The ThrottleStop Guide

ehancock: All of your screen shots show ThrottleStop in monitoring only mode. ThrottleStop can not help avoid throttling issues unless you click on the Turn On button. Not sure how many watts DC your 90 watt power supply will put out before over heating or shutting down. Some 90W Dell adapters will trigger CPU throttling before getting anywhere near their rated output value. A 120W adapter combined with ThrottleStop probably would have helped out in some well threaded applications but in other apps I wouldn't be surprised to see no significant difference in performance.

Kyal: If you are having trouble with ThrottleStop then at least post a screen shot of it so I can see how you have it set up and also post a log file from when you are gaming. Not every game stuttering problem is CPU related. Sometimes it is just a bad GPU driver that can cause issues like this. A ThrottleStop Log File while testing with wPrime or similar will show if your CPU is running at its rated speed or not.

Click on Set Multiplier, set that to Turbo and click on Turn On. Make sure SpeedStep - EIST is on in the bios and make sure it is on and that's about it. Your laptop should use Intel Turbo Boost after that. If it doesn't post a log file while testing a single threaded app. A single thread of the TS Bench is fine for showing if Turbo Boost is working or not.

 

Lol yeah I know, i only had it open for those shots to show CPU speed and that it was throttling itself.

I was able to use throttlestop to prevent the power cuts I mentioned previously, but performance was no different than with my i5 because of the power adapter issue. I swapped it back out and did a little 6850M overclocking instead. Probably just sell this and get a better gaming laptop

 

I want to start using ThrottleStop to help temperatures on my new dv6tqe-7000, but not really sure how to get started. I read the guide and understand how to set it up properly but not sure the multipliers or settings I should be using because I'm really nervous about messing something up in my CPU.

When I play games, I always play on low settings and 1366x768 resolution so my CPU never goes above 70C and my GPU never goes above 60C. I know I can play at higher settings but I don't like pushing my machine, and I was wondering if ThrottleStop could help lower the temps even further.

On top of that, I want to throttle the CPU even when I'm not gaming because I don't do anything taxing on my machine outside of playing games; I would just like the minimum amount of processing power to where my laptop can still do tasks at a pretty good speed. The only tweaking to the CPU I've done is lowering the max CPU performance to 99% in power options.

If anyone would be so kind as to helping me out with the correct settings and values, I'd really appreciate it.

 

it works , now i can achieve 3.1 ghz , although sometimes it drops to 1.8 ghz while i'm idle ( is that normal ? ) anyway , thanks a lot unclewebb

 

Notanutcracker: These are mobile processors. You don't want them to be running at their maximum Turbo Boost speed when they are idle and have nothing to do. All that does is create unnecessary heat. Use the ThrottleStop Log File option. When you are gaming the MULTI (multiplier) column in the log file should be showing lots of Turbo Boost.

 

Hi, I am new here. I want to make my system cooler with throttlestop. Here is my system DELL M4400 with QAVR Q9200 (ES) cpu. where should I start?. Can you help me?. I read the thread. It seems it is so difficult. Thanks. Kind regards.

 

methyn: You could use ThrottleStop to run your QX9200 slower or you could use ThrottleStop to reduce your core voltage. Both of these would result in less heat but lowering the multiplier will result in less performance. Most people with your CPU use ThrottleStop to unlock the CPU multiplier so they can run them faster which creates more heat.

Set the Multiplier and VID voltage to the default values, run a stability testing program like Prime95 and then lower the VID voltage one notch at a time until you lose stability. You can also run something simple like Super Pi Mod 1.5 when doing some initial testing.

Download Super PI Mod v1.5 | techPowerUp

Increase the VID voltage back up until your CPU is stable and it can complete a 32M run of Super Pi without any errors. I have no magic numbers in my head. Every CPU is unique and the only way to find out what works best for your CPU is for you to do some testing. How hot your CPU runs will limit its maximum performance. You can do some Google searching to see how much VID voltage and what multiplier other people are using. The QX9300 is very similar to your CPU so try searching for that too.

