The ThrottleStop Guide

A link to the beta version of ThrotleStop that supports the new Haswell CPUs is in my signature.

I don't know of anything specifically that needs testing. If you see any problems, post a screen shot so I can have a look.

 

Hotkey broken in ThrottleStop ver.5.0. My hotkey Alt+1 is Profile 1, Alt+4 Profile 4. Press Alt +4 work normally. Press Alt+1 turn off program(monitoring only)...

 

I just tried this and it works perfectly for me. It switches back and forth to any of the 4 profiles without any problems. Do you have anything else running on your system that is using Hotkeys? Are you sure you didn't accidentally press ALT+F4. That's the standard Windows hotkey to exit a program.

 

I was inattentive.
I'm sorry, the first hotkey in list is turn off ...

 

Hello. I have questions, how do undervolt useing throttlestop ?? My proscessor is i5-3230M. I know that when you change the multiplier, voltage changes, but also reduces performance. You can reduce the voltage in some other way?

Thanks

 

I don't think it is possible to under volt the 3rd Generation Core i CPUs. I think Intel has added that feature to their new 4th Generation Haswell CPUs.

 

I asked because my brother have MSI Cx61 with i5-3230M and has max voltage 1.025V , i have max 1.140V. If the processor can work at lower voltage, I wanted to reduce them

 

Has something changed in the way TS 6.00 Beta 1 measures temperature? I see longer periods of temperature staying higher, i.e.:

1. Idle = 29-32 Celsius
2. Short activity (typing, browsing/loading webpages) = 40-50 C
3. Activity ended, presumably idle [ this period is longer; 6-10 seconds now, almost immediately before ] = Still 40-50 C
4. Returned to idle = 29-32 Celsius

I'm looking at TS's minimized icon for CPU temp only. TS upgraded from version 5 to 6Beta1, nothing else changed. INI file is the same. Sandy 2600K.


GL

 

I can't think of anything that has changed recently that would change the update frequency of the system tray icons.

I will have a look at this to see if I can notice anything different. Are you using any of the C States or have you changed anything in the bios lately? What OS are you using?

 

C-states yes. BIOS wasn't touched for many months. Windows 7 SP1 x64.

BUT, it probably is a false alarm because it doesn't happen after full load (i.e. Prime), but after intermediate - as I said, browsing, typing (in Word). And these programs have changed - every time I noticed this, different webpages were open, and I installed Office updates in the meantime. So please don't lose sleep over this. Maybe just a quick glance is enough.

GL

 

Thanks Uncleweb, TS 6.0 beta works fine with T5600 in my Acer Aspire 5610z, very easy to use utility, congrats :thumbsup:

EDIT:
I am @ 1.03 stable, listening to Radio, opened 10 sites and will go down further and test.

 

ellalan: Are you using the Windows Balanced Profile? ThrottleStop needs the Windows High Performance profile or else it will end up fighting against Windows to control your CPU.

You also need to put a check mark in the Set Multiplier box. In the Core 2 CPUs, the multiplier and VID are in the same CPU register so both get set at the same time. Your screen shot shows that your VID request of 1.0375 is being ignored and your CPU is using a VID of 0.9500 instead.

Glad you are having fun with ThrottleStop. Acer has made a throttling laptop model or two so ThrottleStop might come in handy if you have any clock modulation throttling issues.

 

Thanks unclewebb, yes I was using Windows Balanced Profile, I have switched back to High Performance Profile, yes, it's good fun using TS to reduce excessive heat from the system.

 

The 6.00 Beta 1 isn't working anymore, says it has expired.

Are you uploading a new version? The 6.00 is the only one with Haswell support so that's pretty bad for users with these CPUs

 

Same message here, I need my fix, hope a new version is forthcoming.

 

Same issue here.... not working

 

Sorry guys. ThrottleStop got bought out by a large Chinese company. I am not sure if they plan to develop it further or just bought the code so they could kill it off.

I guess all you guys with throttling Haswell laptops will have to pack them up and send them back to the manufacturer. Good luck.

 

Sad news, but I totally understand. I'm sure that a great number of people are grateful to you for developing and sharing with the public such an amazing tweak as ThrottleStop was.

