The ThrottleStop Guide

Your questions are not notebook related but they are ThrottleStop related so that seems on topic to me.

By default, Intel suggests that the bios sets the long term limit to the same as the rated TDP for your CPU which is 95 Watts for a Core i7-2600K. They also suggest that the short term limit should be set to 25% greater than the long term limit so 95 X 1.25 = 118.75 Watts. Intel considers 28 seconds to be a reasonable value for the Turbo Time Limit. In theory, this allows the CPU to operate 25% above its rated TDP limit for up to 28 seconds. After that, the multiplier is reduced if need be to bring the CPU back down to its 95 Watt TDP specification.

I don't have the specs in front of me for the Package Current Limit but it should be somewhere around 113 amps.

What some desktop motherboard manufacturers (Asus) decided to do is that when you are overclocking, they raise these limits sky high so they don't interfere with your ability to overclock. Your CPU will never reach 1023 amps (it would catch on fire if it did) so this high of a setting will never interfere with your CPU from using full Turbo Boost for as long as it wants to.

Same thing with the Package Power Limit being set to 255 Watts. Even during the most extreme overclocking, I don't see a 2600K will be able to draw 255 Watts so this setting allows full Turbo Boost to be maintained indefinitely. Setting the Turbo Time Limit to 1 second really doesn't matter. The short and long term power limits are exactly the same so whether it operates as high as the short term limit for 1 second or 28 seconds really doesn't matter. The bios guys then went one step further and locked these values so the user can not adjust them after booting into Windows. When all of the limits are set this high, full Turbo Boost is insured so there is no need to play with these settings.

Many of the 3rd Generation mobile motherboards and some of the 2nd Generation boards have decided to leave these items unlocked so you can increase them. In that situation, these settings will not be disabled in ThrottleStop so you can adjust them. On most mobile CPUs with non-Extreme processors, the amount of adjustment is very limited so locked or unlocked doesn't make a significant difference to overall performance. Some of the low power CPUs have these unlocked and for them, you can get a more significant increase in full load performance by increasing these limits.

tribaljet: The screen shot you posted shows the first thread with an 18% load on it. If your CPU is idle, you shouldn't be seeing this. I haven't tested Core Temp recently. If you think that might be the problem then shut it down and see if your C6% improves. Some monitoring apps continuously recalculate the BCLK. The only way to do this accurately is to fully load your CPU for a brief amount of time. The BCLK rarely changes so I found doing this to be a waste of CPU cycles. I included a BCLK button in ThrottleStop so a user can manually recalculate the BCLK if he thinks he needs to. Push that button 10 times and you will see how little variation there is in the BCLK. Avoiding constant BCLK calculations allows ThrottleStop to be one of the most efficient monitoring apps available. Make sure the "On the Fly FSB Detection" option is disabled in Core Temp to improve its efficiency.

 

I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but is there a way for throttlestop to check if the discrete GPU is active and automatically disable/enable turbo based on what GPU is being used?

 

Thank you, Unclewebb for sharing your wealth of knowledge.

Now I move on to core parking and forcing HPET, which has nicely smoothed out things for me (even if it just appears so).

GL

 

ThrottleStop does not check if the discrete GPU is active.

GrofLuigi: You're welcome. I am sure some other users have had some similar questions but have not got around to asking them.

If you do any BCLK overclocking, remember to fix your system timers.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu.../568525-setfsb-game-timing-problem-g60jx.html

I like doing this fix since on my computer it switches to a higher frequency timer for a little better accuracy.

 

You're quite right. The issue with the first core is that I have a USB DAC installed, and the specific driver version I'm using produces a cyclic CPU cycle usage on the first core, something that's lessened through increases in latency. There are basically two driver versions that work, an older version that doesn't have this CPU cycle issue but introduces a severe audio glitch under very specific scenarios (which I unfortunately go through every day), while the newer driver has the glitch issue fixed but introduces the CPU cycle issue.

