The ThrottleStop Guide

No, I didn't, can you please explain what it is and how to use it?

 

The PowerCut feature tricks 4th and 5th Gen CPUs so they incorrectly report power consumption. This can help avoid power limit throttling and it might also prevent PP0 current limit throttling. Is it dangerous? Maybe. Like everything ThrottleStop related, I will show you how to jump off the bridge and you get to decide whether you should be doing this or not.

To enable PowerCut, open the FIVR window and set the VCCIN voltage to 1.7998. Basically drag the VCCIN slider all the way to the right when the Range button is on 1.80V. Press Apply and look in the monitoring table to see that the VCCIN voltage is set correctly.

Check the PowerCut option and press Apply again. You should see the word Lock in the monitoring table under the Mode column. Only enable PowerCut when your computer is idle. After PowerCut is enabled, you will need to do a sleep resume cycle to disable it. If you did this correctly, you should see Enabled on the right side of PowerCut.



VCCIN is the input voltage to the CPU package. It is not the same as core voltage so you do not have to worry that I am telling you to fry your CPU with 1.80V. That would be bad. Most of these CPUs use an input voltage somewhere around there and then they step this voltage down to 1.00 V or so and that is what goes to the CPU cores. My CPU is stable with VCCIN set to 1.80V. It is not stable at 1.75V. I always recommend starting too high. You can try using a lower VCCIN value if your CPU is stable.

Here are the results.



While the CPU is fully loaded running the TS Bench test, the CPU is reporting power consumption at 3W. There is no reason for the CPU to power limit throttle. It is running well below the 47W TDP rating.

Use some common sense when using PowerCut. Avoid running Prime95 Small FFTs, especially if you are running on battery power. Hopefully I do not have to explain why that might be a bad idea.

 

[QUOTE="

By stopping at 25W, you might have left 300 Cinebench points on the table. I hope you can go further. It looks like you need to increase the PP0 Current Limit and the IccMax value. I like 256 but 100 is a nice compromise without going too crazy.

[/QUOTE]

Thank you, God of all Undervolting! I did manage to bring it up to 50W as upper cap, where it then goes actually up to 45W (which would support your theory that in essence these are 45W CPUs lowered down in wattage to sell them as efficient CPUs. However then 2 things happen which made me go for the 25W as a "going" compromize solution:

1) The laptop gets crazily hot. It is fully aluminum, so not too concerned about melting per se of any nature, but after a couple of minutes, the keyboard gets so hot that it is not pleasant anymore using it - and at the area above the keyboard you can't even touch the surface anymore.

2) I once had a thermal shutdown - the thing must have consumed so much power once in a benchmark that the CPU hit its meltdown temperature, and the whole laptop did an emergy shutdown.

In essence, the cooling from Huawai on the otherwise marvellous Matebook Pro (stunning screen, perfect 3:2 aspect ration, elegant but not posing looks) is so poor (1 fan only blowing inside vs outside, a heatpipe not connected to the fanbase, no copper fan etc.) that even if the CPU could easily manage the 45-50W cap, the cooling is too weak to get rid of the heat quickly enough.

But I do not complain: I have now an ultrabook with a very strong performance. And most importantly: The thing is so much undervolted that the fans do not switch on in normal loads (even during charging which many people complain about this thing). So good performance and cool usage without fans - that makes me a very happy man!

Keep on doing the great stuff you do. I hope that in 2-3 years I can switch to an AMD CPU if they manage to get into the premium laptop market, so one could enjoy the brilliance of AMD processing power in premium laptops. Until then the Matebook will become a better friend than my XPS ever has been

Cheers
Thomas

 

Cool and quiet are my primary goals too but it is always fun seeing what a computer is capable of when allowed to run free!

@masmouta - Just to make sure your CPU will be safe when PowerCut is enabled, I did a quick Prime95 Small FFTs torture test.

https://i.imgur.com/dQL6plW.png

There was some thermal throttling but no PL1 or PL2 power limit throttling lighting up. The EDP Current would light up yellow but that was probably because of the thermal throttling. Have fun testing and no worries that your laptop might blow up. I try not to encourage others to abuse their laptops unless I am willing to abuse my own. The 2.30V VCCIN setting has been fully tested but is not recommended.