Hopefully, the company that bought the program will continue developing it further, although I'm not sure if that will actually happen, and if it will be a freeware--I doubt it. If the price will be reasonable, it will be a well worth investiment.

Either way, a big thank you for all you have done for the community.

 

Wow, that is sad news, VERY sad news but thanks unclewebb for such an incredibly useful tool. Man I wonder what we're all gonna do now?

 

Wow.... that was totally unexpected.

Feeling pretty sad right now :/

 

WOW. This is unbelievable. So is this the end of ThrottleStop as we know it? What about the older versions like 5.00? Will they still work and be downloadable in the future?

I'm still in shock from this news.

 

Most likely. However, for what I can see older versions still work with non-Haswell CPUs so far.

 

I'm really sad to hear this as I had a nice time using TS, still using TS 5.0 but I don't know how long, I can always go back to RMClock because of C2D CPU.
However, a big Thank you to you unclewebb for all your work.

 

Any alternatives or any way to release one for Haswell users?

 

At least 6.0 beta 1 will continue to work if you set your PC clock prior to 10/1/2013 so we can do that for those times when it's really needed, until another utility (hopefully) comes along.

 

Hmm..those sneaky Chinese!

 

Soon to be back by popular demand.

http://imageshack.us/a/img543/5180/2sg8.jpg

 

Awesome! Best news I've heard all day. Looks like you got a new affiliate. I'm guessing The Digital HQ is the "large Chinese company" you were referring to?

 

Great news

 

Hip hip hooray!

 

For those who don't want to wait for a new version or didn't use any of the other things of ThrottleStop(like me):

Upon unclewebbs message and me being unsure about him being serious or not I wrote my own minimalistic program that only toggles throttling on/off, not more but not less either.
It only lets popup a commandline window with a short info and a request to hit a button, no GUI.
Works for my 4700MQ and should work for everything else that is supported by ThrottleStop.


Doesn't seem to be of any interest anymore.

 

ThrottleStop 6.00
http://www.thedigitalhq.com/downloads/



New Features:
- Intel 4th Generation Core i Haswell CPU support.
- TDP Level Control for the ULV processors.
- report of throttling due to TDP limit or CPU package temperature.
- added PROCHOT (processor hot) offset reporting.
- improved Windows 7 and Windows 8 system tray / notification area icon support.

Mr. Han has been a long time financial supporter of this program and thanks to him, it continues to be 100% free. Enjoy.

 

We owe BIG thanks to you for developing such an amazing app and to Mr. Han for supporting your outstanding work. After you told us the app discontinued we were a bit disheartened. But your coming back is most welcome and we really appreciate your sharing this with the community.

Grazie mille.

 

Seems a lot happened since I last checked things. At first I got surprised and sad to hear that TS could be no more, but then things brightened up quite a bit, all for the better

unclewebb, could you shed some light into what and how to configure TS 6.00's Flex VID as well as Intel Power Balance? Also, perhaps ThrottleStopDocs.html could be updated with both screenshots of the current version, as well as having information regarding new features.

Once again, congrats on doing an excellent job, thanks to Mr. Han as a supporter are in order as well, and I do hope to see more things in the future, helping out if and whenever it's possible/needed.

 

ThrottleStop 6.00 adds support for Haswell and some Xeon CPUs and it might be useful for the 2nd, 3rd or 4th Gen low power U or UM CPUs. I posted some info last month about some of the new features like TDP Level Control that I was working on but feedback has been zero.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...31329-throttlestop-guide-169.html#post9345656

My Core i7-3517U that I bought and used for development purposes is gone so it will be up to users to discuss these new features in the forums.

The Flex VID is another mystery feature. It seemed to increase the VID voltage on my 3570K and it probably increases the voltage on some mobile CPUs. For my desktop, I just set the voltage manually in the bios so it is not a feature that I will be using. Users with XM CPUs might find this feature useful.

TDP Throttle
This box will show a check mark when your CPU is being throttled due to reaching the power limits.