Regarding BCLK, the variation is often 0.001 MHz, and a maximum of 0.004 MHz.

On The Fly FSB Detection is disabled on Core Temp.

So, while there is something calling for the CPU, even if it's single threaded, C6 won't kick in, correct?

 

One poorly written driver can continuously poll the CPU and prevent it from getting into and staying in the C6 sleep state. Until that company writes a new driver, there isn't anything you can do.

The ThrottleStop - More Data option will probably make the constant loading and unloading of that core even more obvious.

Some people like to think that the More Data option puts a big load on the CPU but that's not true. It doesn't significantly interfere with the CPU from idling down into C6.

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/4065/92906067.png

Power consumption at the wall is reduced by about 10% when I disable the CPU Package C States in the bios. Not sure why. It might be something else on the motherboard that gets its power reduced when set up like this.

 

Unfortunately, that is the case with this particular driver. Well, whenever the computer is set to idle, I enable Power Saver and Disable Turbo on TS, as well as setting the OS battery power profile, which then lowers the multiplier to x8.

About the More Data option, it's a common misconception, mainly due to the majority of software that does more frequent updating introducing higher system resource usage. Regardless, I only use it when I want to monitor specific changes.

And like I said above, I have to continue using this specific driver version as it is currently the most stable version available, and C6 state will just have to be sacrificed for that.

 

This is an excellent thread and thanks so much for the info Unclewebb. I stumbled upon this thread after searching high and low on ways to reduce CPU temperature which is causing my Acer 5742G to shut down while gaming.

Specs: Core i3, nvidia GT 420M, 8GB RAM

Throttlestop appears to be working when playing games i.e. the DTS doesn't go below 15-20. The minute I turn it off, DTS slips off to 3-7 which is fairly alarming.

I haven't stress tested it yet, but assuming Throttlestop is working fine, are the DTS/Temperature values that I'm seeing accurate or is Throttlestop causing the sensor to read changed values so that the CPU doesn't shut down? The reason I ask is that there is a sudden jump from ~17 to ~6 when I turn it off and it immediately jumps back to ~17 when I turn it back on. I'm hoping that Throttlestop isn't trying to deceive the CPU (and me! ).

In other words, I'm hoping that the CPU doesn't burn to a crisp while Throttlestop claims that it's only at 84 degrees while preventing the CPU from shutting down and avoiding further damage

Here's a screenshot of the settings I'm using:


EDIT: Image isn't showing, not sure why, here's a link:

 

Time for a bug report.

I have Battery Monitoring enabled on ThrottleStop's options but unfortunately readings turn 0.0 W, so I wanted to disable monitoring. Unfortunately, unchecking Battery Monitoring doesn't work as the setting isn't applied.

 

tribaljet: Make sure that you are not using any other ThrottleStop features that depend on battery monitoring. I think after you uncheck this option that you might have to restart ThrottleStop. I don't have a laptop at the moment to test this out but I am pretty sure it works.

plastygrove: ThrottleStop accesses the temperature sensors directly and is more accurate than any other tool I know of because it operates at a higher Windows priority compared to other monitoring programs. You can trust what it is telling you.

 

That's what I was hoping to hear! Thanks so much! Time for a little stress testing, will crank graphics to high and see how she fares!

EDIT: Also just read this in the ThrottleStop manual:

 

The sensors are located on the hottest spots on the core. When you change the load significantly, the core temperature can also change significantly and very rapidly.

The ThrottleStop manual doesn't lie either. There is no way to disable CPU throttling that is initiated by the Intel hardware.

 

What other features depend on battery monitoring?

I have disabled Battery Monitoring and restarted ThrottleStop but it's still enabled.

 

Show me a screen shot of what you have checked off in the Options window. Any option that contains the word AC, DC or Battery is going to prevent you from turning battery monitoring off. If none of those are checked, you can disable battery monitoring without having to restart ThrottleStop.

A battery reading of 0.0 W means you are plugged in and the battery is neither charging or discharging.