 

Agree, and if I am lucky, I will be soon being able to play AAA titles in my undervolted ultrabook without any fan noise: The main reason why I went from the XPS to the Probook was that the amount of time I am truly making use of the Nvidia 960M was rather small, plus the 960M itself isn't able to play any games in a decent way. So I subscribed to a game streaming service (not one of the usual crippled suspects, a rather small company in France which basically rents you full PCs over streaming at a price smaller vs buying new hardware every 3-4 years). I will be playing 1080p quality via streaming.

A test run I just had with 1080p content via YT and other platforms confirm that the fan keeps silent in this setup. How cool is that, when my subscription starts, I might be playing latest games without any fan storm

 

Hello unclewebb,

I just want to report that the new BIOS update (Version 1.14.0) for XPS 9550 locked the modification for Turbo Ratio Limits in FIVR. My system was working perfectly but after the new update I start to notice a considerable increase in temperature on medium to high performance, it reaches 95 degrees, specifically the first two cores. Additionally, the power package previously did not pass 31W on high performance, but now it goes beyond 37W on boot or normal usages. I tried to limit the PKG Power to reduce the heat so I set the Turbo Boost Long Power Max and Short Power Max to 30 and 33. Throttlestop kept the PKG Power as I set it, but I keep getting a high temperature, ~94 degrees.

I am not entirely sure, but it feels like Throttlestop no longer able to control SS-EPP and the Turbo Ratio Limit. Therefore, I decided to go back to the old BIOS update (Version 1.13.0). Yet I had to reset the BIOS to unlock the Turbo Ratio Limits as it seems the configuration for BIOS v1.14 still there for some reason.

My concern is that Windows keep pushes me to update the BIOS v1.14 for me which is honestly weird as it never did that before. On the other hand, Dell states that the new BIOS update addresses the Intel Security Advisories INTEL-SA-00289 (CVE-2019-11157) and INTEL-SA-00317 (CVE-2019-14607).

Is there a way to overcome that?

Here is the link for the BIOS update: Link

 

That is the update that you need to avoid. This one disables CPU voltage control and it also locks the turbo ratio adjusters. I have been telling people since last December to avoid updating the BIOS.

If you have successfully gone back to the previous BIOS version, you will need to block any future BIOS updates. Try looking in the BIOS for this option.

If that does not work, find a forum thread that covers your XPS 9550 laptop.

 

Hi, I’m interested in the idea of unlocking the minimum multiplier on my i7-9750H for power savings while reading pdf’s. I don’t know much about this so I’m not sure what default values are and how far I can take it. Seeing as my laptop jumps from 800 to 3ghz I’m guessing this won’t benefit me much without addressing the background activity likely caused by all the kernel level drivers and anti-cheat services running on boot up on my laptop. Disabling them from boot up, I’m only seeing a 10% battery loss. My pkg power used to be between .4-.6 and now jumps between .5-.7
It is my understanding that 6 core processors should be capable of idling @.2-.3W, but can also see how using a more power efficient nvme drives like the skhynix could help here on multiple fronts.

 

There is a lot of information here and in a thread on improving battery life (Under Windows OS, second page) on this issue. As UncleWebb (thanks!) has pointed out, the key to decreasing power use is not reducing clock speed, but reducing background tasks. Actually, it is more power efficient to allow the CPU to run faster, complete the background task and resume resting (C) state. First step would be to take a hard look at processes running in the background with task Manager. See what you do not need, and find a way to eliminate it. ThrottleStop can help you know what your power use is, so you can get immediate feedback.
Good luck - keep us posted.

J

 

Thanks J, I have gone through those resources and have followed the advise you have given me. The strange thing is my background tasks are the same, nothing extra is running from my clean install version when I’m seeing a .2W pkg pwr increase. The kernel level driver anticheat software can be disabled from startup, or disabled from services as I’ve done. I feel allowing for lower multipliers and not locking lower frequencies is what I’m proposing. I completely get not lowering max speeds. I’m talking about unlocking a lower minimum, which may or may not result in a change. I believe I came upon this information on this forum under the unlock your i7-8750H thread. That thread goes into very advanced processor settings, one of which involve lowering the minimum multiplier. I’m not aware of what changing processor slopes etc. would have in this application. I think this may be touched upon in the overclock forums. This all could still be hidden anti-cheat drivers or my almost full dram less nvme drive.