TDP Log
This box keeps a record of any power limits throttling. The above box is real time info and this box will stay permanently lit up if the CPU records any throttling, even for a millisecond. When throttling ends, you can click on this box to reset it. If you were in the middle of a game, you could ALT+TAB back out to the desktop and this box would show if you experienced any TDP related throttling recently.

PROCHOT - x
This box will show a check mark if your CPU Package reaches the thermal throttling temperature. It may or may not contain a value after the word PROCHOT. If you follow the link above and look at the screen shots for my 3517U you will see a value of - 13 after the word PROCHOT. This means that the manufacturer, Asus, has decided to ignore the Intel specified 100C thermal throttling temperature and instead, has set the thermal throttling temperature to 87C ( 100C - 13 ). Intel calls this the PROCHOT offset. It's a nice feature to give manufacturers so they can create laptops and tablets that don't get too hot but there is no way for consumers to know that their new laptop has this "feature".

I thought enthusiasts might find the TDP and PROCHOT information interesting. It might help explain some of the premature throttling users see. The only way to set the CPU to the original Intel spec is by using a modified bios with the PROHOT offset feature set to zero.

 

Interesting. Sadly, my Core i7-2820QM has TDP Level Control greyed out, but both Intel Power Balance and Flex VID are selectable.

Is Intel Power Balance useful for non-UM CPUs? From the screenshots posted on the link, it seems CPU performance is limited to stock clocks when GPU is TDP favored, and the other way around. Also, does the 0-31 range apply to all compatible CPUs?

Interestingly, TS 6.00 registers PROCHOT - 2 on my CPU, and I would have to agree, given that over that level, I do get a 400-600MHz drop (thankfully nothing drastic).

Just for reference, here are a few screenshots of how TS 6.00 reads my hardware:
http://i.imgur.com/9mbN2S6.png - Main window
http://i.imgur.com/yMksppQ.png - Power Limits window
http://i.imgur.com/wFRtiwC.png - Turbo Ratio Limits window

EDIT: Actually, it seems only CPU runs at stock clocks when GPU is TDP favored, whereas the GPU is underclocked when the CPU is TDP favored.

 

Hi Kevin , hope your keeping well.

You might be more familiar with the term "Additional Turbo Voltage" than flex VID. Usually with turbo multi's there is little vcore increase after the HFM. With Flex voltage you can continue increasing vcore with turbo multi's in a fairly linear way up towards the max VID (~1.5V). I preferred to use this method for OC'ing desktop SNB / IVB but each to their own. With the 2500k running all cores full load at 4.6GHz it was as hot as I would go with the cooling I had. With 1 core though it could go to 5.0GHz easily and the flex voltage here helped keep the lowest vcore on 4.6 while allowing for a higher vcore at 1x 5.0, 2x 4.8... without reaching silly temps.

Just upgraded my old core2 laptop to Haswell with i7-4700MQ. Couple of extra bins available on this chip to run 1 core at 3.6 or all 4 at 3.4 (usually 3.2 without the extra bins enabled). Don't have much time to play these days modifying unfortunately.

Never got to play with SNB / IVB mobile but maybe in cases where they get too hot at load then modifying the loadline might work to undervolt, not ideal but might work if unlocked in the BIOS.

With Haswell maybe try XTU to undervolt, again if BIOS allows.

Lots of new tech to investigate and maybe add into TS if you ever get a chance to be bored.

All the best.

 

Many thanks to TDHQ for supporting ThrottleStop.

@unclewebb: I think these new functions could be better represented with some kind of indicators; checkmarks imply they can be, well... checked.

@Dufus: Could you please share some more (well explained) info on Additional Turbo Voltage... I didn't find anything satisfactory on how does it actually work. I am all about running a staggered overclock on desktop Sandy. ASUS pulled out Additional Turbo Voltage in some BIOS revisions, and afterwards it came back. I'm mostly afraid that AUTO means overshooting voltage, just like AUTO CPU voltage is bad.

GL

 

Thanks for your screen shots tribaljet. That's the kind of info that I can never get enough of. To do a proper job, I would need to have access to handfuls of old and new hardware and infinite time would help too.

TDP Level Control only applies to the UM CPUs as far as I know.

