

 

@noname687 - All ThrottleStop versions have a problem when running on laptops that support connected standby mode. When these laptops resume from sleep, ThrottleStop has not been getting notified of this event. I do not own or have access to any recent laptops so I had no idea about this problem.

The good news is that @maffle has just recently brought this problem to my attention. He was willing to help me with troubleshooting and I think I have been able to come up with a fix for this long time problem. Check your messages. I will send you a link to a beta version of TS 9.1. Let me know if this problem you are having has finally been fixed. I hope so.

 

Normal people go out on weekends and enjoy life. I prefer to stay home and dream up new TS features.
TS 9.1 is almost finished.

Most users testing offset voltage concentrate on full load testing. In laptops, a voltage offset that is 100% stable at a steady MHz and at full load might cause a BSOD when lightly loaded. To better test light load stability, I added an option to the TS Bench test called Random MHz. When this is set, while the TS Bench is running, it will continuously change the MHz from high to low in a random fashion. The theory is that this might help sniff out instability faster. The CPU will need to be able to perform reliably at a variety of speeds and voltages to pass this test without any errors.

No other user benchmark has an option like this so hopefully it proves to be a useful new real world test. Laptop CPUs can rapidly vary their CPU speed so this new test might be a good simulation of that. Some day in the future I might read in the forums, "but can your offset undervolt pass a TS Bench - Random MHz test?"

 

Ohhh, me too please. Same device as Noname687.

 

@ Krzyslaw

Do you notice your BCLK frequency bouncing around from 129.8 to 130.x to 129.5 with this overclock applied? Wouldn't it be better to/how do I stabilize this number? The spread is set to 0 - I thought that meant it can't move.

 

When I look into throttlestop it is steady 102.98 but when I look into cpu-z it is bouncing from 102.95 to 103.1.
I think this is normal, but you are not lowered by spread 0,5% - I don't know why they even apply by default this spread