 

The power consumption data reported by Intel CPUs is a calculated estimation. The only purpose of this data is to control the Intel Turbo Boost function. Its accuracy when a CPU is idle is anyone's guess. It is not measured power consumption. I would not use this data to judge anything, good or bad, when a CPU is idle.

When a CPU core has nothing to do, it automatically enters the low power C7 state where the core is running at 0 MHz and 0 volts. Lowering the multiplier does not change actual power consumption. The multiplier is ignored and not used when a core is in C7. Individual cores can spend over 99% of their time in C7. The speed the active cores are running at the other 1% of the time is insignificant.



If reducing power consumption is important, concentrate on the C states. Make sure your individual cores are spending as much time as possible in core C7. With modern CPUs, you can have a huge change in reported CPU MHz with very little difference in actual power consumption or CPU temperature.

 

Hi. How to remove CORE - VR CURRENT limit? what settings to use?

 

I don't even know what CPU model you are talking about. Screenshots? Log files? Any tiny scrap of information would be helpful.

 

Sorry, it's Clevo p775dm3-g laptop with 8700K Cpu.

 

You probably cannot remove this type of throttling. Your voltage regulators can only provide so much current. They will send a throttling signal to the CPU when they reach this limit.

I do not think it will make a difference but did you max out the IccMax values and the PP0 Current Limit?

 

Yes, i set them to 255.A and in bios vr current limits set to 8191.
I've tried everything, so guess you are right. Anyway my 8700K has low performance. CPUZ bench scores 4100 multi and 525 single thread. Throttle stop bench 6,900. It's with 4 7 on all cores and cache. -140mV core and -125mV cache. Thank you,

 

Something very weird just happened with my notebook with 7700HQ, I installed a new memory module and set a "Fast Boot" setting to enable in BIOS, and when I booted the computer for the first time every core was locked at a 38 multiplier regardless of the processor usage!
What the hell just happened?

First I tried changing settings on ThrottleStop like disabling SpeedStep and enabling "Set Multiplier" but not of that changed the 38 multiplier.
When I marked "Disable Turbo", the cores downclocked to 34.76 multiplier, a very random and strange multiplier.

After trying all settings I thought it would be a Throttlestop bug and decided to close and reopen Throttlestop, which actually fixed the clocks.

So I'm wondering if it was a ThrottleStop bug or the processor was actually clocked that high, VID was around ~1.01V when it's normally around ~0.97 at 37 multiplier and "PKG Power" max was 37W when it's normally 27W.

Probably it's just a ThrottleStop bug :-( but obviously hope this locked 38 multiplier is reproducible somehow.

 

That sounds like a wonderful bug. Hopefully you can find a way to reliably reproduce it.

If you disable SpeedStep, the Set Multiplier function no longer works. With a 7th Gen CPU, you should be using Speed Shift Technology. Your computer might already be using this. This also disables the SpeedStep and Set Multiplier functions.

Next time something exciting happens, post some screenshots of ThrottleStop so I can see how the various windows are setup. There is usually a reasonable explanation. Make sure you are using the latest version of ThrottleStop.

 

@unclewebb
I started noticing an increase in my CPU temperatures a while ago, so i decided to try ThrottleStop. I saw many videos and posts and tried some settings. But my CPU was still getting hot even when idle (55-75) and sometimes hits 95 when just using the google chrome, Microsoft edge, or watching a movie in VLC...
If it helps, I'm using a Dell G7 7588 with NVIDIA GTX 1060 MAX-Q, I have power mode on "Better Performance", I'm using dell power plan where the processor minimum state is 5% and maximum state is 100%, i set dell power manager thermal management to ultra performance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLaptops/comments/jl81wc/intel_core_i78750h_getting_hot_and_laptop/
Check out my reddit post for my previous configurations. After using the settings found in the images, the highest temperature (on medium load) is 86 degrees, but the pc is still getting hot (around 68 degrees) when idle and doing normal tasks like browsing...
I guess my Cinebench score is low for my processor (it should be around 3000). I really need some help adjusting the voltages. In the link below you can my voltage settings and TPL, alongside the TS bench and limits when doing the Cinebench test. Note that the voltages in the images were applied when I got those results.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmxEO1kjQzQ2vyxv_Gte1CslDMRk?e=90upfQ
Please help me adjust my settings, I'm still new to ThrottleStop and don't know much about its settings and the limits' meaning.