Intel Power Balance is for when you are using the Intel CPU and Intel GPU and I think it works on the non-UMs. Being able to adjust the available power between the CPU and GPU might be an advantage in a few games if you don't have access to a Nvidia or AMD GPU.

A 2820QM has a default throttling temperature of 100C. It looks like the manufacturer of your laptop thought 98C ( 100C - 2 ) would be a better idea. Before knowing about this option, a CPU could be throttling and I had no explanation why. Now I know to check what that is set to. It can only be adjusted in the bios.

Dufus: Long time no see. I was recently thinking about getting a 4700MQ to play with but unfortunately a new fridge won that debate. No new toys for me for a while. I found some code to unlock the extra bins but I haven't had a chance to look into this further. Maybe someday. If you learn anything new, let me know.

I played around with the Flex VID on my 3570K a while ago. When I get some time I will try to post some pics about this feature. On a desktop board if you go into the bios and set the voltage to fixed, the VID is ignored so adjusting this shouldn't make any difference. I think I found that if you are using offset voltage in the bios then this might be a useful feature. ThrottleStop is mostly a tool for laptops and the majority of them, probably won't be able to use this feature or won't find it of any use. I don't know what CPUs it applies to yet but I think it is only available on the unlocked XM or K CPUs.

When I come up with something new, I try to leave the feature unlocked so anyone can access the feature and give it a try. If I get enough feedback. I usually try to lock things down so the option will be grayed out in ThrottleStop when it is run on CPUs that are not supported.

GrofLuigi: I agree that the new functions would make more sense if it was a round dot or some other sort of indicator instead of the check box. I will look into changing that for the next release.

I have some code ready to better handle Nvidia Optimus. Maybe for the next update in a couple of weeks.

 

Hi GrofLuigi,
it works to provide additional voltage for turbo ratios by using VID. You will need to experiment, maybe start of with 0.1V and go from there. This voltage will be distributed over your turbo ratio's, that is it will be added to the VID from where it normally stops at the HFM (the highest non-turbo ratio), in steps up to an additional 0.1V if that is what you have set. Since it is a part of the VID mechanism to request voltage you will not be able to ask for more than ~1.5V above whatever you have set offset voltage to and of course what you actually end up with will be dependent on loadline characteristics and load.

I understand your concerns with Asus using 0 for auto. They had a really bad bug a while back when using offset and profiles. Sometimes loading a profile would end up with offset voltage set to ~0.8V which works out to over 2V being applied to the CPU with positive offset. I use to set offset negative for that reason and set it to -0.005 so it wasn't "auto".

Some info on flex VID (additional turbo voltage)

Code:

MSR 0x194 (on recent chips including SNB)
Bits  7:0  Additional turbo voltage in 1/256V so up to almost 1V but remember VID will be limited to max VID (~1.5V SNB).
Bits 15:8  Maximum non turbo ratio aka Flex Ratio. This can be used to set a maximum ratio below the HFM
Bit  16	   Lock bit for Flex Ratio
Bits 19:17 Number of overclock bins, 7 meaning unlimited and the rest the number. i.e. for my 4700MQ it is 2 so can run 1 core at 3.6GHz if set instead of the standard 3.4GHz
Bit  20	   Lock bit for IVB+ turbo ratio's aka MSR 0x1AD

Hi Kevin,
understand your priorities, I've had the Core2 laptop for 5 years or so now so time to move on from 4GB of RAM and 32-bit Vista. The 3.0GHz overclock of P8400 from 2.26GHz has lasted all this time so that's good news, can not say the same for the battery however. I'm giving MSI a go this time around, something not too expensive but can do most of what I want and hopefully last 5 or 6 years.

Yes, VID settings which additional turbo voltage is a part of are not much use when using fixed voltage. If you remember back to the XS days and the power measurements on SNB the example I posted was using additional turbo voltage to show the power was derived from VID and that you could get 2 very different readings for the same supply and load depending what you used.

I wonder if Haswell has improved with power measurements, the reported package powers seem to be higher now, maybe because of the integrated VRM.