 

Totally my fault unclewebb I had "AC - On, Battery - Off" checked, and the moment I unchecked it along with Battery Monitoring, battery reading disappeared.

Is there any way I can have "AC - On, Battery - Off" checked but not Battery Monitoring?

 

This data comes from the same Windows function call so the two features can not be separated. That 0.0 W button isn't that ugly is it? ThrottleStop is very lean on CPU and memory resources so no worries.

 

Ah, I see.

The button isn't ugly, it's just that battery monitoring in the past reported 0 W when the monitoring itself was faulty. It would give me more peace of mind if instead of 0.0 W it said AC, for instance. But it's of no consequence.

So, after a few hiccups, any issues I've had weren't related to ThrottleStop at all, and your explanation regarding Battery Monitoring is perfect.

 

Did you try pushing the 0.0 W button? You might be surprised.

 

Sir, you're blowing my mind :O

 

Hi unclewebb,

Laptop: Dell latitude e5520 - i7 2640m

I've been using throttlestop for quite some time (thank you for the great program!), and recently (don't know if it's due to the summer months or laptop needing dusting), the laptop cpu temps are hitting mid 90s, and sometimes 100c (though, never above this) while gaming and it automatically shuts off my laptop.

So I've been looking for ways to reduce the temperature on the laptop, and found that you've given advice on multiple occasions to set a lower multiplier, which I've tried, but unfortunately, doesn't seem to be working.

Just last night, I've tried setting the clock modulation to a lower value like 81.5%, and this worked! It lowered my temperature quite a bit! However, I didn't use it for an extended period of time as I don't know if it's safe or not.

So my question is, is lowering the clock modulation to lower heat (didn't notice too big of a performance hit to my game) safe to do? Anything I should be concerned about? If there are concerns, are there safer ways to reduce heat without doing anything physical to the laptop?

 

I think using Clock Modulation on the 2nd and 3rd Generation Core i processors like you have is the best and easiest way to control the CPU speed and heat.

Intel introduced this feature back in the Pentium 4 era many years ago. Here's some background info from the Intel archives.

Thermal Protection And Monitoring Features: A Software Perspective - Intel® Software Network

It is very safe to use. It simply slows down your CPU. I would recommend this but do not use chipset clock modulation. The first type of clock modulation that ThrottleStop lets you adjust is much more efficient. Intel also made some changes to how this feature works since the Pentium 4 was introduced. They added finer control of this by using steps of 6.25% instead of the original 12.5% steps in clock modulation and now when you first start using clock modulation, it simply reduces the CPU multiplier until the multiplier is as low as it can go.

You really should open up your laptop and do some basic cleaning of the heatsink but there is no problem using clock modulation until you get around to doing that. Sucking out the dust bunnies can make a big difference to CPU temps. I am not sure why more users, like owners of the Acer 3830TG, don't use this to control their overheating laptops.

You can also set up 2 profiles in ThrottleStop and switch back and forth between profiles based on CPU or GPU temperature. You could use 100% clock modulation in your main profile and then something like 81.25% in your "CPU getting hot" profile. This way your CPU would not be slowing down all the time. It would only slow down when you decided that it needs to. The ThrottleStop Alarm feature can be setup to control this automatic switching.

 

Regarding Clock Modulation, does it lower maximum stock clock rates or also Turbo Boost's maximum clock rates?

 

Thanks a lot for this thread! :hi2:

 

ergoon: Welcome to NBR. Hope you can find what you are looking for in this big thread.



On my desktop Core i5-3570K, the default multiplier is 34 but I have the Turbo Boost multiplier set to 40. Normally all 4 cores would be running the 40 multiplier but with a Clock Modulation setting of 93.75%, the multiplier is reduced to 37. In a perfect world, 93.75% X 40 = 37.50 so it looks like the CPU just finds the nearest whole multiplier. Lowering performance with this method is a simple way to control heat.

A setting of 75% clock modulation gets me the 30 multiplier and 50% gets me the 20 multiplier.