 

Your laptop needs a repaste, TS cant make a miracle.

 

Actually my laptop is now idling between 37 and 58 degrees, most of the time around 45; I adjusted some settings and the undervolt didn't work before, now that I have downgraded my BIOS, it is working correctly. My problem now is with the power limit, when I run the Cinebench test (the highest score I got was 2590), throttlestop shows a power limit. So, I tried adjusting my TPL to 60W for long and 75W for short, and when I ran the Cinebench test, the power is 75W then it drops to 45W which is unusual since it's supposed to be 60W. I tried unchecking the "disable and lock turbo power limits" in the FIVR settings but to no avail. Check out my thread on this link.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...50h-getting-hot-and-laptop-throttling.274334/

 

Hello folks, i have this problem with ThrottleStop:
Yesterday i downloaded ThrottleStop and it worked fine, i disabled speedStep and enabled speedShift and this worked perfectly for a particular problem i had with my laptop.
Now today i started up my laptop and ran a stress test wich showed me the changes i made in ThrottleStop were still in effect wich was good. i started lowering the speedShift and see how far i could go based on CPU throttling. when i lowered it and saved the changes i ran the stress test again i saw that the CPU was thottling again so i put the settings back at the original(same settings as yesterday were everything was fine). well it was not fine anymore because my CPU was still throttling wich is weird because as i said the same settings i applied yesterday were totally fine. So the problem is that it seems like changes im making in ThrottleStop dont go in effect anymore or something.
Things i tried:
Deleting ini
Restarting multiple times
delete ThrottleStop completely and download again.

 

If changes you made one day are not working for you the next day, maybe the changes you made did not truly solve your problem. Speed Shift settings and throttling are usually two unrelated things. Your Speed Shift settings are rarely the primary reason for throttling. Changing Speed Shift values might cover up a problem but it generally does not solve a throttling problem.

Over a million people have downloaded ThrottleStop during the last year. That reminds me. The ThrottleStop thread on Notebook Review just celebrated its 10 year anniversary last Saturday.

When properly setup, ThrottleStop seems to be helping quite a few people.

You did not include any screenshots or information in your post so I cannot even begin to start helping you. What laptop model do you have? I need to see screenshots of how you have ThrottleStop setup. Include the main screen, the FIVR screen and the Turbo Power Limits screen. What problem are you trying to solve and when does this problem happen?

What stress test were you running? I recommend using Cinebench R20.

https://www.maxon.net/en-us/products/cinebench-r20-overview/

When I see a score from R20, I can immediately search the web and find out if your score is where it should be or if your laptop is performing like a slug.

 

I cant seem to figure out how i add a image, only lets me add images from a URL.
yesterdays changes worked perfectly and today those same changes were still in effect!
yesterday i put speedShift at 192 wich kept my CPU from overheating. Next day(today) i ran stress wich showed me changes were still in effect. When i tried lowering speedShift from 192 were i had it at first, my cpu was overheating so i put it back to 192 but somehow its not being saved or something because im not getting the same results as before. so the only problem i have right now is that even if i put speedShift at 0 or at 255. Nothing changes.

 

Upload images to an image hosting site. I use Imgur. I do not think you need to be a member. Upload the Direct Link that it gives you.

https://imgur.com/

ThrottleStop has many features to control a CPU. You are not using the right ThrottleStop feature to fix your problem. Do not check the Speed Shift EPP option. Let Windows 10 manage this setting. Look in the FIVR window to see what value the CPU is using.

Does ThrottleStop still show that Speed Shift is enabled? Is SST green on the main screen?

 

i dont see SST either way, when its checked or when its not checked.
And you say that its not the right setting for my problem, but it fixed my problem very good yesterday

speedShift isnt changing my clocks, wich its supposed to do right ?

 

I can hammer a nail in with a screwdriver. That does not make it the right tool for the job.

Go into the TPL window and enable Speed Shift. After you do this, you should see SST light up in green on the main screen. Now your Speed Shift EPP settings will work just the same as yesterday.

