The ThrottleStop Guide

I have a Dell Inspiron 15R ( i5 2430M and Gt 525m )
I experienced some throttling even on low temperatures while playing some games.
My question is that which type of clock modulation should I select ? Clock Modulation or Chip Clock Mod ?

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 15R ( i5 2430M and Gt 525m )
I experienced some throttling even on low temperatures while playing some games.
My question is that which type of clock modulation should I select ? Clock Modulation or Chip Clock Mod ?

 

If you are not sure what type of clock modulation your laptop is using the best thing to do is to turn on the ThrottleStop Log File option and then go do some gaming. When you are finished gaming, exit the game and exit ThrottleStop so all of the data will be saved in the log file. Look in the log file for the two types of clock modulation. They should both report 100%. If one doesn't show 100%, set it to 100% in ThrottleStop and put a check mark in the box.

You rarely if ever need to check both boxes in ThrottleStop. Many people check both boxes because it is easier to do that than to do some testing. That won't hurt anything but I don't like to waste CPU cycles checking for clock modulation throttling unless I know there is an actual problem.

I tried to reply to you over on Tom's Hardware but they were blocking me today. Not sure why.

If you need any help, post a log file. You can upload to www.pastebin.com

 

Thank you. But the problem is somewhat different. When I play a game for about some time throttling kicks in but whenever I create log file both the Modulations are always on 100. They never dip below 100 but I know that throttling's there.
Is this GPU throttling ?

 

Post a ThrottleStop log file so I can have a look. Include GPU temperature monitoring in the log file if your GPU is supported. The log file should show if your CPU is working at its rated speed. If the GPU is being throttled, that will usually show up as a drop in temperature. Without some data to look at, it's difficult to start guessing what the problem might be.

The Nvidia 525M is not a very powerful GPU. Your CPU might be fine and you are simply running into the limits of this GPU.

 

Hi Kevin,
For those that have their maximum multi limited on systems that support extra OC bins for SNB and upwards you could get them to try this utility then try TS again. However it does not check 0x194 turbo ratio lock bit for IVB and upwards.

View attachment 103300

 

Thanks Dufus.

I can say from experience that Dufus knows his stuff. He likes uncovering Intel's secrets even more than I do. Hopefully someone will give your MaxMulti utility a try Dufus and post their results.

I think I should be able to test this on my desktop 3570K when I get home later today. I will post here if it works for me.

 

@unclewebb: After having updated my system from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, I've noticed that Optimus switching is no longer buggy as it was for over a year due to drivers messing things up. Also, ThrottleStop does seem to be unable to read GPU temperatures when the system boots without any software hooks that call for the GPU, something I used to have just to avoid GPU status toggle that can lead to power usage swings as well as microstuttering.

All of this to ask if GPU detection might be something potential to be included in a future ThrottleStop version.

@Dufus: I take it your software targets K-series and X-series CPUs alone? Or is it of some use for a regular mobile CPU such as an i7-2820QM?

 

ThrottleStop gets GPU temperature data directly from the driver. It the GPU driver being used does not support temperature monitoring then ThrottleStop will not be able to report your GPU temperature. If there is any micro-stuttering due to GPU temperature reading, blame the driver.

Writing my own code to monitor GPU temperatures is more work than I have time for. The next version of ThrottleStop will avoid waking up the Nvidia GPU. When you are finished gaming, ThrottleStop should let the Nvidia GPU go back into a low power state. That's the plan at the moment. The only draw back is that a user will have to manually tell ThrottleStop to resume GPU monitoring before you resume using the GPU.

I just checked out MaxMulti on my 3570K and it worked perfectly.

Don't quote me on this but I think MaxMulti will work on the XM and K CPUs and it will also work on the Intel CPUs that support limited overclocking. Being able to increase the max multiplier by up to 4 additional bins over the default value is a common feature for many desktop and mobile CPUs. MaxMulti might be putting a big smile on a few faces tonight.

Here is how my 3570K looks after I boot up with the 40 multiplier.
http://imageshack.us/a/img4/9429/pwe0.png

ThrottleStop by itself has never been able to overclock the 2nd, 3rd or 4th Gen CPUs. Sure it lets you change the appropriate registers in the CPU but I was never able to get this feature working. Here is ThrottleStop asking the CPU for a 45 multiplier but the request is being ignored.