Edit: I just noticed that you can also mix and match multiplier and clock modulation percentages until you get the performance level you are looking for.



This CPU would go KA-BOOM if I was really running the 63 multiplier, especially with the OEM cooler but some clock modulation throttling keeps it in check.

63 X 62.50% = 39.375 -> 39 multiplier

 

So, Clock Modulation affects stock and Turbo Boost clocks equally, good to know.

Also, ThrottleStop 5.10?

 

I was wondering how long it would take someone to notice.

Intel doesn't like to share their full documentation with small time developers like myself so I need to do lots of testing to try and uncover some of their secrets.
TS 5.10 is a work in progress. Maybe someday when I have the time.

 

TS does not work on P4 cpu, lol. I tried it to see if some undervolting could be done

nonetheless wonderful program keep up the good work unclewebb

 

Well, could I be of any assistance about finding documentation?

And do you care to share what improvements are present on that version, or is it a well hidden secret?

 

tribaljet: The publicly available documentation from Intel leaves out a lot of details about these CPUs. The only way to legally obtain it is to sign your life away to Intel. It helps to have lots of assets too so they can sue you if you ever decide to share their secrets. I've gotten ThrottleStop this far with zero help from them so I plan to continue on my own. I am just trying to learn some more about the unlocked K and XM CPUs at the moment.

miro_gt: A lot of the important registers that ThrottleStop uses are in the same location in the P4 CPUs as they are in all of the newer CPUs. I might be able to add some basic P4 functionality but there would be a lot of TS stuff that doesn't work so I won't bother. No more projects for me if I don't have hardware to develop on.

 

So there is no way to undervolt a core i7 720QM? CrystalCPUID claims I've undervolted it to .897V from .987V where I found it, but nothing else, coretemp etc. can even detect my Voltage..

edit: Will there ever be some software update that will allow for undervolting?

 

Core i processors do not support software under volting like the previous Core 2 processors used to support.

Here is what the CrystalCPUID HistoryCPUID.txt file shows.

The Penryn is a 45nm Core 2 processor. CrystalCPUID was last updated on May 9, 2009 for a minor bug fix. It does not support Core i processors. When you run this program on a Core i processor, it assumes that your processor is a Core 2 processor. This can be a dangerous thing to do because the meaning of some of the CPU registers has completely changed. The VID register is one of the registers that changed when the Core i was introduced.

Intel's public documentation does not have any information about controlling the core voltage of Core i processors. MSR 0x199 contains VID request information for Core 2 processors but these bits do not exist for a Core i7-720QM. If there is a secret way to control the voltage of a Core i mobile CPU, it is still a mystery to the user community.

 

Thank you, that was an excellent response. So it is still possible that perhaps a year from now, someone will figure out a way to undervolt the i cpus?

 

It has been 4 years since the first Core i CPU was introduced and so far, no magic register or method to under volt has been discovered.
Anything is possible but it is not very likely.

 

Unclewebb, would it be possible for you to PM me or email me? I need some help using throttle stop, I can't get my core speed to be maximum (about 3200 mhz) all the time like I'd like. It stays around 798mhz then sometimes jumps to 3200mhz.

 

Are you using the Windows high performance profile? Have you read the ThrottleStop documentation?

If you didn't spend extra money for an Extreme (XM) CPU then it is possible that your CPU was not designed to run full time at 3200 MHz. Most Intel mobile CPUs automatically slow down by reducing the multiplier as more cores of your CPU become active. At least tell me what CPU model you have so I can look up the basic specs for you.

ARK | Your source for information on Intel® products

I also need to see a screen shot of how you have ThrottleStop set up. Does ThrottleStop show your CPU frequently sitting at 798 MHz or are you using some other monitoring utility? Does this happen when your CPU is loaded or sitting idle?

ThrottleStop is a very accurate monitoring tool and it can be used to prevent a lot of the common throttling methods that laptop manufacturers like to use but for the most part, it can not make your CPU do anything that Intel didn't intend your CPU to do. Mobile CPUs are not the same as unlocked desktop CPUs. The non-Extreme mobile CPUs can not be locked and forced to run all of the cores at the full Turbo Boost speed 24/7.