If you want a cooler running CPU then try using some better quality thermal paste. These CPUs can run very hot in a laptop so the cooling has to be perfect.

 

Hello unclewebb. First of all, congratulations on ThrottleStop, quite an amazing piece of software.

I've been using it for some time now, from version 4.00 onwards, on my i7 2820QM, and it has worked great so far. However, I started having an odd issue where I can't open the main ThrottleStop window, despite it running on the background. When I click the tray icon and select Restore, I am able to click on ThrottleStop's icon on the taskbar, but it just blinks and minimizes back to the tray. What can I do to solve this?

Here is a screenshot of how ThrottleStop's window is shown:


EDIT: I'm running ThrottleStop 5.00 on Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

EDIT2: I moved the .ini file outside ThrottleStop's folder, forcing it to run as new, the window now opened, but once I minimized it to the tray, it refused to restore the window back.

 

My i7-3610QM goes no higher than 70C and the same goes for my GPU (GT 650M) when I game for about an hour on a pretty intensive game (Sleeping Dogs - An open world game so it needs a lot to render things especially at a draw distance).

Are these temperatures normal/good or should I be looking into using ThrottleStop?

 

Thank you very much unclewebb for your help. Kind regards.

 

Good to know, thanks! I'm waffling on whether I will upgrade my laptop from Vista to 8.

 

Can someone reupload it? Thanks

 

The q9200 can run the vCore quite a bit lower than stock. Mine will run at 2.6 GHz with 1.0500. At 2.93 Ghz I can run 1.250 vCore. These are settings 100% stable with Prime95 for extended periods. YMMV as every CPU is different and so are the main boards power handling capability.

For system longevity you want a setting that can run Prime95 for sustained periods at 90c or under. You have to remember with TS the usual heat downclock to cool the CPU by itself does not exist. If you still need this you have to setup different profiles with the alarm, I believe that is the setting, switching out the profiles for the lower clocked setting. Now Dells can be a bit different in their clockdown procedures, for this Uncleweb is quite a bit more experienced. I can only quote for my own system here on power/heat handling.

I would suggest if you are running Win7 to get the M$ AMD Bulldozer patch(s). These help the system on single threads disperse the load in scheduler better for about a 5% or better gain in performance. Win8 has a full performance fix that makes the CQD run clock for clock in performance compared to a C2D. Without getting too technical it causes the L2s not to duplicate load info and the L1s not too flush unneccesarily. Less work under casual usage equates to less heat................

Edit; A link for the patch information.............
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/ne...tfix_amd_bulldozer_processors_no_fooling_time

 

If ThrottleStop 4.00 used to work great for you then download and try that version again. There have been no significant changes since then other than to add support for the 3rd Generation CPUs which you don't need since you have a 2nd Generation CPU. If you download TS 4.00 or TS 4.10 and it doesn't open up then that has to be a problem on your end. Maybe a graphics driver issue or maybe some anti-virus / nanny software is protecting your system and blocking ThrottleStop. Try to remember what you have changed or installed lately. It might have been an automatic update as well from your antivirus software. Make sure to download ThrottleStop from the link in my sig so you know you are getting a genuine copy. Let me know if you get this figured out.

touchtoplay: 70C CPU and 80C GPU are well within the normal operating temperatures. Intel does not start to thermal throttle their new 3rd Generation CPUs until they reach a peak core temperature of 105C. Intel is in the business to make money. I have to assume that if this was causing long term damage to their CPUs that they would lower the thermal throttling temperature. Intel CPUs do a great job of looking after themselves. If your CPU is running at its full Intel rated speed including Turbo Boost when gaming, there probably isn't much need to run ThrottleStop.

Antoan: All of the functionality of the CState 1.2 program was copied into ThrottleStop. If you have a Core i CPU, run ThrottleStop and click on the Cx button on the main window and it will open a similar C State window to show you what C sleep states your CPU's cores and threads are using when lightly loaded. It will also show you some items that can be adjusted if they have not been locked by the bios.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/3197/cstates.jpg

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/3197/cstates.jpg

If you still need CState 1.2, I will see if I can find it for you next time I am on my main programming computer.