AFAIK C6 and C7 core states are basically the same except C7 core states are needed to enter C7 package state at which time L3 cache will take a hit. Not seen C7 package state however, even desktop IVB can transition to the C7 core states but no package state. Maybe it's just for the U and Y processors which will also have C8, C9 and C10 package states but reading these will likely mean running a history from time 0. Interesting also is the ACPI interaction with Intel DSA. For instance balanced gear seems to keep things to a maximum of C3 and hi performance C1. With C-states disabled and 3.4GHz all cores with idle OS CPU load package power for the 4700MQ is ~35W. I'm not sure but I think even my old i7-860 reported lower than this with similar settings.

DSA with power saver


Sorry to hear you are not getting much feedback, perhaps it's a bit too much like black magic for many. I miss all this playing around trying to find out about the undocumented features that Intel keeps secret. While frustrating it's that way I did enjoy the challenge when I had the time for it.

 

Sure thing, and if there's more info that can be of use, please do let me know.

What about users who do have a GPU rather than just an IGP? Would it be useful to just set Intel Power Balance to 31 on the CPU, or perhaps a value close to 31 given that DWM still runs on the IGP? And is 0-31 the range for all compatible CPUs? Just asking given that you seem to have tested it on a 3rd gen mobile i5, and I happen to have a 2nd gen mobile i7. I didn't get to test things, but I was also wondering if you did hard limit the available values that can be set, as to avoid entering 99 instead of 31, for instance.

Along with plenty of people with laptops, I also happen to have an Optimus-enabled laptop, so I wonder what you mean about better handling it.

 

My test CPU was a 3rd Gen Core i7-3517UM. I think the TDP Level Control only applies to the 2nd and 3rd Gen UM and the 4th Gen U CPUs.

The register in the CPU that controls Power Balance has 5 bits set aside for this feature so that gives 32 values (2^5) from 0 to 31. I can't remember if I used a hard limit or not. I hope I did.

The only testing I tried to do was with the Nvidia GPU disabled in the Task Manager. Users that only have the Intel GPU available will have to do some testing of the Power Balance option to see if it will be of any use.

 

Ah I see, and it's a shame if TDP Level Control is limited to low power CPUs.

Going back to an old situation that's still happening, namely very little occurrence of higher C-States, it seems that the manufacturer of my audio interface still didn't fix the polling bug that prevented full C6 from working when idling.

What do you mean by disabling the GPU in Task Manager? And from what I understood, Intel Power Balance only related to the CPU and the Intel IGP, the Nvidia GPU should never be taken into account since it doesn't share the CPU's TDP package, at least that's my grasp of the matter.
Also, given that ThrottleStop reads Intel Power Balance as 0 for CPU and 24 for GPU (Intel Power Balance is unchecked by default), can I assume that's the settings my specific CPU came with, meaning both the IGP could get a higher TDP share as well as switching and giving full TDP for the CPU?

EDIT: Up to this very same day I'm still hoping that someone manages to discover a way to disable the Intel IGP and force the output through the Nvidia GPU alone. Although, I've read that the IGP is always used for the internal output, but that confuses me since some laptops do have a BIOS option to disable Optimus (disabling the IGP and using just the GPU) and that would mean bypassing the default display output. Do you have any insight on this situation?

 

On my desktop 3570K, C6 Package residency percent went up from 60% to over 90% as soon as I plugged my keyboard into a USB3 port instead of a USB2 port. That sounds like a poorly written USB2 driver to me. Google Chrome also prevents the CPU from using the Package C6 state. I am sure many programmers didn't put too much thought into efficiency and polling rates in the past. Hopefully they will get their heads out of the sand or somewhere else and learn to use the C State data that ThrottleStop or RealTemp displays.

The Asus laptop I used for testing had an Nvidia GPU and used Optimus. To disable the Nvidia GPU, I opened up the Device Manager, right clicked on the Nvidia GPU and selected Disable. This let me do some testing just as if I had a laptop that did not have a Nvidia GPU installed.

I think default Power Balance settings of 0 and 16 or 0 and 24 are common. If the ThrottleStop Power Balance box is not checked, the CPU will use the default values that the bios set it to. Checking this box lets you over ride the default values. I was going to allow users to save this value for future use next time ThrottleStop was started but I didn't get any feedback so I think I left it without a permanent save feature. I was afraid that a user might accidentally set these to something like 31 and 0 and then wonder why their Intel GPU performance was so bad every time they started ThrottleStop.