After starting MaxMulti, it diagnoses the problem and offers a solution.



Do I want to set the limit to maximum? Of course I do.

Problem solved. With the help of MaxMulti, the 45 multiplier that ThrottleStop was asking the CPU for is finally granted. With this K series CPU, now I can use ThrottleStop to set the multi to whatever I like.



When I ran MaxMulti a second time, it confirms that the maximum multiplier has already been unlocked.



Thanks Dufus for this simple solution. +rep and of course :thumbsup:

 

Thing is, ThrottleStop by itself doesn't wake the GPU on Optimus systems. An external software (any that calls for the GPU) in order to wake it up, and when the GPU does wake up, ThrottleStop does monitor the temperature.

After doing some testing, I've found that it's best (for my particular usage) to just leave a tiny (~1MB) desktop window color picker software to run on the tray while being assigned to the GPU rather than the IGP. Sure, I do get idle temps that are around 4C higher, but it's well worth it since there are no minor hiccups when the system switches between display adapters.

There are a few things that can cause microstuttering on mobile GPUs (not just Optimus systems), namely dynamic clock adjustments that seem to come by default on all IGP/GPU vendor's control panels, and the fact that no muxless hybrid graphics system has been implemented properly can also cause minor (but noticeable) microstuttering at the beginning of running 3D software.

About MaxMulti, sadly it reports I already have the highest available multiplier. But it seems to be a nice piece of software to keep for compatible systems.

 

I know enough to realize how little I really know.


MaxMulti was just for testing to see if that solved the problem, thank you for testing it. I'll email the details of what needs to be done to you so hopefully it can be used in TS rather having 2 programs. Not sure if the PM on here is working properly for me as I did PM earlier.

If you have a non K/X CPU you could check if it supports extra overclocking bins. My i7-4700MQ supports 2. I don't know if TS shows this but the way to check is shown a few posts back. No need to be sad that your multi was already set to max limit, on the contrary you should be happy your BIOS has decided not to limit your CPU multipliers.

 

Unfortunately my Samsung NP-700g7c with a 3820 limits in bios to 3.7 GHz. I can't seem to access the extra 4 bins even with MultiMax. Not that this thing isn't fast enough just would have liked to see them in action...............

 

Ok, for some reason I'm just not finding the info about overclocking bins Could you please shed some light into that? It should also be noted that the few versions of XTU I tried had all locked settings, which could be related to the motherboard chipset being a HM65 rather than a HM67 (which people seem to state being XTU friendly).

About Windows 8.1, I'm having mixed feeling towards it. On one hand, things do feel smoother and I've seen no performance degradation of any sort. Driver issues that force me to reinstall them again aren't a concern but having had more than a couple TDRs is a bad sign, especially since the same GPU drivers were perfectly stable on Windows 8. Seems I'll be waiting for batches of hotfixes...

 

I missed out on SNB and IVB mobile CPU's so don't know much about them. For checking if overclock bins are available you could try HWInfo32. Not do overclocking bins need CPU support but also support from the PCH so it could be the chipset is not allowing them if they exist on the CPU..

Here's my i7-4700MQ HWInfo32 as an example.


The one I find interesting though is


That means use of 1.0, 1.25, 1.67... straps. IOW BCLK can be set to run at 1.25 strap to give 125MHz BCLK so a 32x multi would give 4.0GHz but this is going to need some ME work so maybe end of the year I will get some time to take a look.

 

Sadly, that information doesn't even show. I could've sworn I had read about it a few months back and had checked for it, and going back now does confirm it. There isn't any Number of Overclocking Bins feature list displayed.

Is there any sort of data I can provide to help out with better understanding mobile SB?

 

MSR Tool
http://www.mediafire.com/download/myjkxzkzzmd/MSR.zip

MSR 0x194 is the register that contains information about how many bins of overclocking a CPU supports.

You can use my MSR Tool or you can run CPU-Z. Click on the CPU-Z About tab, click on the Save Report (.TXT) button and it will show you the contents of MSR 0x194.

This register shows if a CPU supports overclocking as well as the number of bins of overclocking that are available.