 

Hi Tanware thank you for your help. My system is Win7PROX64. I read about the AMD Bulldozer patch. Is it applicable to intel cpus (QX9200)?.

 

Found this gem by coincidence and I have to say, it looks very promising. I was able to lower the temp of my i7-2630QM whilst gaming by 15°C just by adjusting the multiplier. Ran a test of about half an hour, did the job perfectly. Will do some more testing tomorrow. Unbelievable what one little option does.

Edit: I've read something about reducing the voltage as well. What's the best way to lower the temp but keeping a decent level of performance? Is it possible my processor doesn't let me change the voltage?

 

Yes it is applicable. You need SP1. What it is with the Bulldozer, and older CQD, is that the over all CPU is essentially 2 or more actual dies. Since the dies are seperate they need to work as a two CPU, or more, system in scheduler with single or multiple unoptimized threads. There are other optimizations etc with win8 that there is an old post I had explaining the needs for. Now with a properly optimized app that sets core affinity for the worker threads the optimizations do nothing.

It is normal usage where single threads are all over the place that this helps out. This means casual usage and system handling threads and the like....................

 

Well, the thing is that the issue is present on ThrottleStop 5.00, 4.10 and 4.00 alike. All versions have been downloaded from links posted by you.
All three TS versions run, the issue is that when I try to bring the main window up by double clicking the tray icon, there is either a blink quick enough that the screen doesn't refresh fast enough to display it entirely or nothing at all. When I right click the tray icon and select Restore, the taskbar button preview window is displayed like the screenshot I posted previously, and after clicking the taskbar button dissapears along with one of the two symptoms I wrote above.

My security software is configured not to interfere with TS's operation, there is no nanny software installed, and when any updates to my security software are significant enough to change its operation, I'm simply faced with reconfiguring permissions again.

There was only one significant change to my system before this issue began to happen, which was a graphics driver update. I did create a restore point previously, and since the new driver wasn't performing as expected, I uninstalled it, rolled back, cleaned up leftovers and have done a fresh installation of the previously working driver.
The odd part of this situation is that it's an Optimus-enabled system, meaning it has an Intel IGP and a Nvidia GPU, but it's the Intel IGP that handles the output, with the Nvidia GPU doing the render of heavy workloads. The driver that was updated (temporarily) was for the Nvidia GPU, which doesn't handle DWM or any GDI call, that's the Intel IGP duty, so I'm not exactly sure how can a driver update for a GPU that doesn't handle the main system output can interfere with something like window restore from tray icons.

I should also add that this issue is currently happening with two apps, ThrottleStop and Core Temp. I have already mixed and matched versions and configurations on both apps, but to no avail. Checking for issues with system files was a dead end as well.

I absolutely have no desire to wipe the system partition and do a clean OS install, and I know there is a solution for this, but I just haven't been able to figure it out yet.

 

Quite interesting info regarding KB2645594 usefulness for C2Q CPUs, although it does make sense since they're basically two dies slapped together. However, there isn't any practical sense for people running 1st/2nd/3rd generation Core i CPUs, right?

 

For windows 7 THB I am not sure, I do not have an iCore to test this out. The L3 of the iCore is shared but the CPU is also NUMA enabled where the CQD is not. With the new scheduler for Win8, and somewhat with the patch, it is to enhance opperation of non-numa enabled CPU's. With Win8 there may be other enhancements for even NUMA CPU's but again I have no way to test this out.

Edit; A behavioural note: When you do an inplace upgrade with Win8 CP the scheduler enhancements are not operational for some reason. I do not know if with RTM this will have been fixed. With CP you have to do either a clean install or a dual boot etc where again Win8 is a clean install to its partition..................

 

Do you happen to know if when removing that hotfix, it gets removed in a proper manner without causing residual side effects? I'm curious about performance numbers between pre and post hotfix.

Also, very useful tidbit regarding inplace upgrades, as I initially was planning on upgrading my Win7 installation to Win8 for a lengthy trial run while keeping current software and settings preserved, but that just might make me do a clean install from scratch.