 

apologies in advance but i didn't want to go through 139 pages to find what i was lookign for and a simple google search didn't confirm my question. what i wanted to know was if throttlestop is compatible with the ivybridge computers. the specific model im interested in is i7 3720qm @ 2.6 ghz turbo boost to 3.6 ghz

i read in some other thread that throttlestop doesn't have support for the newer i7s yet

here's a thread where a user tested your program with the same cpu model im using. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1712021. there wasn't much though

 

I went through ThrottleStop guide, but I could not find answer, so I try to ask here:

I want to use ThrottleStop to prevent computer from entering higher C-states (CPU whine is killing me). Unfortunately, the button "Package C State Limit" on screen "C State" is disabled. I set the Power scheme as advised, but still no luck. My CPU is Core i5-2520M.

 

sh0gunshin - ThrottleStop 5.00 is the first version that supports the newer 3rd Generation Ivy Bridge CPUs.

JohnnyCash - If the Package C State Limit button is disabled in ThrottleStop, that is because your laptop manufacturer disabled or locked this feature in the bios. There is nothing that ThrottleStop can do to change this once it has been locked. The only way to unlock this feature is with a modified bios.

 

is that version stable?

 

Very stable for me (and many, many others...) - just as all other versions of TS that I've tried.

 

That's almost an insult.

There have been very few changes since ThrottleStop 4.00 was released 12 months ago and very few if any complaints about ThrottleStop being unstable. It's a simple little program that helps out a lot of CPUs without consuming a lot of memory or CPU cycles.

The 2nd and 3rd Generation Sandy and Ivy Bridge CPUs are almost identical under the skin. It was mostly just a die shrink by Intel from 32nm to 22nm. My updating of ThrottleStop consisted of telling it to treat the new Ivy CPUs just like the previous Sandy CPUs and most ThrottleStop users seem to be happy. Some Clevo owners that now have access to full Turbo Boost on their Ivy laptops are very happy. You never hear from them on this thread because they must be too busy gaming.

I would like to add improved support for the adjustable multiplier feature in the 3720QM and 3820QM. That is on the things to do list but I don't have any documentation from Intel about this feature, I don't yet own a laptop with either CPU and my time for this project is limited. Maybe someday I will get that part of ThrottleStop sorted out.

tilleroftheearth: Thanks for your vote of confidence in project ThrottleStop.

 

awesome! i've downloaded it but before i run it, is it a binary or an actual installer?

 

unclewebb, you're more than welcome.

sh0gunshin, the zipped file you downloaded is not an installer - simply run it to enjoy.

 

Can anyone help before I go nuts. I want Throttlestop to start with Windows 8. It's not as easy as adding things to previous versions of Windows using the sart menu. I tried adding it to...
C:\Users\ User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp
Registry... Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion|Run

Still no joy. Why do things have to be made so frustrating!!

Thanks in advanced.

 

You need to do it with Task Scheduler:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...es/531329-throttlestop-guide.html#post6865107

 

I just figured out that it is running, but the icon just doesnt show in the task bar for some reason.

 

Did you read the link I gave you?

 

This works flawlessly. Make sure to follow each step, especially by giving ThrottleStop administrator priviledges.

 

Ok, thank you for info. So if I got it right, ThrottleStop checks setting of bit 15:0 of MSR registry 0xe2 (MSR_PKG_CST_CONFIG_CONTROL) to determine if C-State can be limited programmatically. I suppose ThrottleStop writes bits 2:0 of the same registry when setting limit of maximum C-State depth. Am I correct?

I noticed that E6420 is UEFI-capable. Is it possible to use this feature to unlock bit 15? I mean, use UEFI instead of BIOS.

 

Does any of these tweaks have any effect when ThrottleStop is running in full and min/max performance state in control panel is set to 100%?

GL