Edit: This is what a fully unlocked CPU will show in MSR 0x194.

 

I did run MSR Tool but I'm not sure what to make of it, just that it doesn't match your MSR 0x194 contents.

 

It says the number of overclocking bins is zero.

 

MSR 0x194, 5th letter or digit from the right.

F --> Unlimited overclocking (K or XM CPU)
D --> 6 bins
B --> 5 bins
9 --> 4 bins
7 --> 3 bins
5 --> 2 bins
3 --> 1 bin
1 --> 0 bins

Any even number in that position means that multiplier overclocking is not available.

 

In HWInfo it say's I have 4 bins, not too sure what to make of it but below is MSR.

 

TANWare: You have to enter 0x194 in the MSR Number box and then you have to click on the Read MSR button to get the MSR Tool to read that register.

I think your CPU should show either 9 or 8 in the middle of that register. A value of 8 means your CPU supports +4 bins of multiplier overclocking but this feature is disabled in the bios. If it shows 9 then this feature is available in your CPU but your chipset might not support multiplier overclocking. Can you check the CPU-Z Mainboard tab to see what chipset you have.

 

Looks like a 9..............





Edit; I can over wright the 9 with any value with MSR the 1 though I can't seem to change as it always comes back as 0x001X0000, with that "X" being writable............

 

Not all bits in a register can be written. Some are read only. If you try to change them, the change will be ignored. I don't have any documentation that shows what that number 1 represents but I don't believe it has anything to do with the multiplier overclocking feature.

After you boot up and run the MaxMulti tool, what does MaxMulti report? When you open the ThrottleStop - TRL window, can these values be adjusted? What are the default values after booting up?

Edit: I see you have the Intel HM76 chipset. The chipset has to support this overclocking feature. I will have to do some research to try to figure out what Intel chipsets support this.

Here are the defalut multipliers for a Core i7-3820QM depending on how many cores are active.
1 core - 37
2 core - 36
3 core - 35
4 core - 35

This CPU should be able to use these multipliers.
1 core - 41
2 core - 40
3 core - 39
4 core - 39

After you run the MaxMulti tool, adjust these values in the TRL window and then change the Set Multiplier value to 41. Post a screen shot of ThrottleStop while running 1 thread of the TS Bench test.

From what I can find, I think the Intel HM77 chipset supports overclocking but the HM76 does not.
http://www.intel.eu/content/dam/www.../product-briefs/hm77-mobile-chipset-brief.pdf
http://www.intel.eu/content/dam/www.../product-briefs/hm76-mobile-chipset-brief.pdf

 

Hey, I've been trying to narrow down what is causing an annoying whine that's coming from my notebook but I'm note sure if my guess is correct. I monitored the C states with Throttlestop and found out that the whinining disappears when the "Package C State Percent" of the C6 state is 0. Unfortunately the option "Package C State Limit" is greyed out. Is there a way for me to disable the deeper package C states without having to alter the bios? Thanks in advance.

 

I did give some info on this in post 1738

TANWare, bit 20 which is set on your screen shot will prevent you from adjusting turbo values in MSR 0x1AD. Interesting that you can change the other bits though.

You have an MSI right? I did share some info for people wanting to enable MSI advanced BIOS functions without flashing a BIOS. Have you tried it? Maybe there is an option to change package states.

 

Thanks for the link, but I'm not confident enough that I won't brick anything

 

There are no changes to the BIOS firmware. Just don't change things you are not familiar with. For instance trying to change RAM timings that are unstable or setting power limits to low could leave the notebook not able to post and while these can be cleared with a cmos reset by disconnecting the supplies and cmos battery it means having to dismantle the notebook. On mine the cmos battery looks really awkward to get at.

If you do not feel confident then fair enough, better safe than sorry.

 

I kind of figured I'm locked to 37 as the high end but oh well. The stock bins, for now at least, are way more than I need. The only lag I see is in video and photo processing. I guess wee could always use a bit more on the CPU end there.

I should note using Canon's own DPP for raw files the CPU does not seem to lag. Now Adobe LightRoom can easily tax the CPU at times. Nothing horrible and it definitely does not freeze up. Occasionally you just het to wait for the systems to catch up.........