 

I have not tried a removal. You could do a revert. My suggestion is run SuperPI as it is single thread and it will show the difference. I too was originally going to go with Win8 but soon realized about the clean install. I should note too though I had not done an inplace with the Bulldozer patch installed. It is possible the upgrade will see the patch and then knowing the enhancements are required install them properly.

Now with Win7 and SuperPI if you set affinity as core 0, or 0+1, you will run the single thread clock for clock with a C2D, without the patch there is a performance hit. On 2m I got 40 seconds with no patch, with the patch 38 seconds and Win8 or affinity set 36 seconds. Win8 seems to use either core 0+2 or Core 1+3 but I think this is just the way they have them alligned and to keep the cores busy they seem to interleave the load so while one core is busy the other is loading the cache. This reduces latency of both cores having to fight for memory bandwidth to load up the cores. (these though are me best guess determined from observed behaviour, if you will a SWAG = Scientific Wild @rs Guess)

Metro and lack of Aero has me shying away from Win8. I am hoping with Win7 SP2 the scheduler enhancements of Windows 8 make it too Windows 7, at least those for the Bulldozer. We probably again would loose the ability to set affinity, but that is fine by me.

 

Tarxzvf: Unfortunately Intel removed simple core voltage adjustment when they introduced the Core i processors. You can use ThrottleStop to lower the multiplier and this will lower the core voltage and the heat output but obviously you are also decreasing performance when you do this. For many games, a slower CPU will barely be noticed so if this helps control temperatures and avoid thermal throttling then you can be better off doing this. Acer 3830TG owners found this was a good compromise for their overheating and throttling issues.

Tens of thousands of people world wide are using ThrottleStop everyday and you are the first person to report this problem.

ThrottleStop and Core Temp are written by 2 different programmers and do not share any code in common. Whatever problem you are having seems to be specific to your system.

 

Oh, but don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying ThrottleStop is to blame in any way at all. I'm just asking whether you might be aware of a similar situation and how to fix it.

Again, I'm more than glad with ThrottleStop from the very first day I used it.

 

It looks to be a driver bug. As if forsome reason some of the draw commands are going to the non active GPU. The best bet is to now use system restore to a time before the problem.........................

 

Unfortunately system restore didn't fix it. The thing is that even with the GPU being active, it can't output any image by itself, it just sends data to the IGP.

 

I haven't yet tried the hotfix, as I have some data to move around and I want to make some backups first. However, this Win7 installation already has some time and while I do regular maintenance, it shows wear and tear, so to speak, as it still is MS's OSes nature.

I have ran SuperPI (2M) with the current state of my system and got 27 seconds, but I'm curious to see whether there will be any performance differences at all, considering my CPU isn't exactly the hotfix target. I'll report back after trying the hotfix.

About Win8, what you have to keep in mind is that Aero is officially unavailable, yet it can be enabled without a single hack, merely a specific combination of visual settings that was discovered by a user. And Metro (now Modern UI) can be automatically bypassed at logon, with Win8 booting straight to desktop like Win7 through one of a few tools already available.
I have looked at Win8 from the start with a rather specific mindset, which has shown to be correct, namely being a refined and better performing Win7, which it is. Microsoft just happened to slap a whole new UI to unify a platform cloud, but that is something that can be completely put aside with just a bit of work right after Win8 is installed.

 

With the i7-2820 the patch may not change a thing. The patch is for multi die cpu's especially non-numa. Your CPU is definately numa...................

 

I have been gaming intensively for about 2 days with lower multipliers. Even with the multipliers cut in half I get very decent performance on Guild Wars 2. Thanks again for this awesome piece of software.

 

Just for clarification:

With an i7-3720QM (normally turbo boosts up to 3.4GHz @ 4 cores, but can go up to 3.6GHz with one), would Throttlestop let me force all 4 cores to run at the full 3.6GHz, or would I be limited to 3.4GHz? Does anyone know about the temperatures I could expect as a result of pushing all 4 cores to max?