 

Can somebody tell me if the undervolt settings are working or not ? The reason I am asking is because the offset shows +0.00 and the CPU core voltage is shown as 0.3799V which seems to be too low. The laptop is completely stable with no BSODs etc.

i7-8650u XPS 13

Thanks

 

thank you this indeed did what i needed. But i have to do this after every restart, u might know how i can make it persistent?

 

Simple solution is to set ThrottleStop to run at boot. Instructions are in this thread, or in the instructions in the Guide in the ThrottleStop folder.

 

Thanks,

i have another question i recently completely wiped my laptop wich caused CPU overheating my friend has the exact same laptop(lets call this laptop the good laptop) so i compared both results under stress test.
These are the results:





the thing is with throttle stop i can somewhat bring the clocks down so the CPU isnt overheating anymore but what was really weird was the moment i ran throttlestop on the so called "good" laptop without changing any options the CPU of the "good" laptop is now overheating too. so it looks like the good laptop was already capped on clocks or something and after i ran throttleStop is somehow removed these caps?
You said something about the wrong tool for the job. would love to hear what you think of this problem and how to fix this also look at the difference in clocks before i ran throttlestop.


Edit:

This didnt fix speedShift SST not being persistent, it does boot with windows but still after restart SST is not green and i need to enable it in TPL

 

The voltage not being reported correctly and the maximum turbo ratios not being reported correctly are usually a sign that you have the Windows 10 Core Isolation Memory Integrity feature enabled. This safety feature can block ThrottleStop from reading and writing to the registers within your CPU. This might also happen if you are running an antivirus program that uses a sandbox feature that blocks ThrottleStop from performing its magic.

I use a simple registry edit to disable the memory integrity feature. This download includes two registry files so you can easily toggle the memory integrity feature on and off. I think you need to reboot after enabling or disabling this feature.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xcUAP-IVXTMKZ5neoQOI7W_23_WB_64-/view?usp=sharing

If installing reg files into your computer scares you, type regedit into your search box to open up the registry editor and navigate to this key.

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard\Scenarios\HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity]

You can toggle Enabled from 1 to 0 to disable memory integrity. Setting this key back to 1 will enable memory integrity. If this fixes your problem, you will have to decide whether you want to run your computer with this safety feature on or off.

Most newer computers enable Speed Shift automatically. When you have an older computer, you will need to run ThrottleStop to enable Speed Shift. It will remain enabled until you put your computer to sleep or reboot. The TPL window has a box you can check, Enable Speed Shift when ThrottleStop starts. Check that box and the Speed Shift box above it and press the OK button to save this setting. Now whenever you start ThrottleStop it will enable Speed Shift Technology for you. If you want to add ThrottleStop to your Windows start up sequence, follow the guide I wrote.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/#post-6865107

Your screenshot shows no evidence of overheating. 80°C or 95°C are both safe operating temperatures. You finally learned how to post pictures but you still have not posted any pictures of ThrottleStop. When you see the doctor, do you play a game with him and ask him to guess what is wrong with you? Pictures of AIDA and HWiNFO are not helpful. They do not show me how you have ThrottleStop setup. I still have no idea what laptop model you have.

Edit - I finally saw MSI on your screenshot. Some MSI laptops have barely adequate cooling. It might be time to replace the thermal paste so you can run your laptop at its full rated speed.

 

Model is GL 62M 7REX.
On the pictures you can see that the CPU is throttling on the laptop thats reaching 95C(due to temp im guessing). ThrottleStop settings below:
https://imgur.com/a/dpB7rkM

Thank you

 

Unclewebb, thank you for your help.

I have disabled memory integrity and rebooted the laptop but still facing the same issue. Kindly advise

 

Did you look in the Windows 10 settings to double check that this feature is off?



This problem only happens when ThrottleStop does not have full access to your CPU registers. What antivirus program are you running? Does it have a sandbox feature? Are you in an Administrator account? What exact version of Windows 10 are you using?

I never use AIDA64 so I do not know what data it is graphing. Probably thermal throttling. On laptops with poor cooling, you will need to replace the thermal paste on a regular basis.