Edit; I should also note in switching to XTU 4.2 I now can lower the clocks. I still can't raise them and in this version the graphics show 3.7 GHz as the highest clock. In the prior version it showed the 3.7 Ghz clock in the graph with a small greyed out area for a slightly higher setting that of course I couldn't get too.............

 

TANWare, probably need a BIOS mod to enable them.

Here's an even number with overclocked turbo's



IIRC I posted 0x194 some years ago where you asked me why I had 'E' when all the others you had seen were 'F' for bits 19:16 but can not remember where. I think SNB was controlled by the flex ratio then when IVB came the limit was moved to you know where. I guess Intel were fed up with someone writing throttlestop programs to circumvent limits

 

Not even sure with the HM76 that a bios mod would help. While agreed the 4 bins, or 400 MHz, would be better than a 10% clock improvement I doubt it would create that large of an improvement in the system. While agreed it would be noticeable it really is not all that much. Now a desktop with a 6 core overclocked CPU, that may make a large difference. I just can not bring myself to do a desktop rather than DTR.

My thought on this is I would need to see 25% or greater CPU enhancement before even thinking about dropping another couple of grand on a new system. For a mobile this would be a turbo 4.6 under the current quad core. Even then, before going to a new system, I usually like to see 40-50% improvement on over my current CPU under a new core not just 25% under the current core.............

 

I misread the docs. You're right. MSR 0x194 - bit[16] is the lock bit for the FLEX_RATIO in bits[15..8]. This controls the maximum non-turbo ratio but doesn't have anything to do with the turbo ratios. I will have to play around with this some more but most users are not too interested in being able to decrease their non-turbo ratio.

It makes sense that MSR 0x194 - bit[20] is the lock bit for bits [19..17] where the number of overclocking bins available is stored.

Hmmm, maybe!

As always, thanks for your contributions to project ThrottleStop.

 

I upgraded a Dell E4200 with a Core 2 Duo SU9600 CPU to Windows 8.1 Pro. When I launch ThrottleStop 6.0 from the desktop and receive the UAC prompt, it launches as it did with Windows Vista. However, if I start it using a Scheduled Task, the red icon does not appear in the Notification Area of the Taskbar. When started as a Scheduled Task ThrottleStop runs and can be controlled by Hot Keys, but the icon is missing. I cleaned the Notification Area icon cache, yet the behavior remains.

 

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

basicstuff: Did you follow the directions in the above post exactly? Make sure you checked off.

Run only when user is logged on.

It sounds like ThrottleStop is starting before you have logged in to your account. When you do this, the program will be running in the Task Manager but you won't have access to the user interface. Some users like being able to do this so they can run ThrottleStop 24/7 in the background and forget about it.

I tried the above start up method in the Windows 8.1 developer preview version of Windows and this method was still working fine but I haven't tested Windows 8.1 with UAC yet so let me know if you get this problem solved.

Edit: I turned UAC on in Windows 8.1 Preview version and this method is still working.

 

Thanks, that did it. By having the ThrottleStop task run on "Log on" (not on Startup) and selecting "Run only when user is logged on," the icon now appears in the Notification Area.

 

I agree flex ratio is not widely used, just FYI. IIRC on SNB when flex ratio is set lower than the HFM turbo bins could not be used only when it was set to the HFM but my memory isn't that good so may have it wrong.

Bit 20 is to disable adjusting turbo ratio's in MSR 0x1AD. I have always had MSR 0x194 bits 19:17 read only hence my surprise with TANWare being able to adjust them. If this worked then conceivably you could turn a limited CPU into unlimited.

Yes, for the same processor I would say a 50% increase is where it becomes obviously noticeable. For me I like to think when I am running at high performance, when it's needed, even a small increase is appreciated and don't forget this increase is free unless it is badly affecting power consumption or pushing the laptop outside it's thermal limits. If MSR 0xCE bit 28 is set (1) then a BIOS mod to clear bit 20 in MSR 0x194 is all you should need for the extra 4 bins.

 

Here is the OxCE, binary conversion of EAX = 11111000000000010001101100000000

 

Wow, that's a lot of ones a zero's lol. Should be GTG.

There's a couple of utilities that make MSR editing easier such as RW-Everything but be careful with this as entering wrong values can cause BSOD.