 

if you set the multipliers to 40, 39, 38, 38 then all four cores will run at 3.8 GHZ. when i run this i hit low 80s with my rig but I also have a cooler running system than most

 

It can be pushed beyond 3.6GHz? I thought CPU overclocking was beyond my reach since I have a P150EM.

 

fenryr423: Can you post some ThrottleStop screen shots of your 3720QM? Seeing the Turbo Ratio Limits window with the multipliers maxed out as well as a screen shot of ThrottleStop while a single thread of TS Bench or Prime 95 or Super Pi mod is in progress would be interesting.

Download Super PI Mod v1.5 | techPowerUp

The default maximum turbo multipliers for the 3720QM are 36, 35, 34, 34 when 1, 2, 3 or 4 cores are active. I have heard that the 3720QM supports a +4 multiplier overclock for a total of 40, 39, 38, 38 but no one has shown me if ThrottleStop handles this correctly or not.

I have never owned a Core i CPU and I don't have any access to the full Intel documentation so I have had to do a lot of winging it during the last few years. Any feedback is always appreciated.

 

Are there any compatibility reports for ThrottleStop on Windows 8 RTM yet?

 

I tried ThrottleStop on an early development version of Windows 8 and it seemed to work OK. I haven't heard anything bad yet so I think it continues to work.

 

That's good news unclewebb, as virtually all software that worked on either DP or CP versions also work on RTM.

Can there be hope for documentation regarding the Core i series voltage adjustments being made possible to control manually?

 

Thank you for this amazing software unclewebb.

I'm using an Acer 5750G with the i5 2410M. I notice my CPU temp hitting 90 C while playing certain games (like Guild Wars 2) even after limiting the multiplier to 20 instead of the default 23 (along with TurboBoost). I regularly use compressed air and use the laptop on a desk. It seems the best course of action would be to repaste the CPU, but disassembling this model seems fairly complex compared to other laptops. Are there any alternatives to further decrease temperature?

 

You're welcome zenkmander.

A peak CPU core temperature of 90C is within the Intel specification so I wouldn't worry about it. If Intel was worried that this was too high of a temperature then they would have lowered the thermal throttling temperature. They actually raised it from 100C to 105 with the newer Ivy Bridge CPUs so they seem OK with their silicon operating at those temps.

If you want it to run cooler then you can use a laptop cooling pad, repaste your CPU or use a smaller multiplier and run it slower. Those are about the only options.

 

Thanks again. I got a cooling pad and it surprisingly dropped load temps by about 9-10 degrees C. I was very surprised!

 

Seems to work just fine under Windows 8 Pro RTM x64 for me. Can keep my €25 430m running at 2.53GHz turbo clocks with ease

Now, is there a way to get the IGP to hit it's "turbo" frequency aswell? For my first gen core I it would only be a jump from 500MHz to 766MHz and it might not do much but heck, all little bits help I guess?

~Aeny

 

Aeny: Thanks for the ThrottleStop - Win 8 RTM compatibility report.

I think the power register that ThrottleStop lets you adjust includes the CPU and GPU combined so in theory, that should allow both to run at full speed.

With a 2nd or 3rd Gen CPU, you would need this register to be unlocked in the bios. If anyone has done any testing of this, post your results. Most laptop enthusiasts have a dedicated GPU so I have not heard anything about the IGP.

I noticed last night that the latest release of CPU-Z is no longer compatible with ThrottleStop. You might see the ThrottleStop reported multiplier jumping up and down while running CPU-Z. Unfortunately, Intel CPUs use shared monitoring timers so if you want ThrottleStop to report some very accurate data, run it by itself and don't run any other monitoring software when testing.

 

With Win8 RTM and the C2Q the task manager under reports the core speed. At 2.93 GHz I see 2.82 maximum fluctuating to 2.75 GHz and if I set 3.2 GHz it still reports the same. I did not see this in the CP when I tried it out................