Your ThrottleStop screenshots show Speed Shift is not checked and Enable Speed Shift when ThrottleStop starts is not checked. Are these older screenshots before you started following my advice? Maybe just screenshots of your friend's computer.

 

Does it have anything to do with this??

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...rocode-released-to-fix-new-cpu-security-bugs/

gosh I hope not....

 

I did. It shows Memory integrity off. I am using windows defender as the AV and am logged in using an admin account. Windows version is 20251.fe_release.201030-1438 ( win 10 pro )

Thanks for your help.

 

You are using a Windows 10 Insider Preview version. Looks like Microsoft have disabled reading and writing information to and from the voltage control register. The CPUID HWMonitor screenshot you posted shows the same thing for IA / GT / LLC Ring and System Agent. All of this information is read from the overclocking mailbox and none of it is being read correctly. This same register is also used for CPU voltage control. If you cannot read from this register then you cannot send undervolt information to this register either.

The Insider Preview build likely has a VM feature built into it. I think you can disable this feature somewhere within Windows.



Edit - I wish I had a better memory. After 10 years, it all starts to blend together. I knew this problem had come up before in this thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-1148#post-11012646

Stuff like that gives me a cold chill. Thanks for sharing.

 

I disabled the VM platform and rebooted. Still no change. Guess I am stuck with no UV now.

Thanks for your help

 

I disabled Hyper V and guarded host as well and restarted. No go. Still facing the same problem

Edit : disabled virtualization support in the bios and rebooted. The readings have changed now. Guess UV is working now ? Any idea why the offset against CPU cache is still 0

Thanks a lot. God bless

 

It looks like ThrottleStop is working better but it still does not appear to be working 100% correctly. Exit ThrottleStop, delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file and completely shut down your computer. When you start back up, look in the FIVR window and see if the Intel GPU voltage is being reported correctly. That 0.3799 number might have been saved to the config file during one of your previous tests.

 

Yea i put the shift en speed settings to their defaults.

Thank you this is what i needed now its working how i wanted thank you!
Im going to repaste as soon as possible because enabling speedShift isnt something u would want to do right ? if i dont enable speedShift my CPU throttles badly even on games like CSGO that arent even that heavy.

Edit: also in limit reasons sometimes there is EDP other under RING and pl1 and pl2 under CORE why is this ?

 

Actually, enabling Speedshift is very desirable. You can use it to get as much performance out of your CPU as possible, even if it throttles when you push it.

 

Deleting the ini file worked. Thanks a lot

 

There is nothing wrong with enabling Speed Shift. Most newer laptops have this enabled by default. Your 7th Gen laptop should have had Speed Shift enabled by default.

The only problem is you are setting the EPP value to a big number to try and control your CPU running hot issue. A big EPP number will reduce performance. It would be a much better idea to fix the thermal paste and then you can set the EPP value to 80 or less for full performance.

That was a long painful process. Glad to hear that you got voltage control working again. Your perseverance will help the next user that falls into this Windows 10 Insider Preview trap.

 

My perseverance has nothing to do with it working. It's YOUR EFFORTS. You gave us this wonderful app for free and take the time out to reply to individual posts and help to the best of your abilities. People like you are rare. The world is better because of people like you who selflessly give back. God bless. Stay safe

 

When im ingame i get pretty bad fps drops but no thermal throttling. i see PL2 under core and gpu, the one under core is flashing alot and EDP other is also flashing under ring

 

I think the UV settings are not actually getting applied. Earlier my laptop used to crash if I set the offset more than 0.125V so I had set it to 0.12V till last year.

Now, after the recent bios update to 1.13.1 ( XPS 13 9370 ) TS stopped working ( motherboard was replaced by Dell - had no choice but to update the bios )

I reinstalled windows and set CFG lock and overclocking lock to 0x0 to gain back FIVR ( FIVR used to show FIVR locked before I set these two variables in NVRAM )

Even though the UV shows as applied, I don't think it's working. I set the UV to -0.25V and it didn't crash. Benched and the temps were exactly the same as with 0 offset.

Any advice ?

 

From brief look probably no more playing with current limit in the future. So be carefull of bios update again.

 

Looks like your core limits are set way down (28) on FIVR. I'd suggest pushing them all the way up, and letting SpeedShift help control clocking. Seems like you're making progress - hang in there!