Having a quick look at a NP700G7C BIOS you should be able to get what you want without flashing a modded BIOS by changing a UEFI variable. Let me know if your interested.

 

Sure. I'll try it...........

 

TANWare, are you booting GPT or MBR?

 

Mbr...............

 

Okay, that'll make things more involved. Seems like your BIOS setup has 2 advanced tabs, I can guess which one you see. Given the way it is we could just try setting the core ratio's. If you want, follow this thread from post #28 and post the dump. I'll then have a look at it for you.

 

I tried, at a dos cmd box, dmpstore but get command not recognized. I went to the earlier posts and with a usb and bootx64.efi version 1 and version 2 on a usb get nothing different than usual and same with commands. The bios now does recognize the first boot priority as "UEFI:USB" as the first item so it does try to boot there but brings up windows, no UEFI interface. I can tell you with our bios's it doesn't list UEFI as a direct option but " UEFI Compatible : Enable/Disable". With this I suspected GPT would just be an option not a full UEFI bios. I can also state this Samsung did not have the early Linux bricking issue with UEFI most others did.

In the end this is a very strange machine..................................

 

EFI executables will not run under Windows or DOS... only under EFI.

Normally all that is need is a non bootable FAT32 (NTFS or other FS will not usually work) USB flash drive with a folder named EFI and sub folder named boot. The bootx64.efi linked in that thread is placed in the boot folder and UEFI:USB... used as the boot choice. Alternatively if you have a boot to shell option then usually the file is named shellx64.efi and placed in the root directory of the FAT32 USB drive but some systems use shell.efi and/or may look for it under efi\boot directory.

 

For whatever reason with IE I can't seem to upload the nub file so sent a pm with a link. I'm a EFI newbie, did not know you needed sub's thought it was from the root.

 

This seems to work pretty well. Thank you! I was able to change multiplier ratios above what they were set to in the BIOS without using XTU or adjusting anything in the BIOS. My BIOS is set for 43x4, Flex 18, Pri Plane 896 for my 24/7 daily driver clock speeds.

I launched MaxMulti and then changed my core speeds from 43x4 to 47x4 using nothing but ThrottleStop. Bumped my Flex VID from 18 to 50 using ThrottleStop, clicked "apply" and it worked totally fine. Solid 47x4 with no crashing. Normally that would not work unless I changed core ratios and flex in the BIOS first, or by using XTU. Good job! +1 Rep

I will test it more with other CPUs (Extreme and non-Extreme) using MaxMulti and ThrottleStop 6.00 and report back how that works out.

 

Thanks for the valuable feedback Mr. Fox. I am hoping that MaxMulti will also be able to open up the partially unlocked CPUs such as the 3720QM and 3820QM. I have a new version of ThrottleStop almost ready to go that will show how many bins of overclocking are available within the CPU. You will also need a compatible chipset like the HM77 or HM87.

 

Yes, thanks for the feedback Mr.Fox.

Hopefully if enough people show interest in this such as yourself Unclewebb will code this into TS, when time permits. It'll save having to run 2 programs.

 

Well Dufus has done it again, my lowly HM76 i7-3820 is now at the extra 4 bins. While flex does not seem to effect this system it is rock solid on the multi's. Again Intel, and Samsung, apparently not sharing the wealth.

 

OK, I tested this with the i7 4702HQ and it worked. It unlocked the multis to allow me to set 34x4. (The 4-core limit is 3.1GHz by design.) Because it is a Haswell CPU, as expected, it still sucks really bad and doesn't run at those speeds most of the time. Probably because Haswell TPD is messed up and it can't be changed with the HQ CPU. So, setting 34x4 did not improve performance, but MaxMulti definitely did exactly what it was supposed to do. More testing with other CPUs will follow.

 

Can the GT 750M in the Dell be clocked higher? I ran the dual GT750m in the Lenovo Y500 at 1200MHz core clock last time. But then I modded the heatsink slightly by adding some washers.

Also a general question. In the TPL menu in TS, there's the Package Current Limit, in amps. I could change the value but upon reboot it will go back to the default value (the default on the AW 18 is 55A for 4930MX).

Is there a way to make ThrottleStop so that it starts up and apply the value that I want for the Package Current Limit?