If I find a trick to disable the Intel GPU I will let you know.

 

I've recently built a system with an i7-4770K and it was very impressive in terms of C States, idling on C6 at 95-97%. I was baffled while looking at it.

About Chrome, I believe there is a setting under advanced settings that allows for disabling a couple processes that run on the background.

Ah, you actually disabled it through Device Manager. I was just wondering if you had any software running that could depend on the GPU.

Out of curiosity but after trying out different Power Balance settings, does unchecking the box restore the default values? If it doesn't, it most definitely would be a useful thing to do, especially since it would also fix any potential misconfiguration issues from the user's end. That, and having the previously mentioned hard limit for the values range.

Fingers crossed about Optimus

 

The Package C State percent that is possible on a lean system is surprising. That pic is when running Windows 8.1. The C6 Package state drops significantly on Windows 7 when using the USB2 port but on the same computer, it looks like Microsoft has fixed this bug because C6 package residency time is the same whether USB2 or USB3 is being used for my keyboard and mouse. The C State bug I had with the latest Google Chrome on Windows 8.1 also seems to have been fixed.

With the Nvidia GPU disabled in the Device Manager, any 3D app that starts will be forced to use the Intel GPU instead. I only disabled this when I was at the desktop. Not sure what would happen if you disabled while it was being used. Some 3D App might crash or hang.

Unchecking the Power Balance box does NOT reset these settings. There is no way to read the default settings from the CPU so I don't know what to set them too. It will be up to a user to determine what his default settings really are. You would have to reboot, run ThrottleStop and see what initial values the bios sets these to. There does seem to be a hard limit set in ThrottleStop so you can not set these values greater than 31. As soon as you adjust these and click outside the box or try to click on Apply or Save, it should set this to 31 if you have gone over this limit.

The next version of RealTemp includes reporting of the new C8, C9 and C10 package states. I will probably add that to ThrottleStop some day. I think only the 4th Gen U CPUs support these.

 

Hi uncleweb,
Thanks for another nice utility, I couldn't find 4.0 but I managed to get Tech Inferno version, I like the new column for "Max", it's useful information at a glance :thumbsup:

 

The newer Core i CPUs include a separate register that keeps track of the peak temperature. Intel calls this the CPU Package temperature. It basically samples multiple sensors on the CPU and Intel GPU and reports the highest temp in this one location. The older Core 2 processors like you have do not have this feature in the CPU so in RealTemp T|I, I just do the comparison within the program itself. I agree that it makes it handy when you can look at a single temperature number in the system tray. Version 4 has not been released. Maybe some day.

I have always found that the error in these sensors causes them to report too low; not too high. What this means is that the reported peak core temperature does a great job of telling you how hot your CPU really is and minimizes the amount of sensor error.

 

Impressive numbers, unclewebb. Microsoft did finally provide their generic USB 3.0 driver versions (along with updated USB 2.0 drivers) with Windows 8.x, so it's not surprising to see improved power management. Curiously, one has to exercise caution when installing non-native USB 3.0 drivers made for Windows 7 on Windows 8 as that not only can lead to BSODs but also performance inconsistencies.

The real boon would be the possibility of disabling the Intel IGP and just use the Nvidia GPU. The other way around isn't so much the issue. The single greatest feature all Optimus users would like to have is either an actual on-the-fly switch between display adapters, as in using solely one over the other and not shared loads, or a persistent display adapter, even if it required restarting.

It's a shame Intel Power Balance doesn't reset settings when unchecked.

It does seem to be the case that C8-10 States are only available on low power CPUs, which is something I can't grasp as regular and high performance CPUs would benefit from them as well.

EDIT: One thing I didn't understand yet about Power Balance is if 31 is the absolute value that needs to be split between CPU and GPU or if there can be ratios of (for instance) CPU - 28 / GPU - 15, also what sort of differences would it cause.

 

I think you could set the Power Balance values both to 0 or both to 31. I am not sure what the results would be. I only tested with them set completely opposite so it would be easy to see the maximum difference.