 

@TanWare
I get 'fluctuating' clocks, even when setting the max and min processor state at 0% in the power schemes. Something that would run the CPU at the lowest mulitplier in 8 CP and 7 if I'm not mistaken. Since the taskmanager is showing the fluctuation too it might be a change in how the clocks are read in Windows 8RTM causing the same effect as cpuz now does apparantly? The only time it's about right is when hitting the max turbo running IBT. With the multi on 9 with the windows power plans I get between ~1.20GHz and ~1.40GHz in taskmanager and Throttlestop. In 8 CP it used to keep it at a steady 9 multi with no jumps. What changed? Might be related to your problem?

As for the IGP. I don't think what we alter in the TPL menu is for the full package, I can change this to 4095 and still be stuck at the IGP's baseclock, however when I change it to something stupidly low like a 2 the IGP can turbo all the way up to 792MHz for me (gpu-z)but the cpu gets downclocked of course. Therefore I think what it changes is the TDP the CPU part of the package and the GPU gets whatever there's left for it and if it may be enough it may turbo up, otherwise it keeps at base clocks. That's what you ment right?

Awesome program by the way, Unclewebb. I mean no disrespect with my 'testing'. I'm just trying to understand a bit of how it all works. If my explaination/testing or settings are wrong then I'd like to hear it

~Aeny

 

There are a pair of monitoring timers for each thread of Intel Core 2 and Core i CPUs that software can use to determine the average multiplier. The problem I had is that one monitoring application / side bar widget decided to continuously reset these timers which prevented ThrottleStop from getting accurate information from them. These CPU timers are not a protected resource like they should be so any software running on your computer can do whatever it wants with these timers. The operating system itself can decide to use these timers however it likes. Start them, stop them or reset them which can screw up any monitoring application that depends on them. Windows 7 on a Core 2 does not use these timers. I haven't tested Windows 8 RTM yet.

I ended up switching to a different set of timers within the CPU to avoid the problem I was having. I tested a lot of different monitoring applications at the time and didn't find any of them that were abusing or even using the new timers. The problem now is that it appears that CPU-Z has started using the timers that I switched to. CPU-Z is a more popular application than the other application I was trying to avoid so I am going to try switching back to the original timers that I was using. I will also need to add some code to ThrottleStop to warn users when there is a program running on their computer that is not using these timers in a friendly manner.

I wrote a simple testing program a long time ago when I was trying to get to the bottom of this problem. When you run it, this program will monitor your Core and Reference timers to see if they are being used. If they are being used, these timers should continuously count forward. Once every 10 minutes or something like that when the value in the timer gets too big, it will wrap around, which will show that it counted Backwards once. That's OK. If this program reports that either of these timers are continuously showing Backwards, that means some program on your computer is resetting them over and over again. That's fine if you only want to run that one monitoring program but not so good if you want to compare a variety of programs. It wouldn't be too good if Windows 8 is screwing with these timers.



CoreRefTest.zip

I started the recent version of CPU-Z on a Core 2 Quad and it appears to be using the Core timer in a friendly manner allowing it to continuously count up without resetting it. CPU-Z was never the problem. I think on Core i processors, CPU-Z uses both the Core and Reference timers so they will be counting up. These are the original timers that I was using before one bad monitoring app started resetting them. If anyone can find a monitoring app that is not being nice to these timers, let me know. It's a very popular app but it might have finally been fixed.

As for the IGP, that makes sense. It looks like it shares the power so you can run either the CPU or GPU at full turbo boost but not both at the same time. I don't think it is possible to fully turbo boost both of them at the same time.

 

I'm using Throttlestop with an unlocked Q9100 ES in a Dell Precision M6400 and had a question about safe temps to run this chip at. Running Prime95 for a few hours at 2.53GHz had temps hitting 71C. That seems well within the Intel spec for the Q9100 (100 Celsius IIRC), but a co-worker expressed astonishment at that value. Has anyone had issues running a mobile Core 2 Quad at 80C or 90C?

 

As long as your CPU is not thermal throttling and as long as it is running 100% stable then there is no need to worry about the core temperature. Intel designs their CPUs so they can run reliably right up to the thermal throttling point.

I know the Q9200 is unlocked but I thought the Q9100 was locked. Does ThrottleStop show the Lock / UNLK (Unlock) button? Can you post a ThrottleStop screen shot of your CPU?

ES processors have a false reputation of being unlocked. If they are related to a locked retail processor then they are usually locked too.

 

Sorry for the somewhat late reply, I have downloaded CoreRefTest and tested it under taskmgr, ThrottleStop and CPU-z in Windows 8 x64 RTM Pro. The only application that seems to be able to keep the correct multiplier seems CPU-Z? I was still forcing the 9x multi through the Windows powerplan by the way.
Even when forcing 9x multi in TS it stays around ~10, is this normal behavior?

CPU-Z:



TaskManager:


ThrottleStop:


~Aeny

 

Thanks for the info. Your screen shot shows that CPU-Z is using the Core and Reference timers on 2 of your 4 threads. It only needs to sample 2 timers for 1 thread from each core so that is OK. I stopped using these timers a while ago for better compatibility with other monitoring applications. That is why my testing app says Not Used when running recent versions of ThrottleStop. It's also good to see that Windows 8 is not using these timers. After I do some more testing, I think I will go back to using these timers again. I will just need to add some sort of message to ThrottleStop to warn users if some other software is continuously resetting them.

In Windows 7, ThrottleStop can only control your multiplier if you are using the Windows high performance profile with the minimum processor state set to 100%. You would need to check to see if Windows 8 has an equivalent power profile. If you can find that and if you put a load on your CPU and C1E is disabled, you should be able to get a steady 9 multiplier. It won't be steady when lightly loaded or if Windows can not be set to 100%.

 

It seems turning off all C states keeps the multiplier on 9. I thought the C states besides 0 would all save power? Shall I just disregard the multiplier and assume they use less power than turning them off and keeping it locked at multiplier 9?
Also interesting that Windows 8 Taskmanager now shows this behavior and didn't under Windows 7 Taskmanager. Just to be sure I'm gonna switch back to my 7HDD now to check.

And something else I noticed, the turn on/off button on ThrottleStop only turns on/off the multiplier? Other things don't seem to be influenced here. Is this correct behavior or am I missing something?

I'm gonna stop polluting this thread now
~Aeny

 

Monitoring power consumption is more important than monitoring the ThrottleStop multiplier when trying to save power. The deeper C States are designed to save power so having them enabled is usually a good thing on a laptop. A CPU core will rapidly enter and exit various C States hundreds of times a second. ThrottleStop calculates and shows an average multiplier for each sampling period. The multiplier that the CPU is at when a core enters a sleep state as well as the multiplier the CPU is at when it exits a C State are all combined in this average. For mobile CPUs, depending on what C States your CPU is using can result in the multiplier doing a lot of dancing around when the CPU is lightly loaded.

The way Intel Turbo Boost works on the Core i non-extreme CPUs is that unused cores have to be able to enter the deeper sleep states like C3/C6. When 1 core goes into C3/C6, the other core or cores can then use a higher multiplier. In the old days, it was common for enthusiasts looking for maximum performance to turn off all of the C States. If you do this on your CPU, that will disable the Intel Turbo Boost feature so the maximum multiplier your CPU will be able to use would be the default multiplier which is 17 for a Core i5-430M.

The Turn On / Turn Off button controls the multiplier and the 2 types of clock modulation and you are correct that some other ThrottleStop features will continue to function no matter what mode you have ThrottleStop in. The problem with this feature is that it is very difficult to know exactly what a user wants when they click on Turn Off. Some people would like this button to restore their CPU to the Intel default specs. For other users that are overclocking in the bios, doing this might result in an instant BSOD. Other users want their CPU to be left exactly as is when they click this button.

The Turn Off button tries to leave your CPU in whatever previous state it was in. This might be a problem depending on how you have Windows set up. If you are using ThrottleStop to control your CPU then I would just leave it in the Turn On mode which is more predictable.

Feedback is always appreciated. I don't have much time anymore to work on ThrottleStop but if enough users find something difficult to understand or if they find a common problem / bug then I might come out of retirement and try to fix things up.