The ThrottleStop Guide

i can see the result of "Lack of competition".

the mobile i7 thread is so informative. thank you so much.

 

Yes, lack of competition is awful.

You're welcome; tis why I wrote it.

 

Using TS on my Asus UX31E to overcome a problem with system crashes when in battery mode ( http://technologicaltheologian.blogspot.co.at/2012/10/zenbook-prime-and-unexpected-shutdown.html). Tried to set it up properly (TS8.00) on Win10 and let it start on logon via task scheduler and it seems to work.
Only problem: When booting in AC mode and then switching to battery mode, TS crashes. When starting TS manually and switching between AC and battery mode, there is no problem. When booting in battery mode, TS won't start at all.
Any ideas?

 

@ Schoffi - The Asus Zenbook crashing problem sounds like a mess. Random shutdown problems are difficult to solve at the best of times. Without having access to a Zenbook for testing purposes, it is probably going to be impossible for me to come up with a solution for you.

Can you copy and paste the contents of your ThrottleStop.INI configuration file to www.pastebin.com and post a link here so I can have a look at how you have the program setup. Maybe also post some screenshots of how you have your AC and battery profiles setup as well as the Options window.

That doesn't make too much sense. Have a look at the Task Scheduler - Conditions tab. The Task Scheduler has a few options that can control whether a program starts on AC or battery power. ThrottleStop does not have any options like that so it should start regardless. Post a screenshot of the Task Scheduler General tab so I can have a look at that. Did you look in the Task Manager to see if ThrottleStop was running in the background?

When using the Task Scheduler in Windows 10, I find that ThrottleStop is one of the very last things to start up. This is not a problem for most ThrottleStop users but this could be a problem when trying to fix your Zenbook issue.

Edit - Also make sure that Battery Monitoring is checked in the Options window.

I did some testing on my laptop. I setup profile 1 as my AC profile and profile 4 as my battery profile. In the Options window, Default Profiles, these were both checked off and set to 1 and 4 respectively.



I then shutdown while plugged in. After my laptop shutdown, I unplugged the power and booted back up on battery power. Using the Task Scheduler, ThrottleStop started up and was sitting in the System Tray as usual and it showed it was in Profile 4, the battery profile, so that makes sense. When I plugged back in, it automatically switched over to the AC profile (1). This seems to be working correctly in Windows 10.

 

@unclewebb Some info on Skylake MSR 0x1a2

29:24 6bits Offset 0-63
23:16 8bits Temperature Target 0-255
6:0 7bits Time Window

Looks like offset has grown, up to 63C? and time window added so short benches may look good before lower temperature thermal throttling kicks in?

 

Sorry to bother you again, but I was curious regarding this person's solution to bypass the throttling on the Lenovo Y-40, and I was wondering how these settings might be achieved.

 

@Dufus - Thanks. I first noticed this change when looking at the Intel docs for the previous Silvermont (Bay Trail) CPUs. They also use bits [29..24] for offset.. I was thinking that this larger offset could be used to really bring a small hand held device down to its knees. It would start throttling when barely above an idle. Lousy performance but it would be guaranteed to stay nice and cool. The rated MHz will become a meaningless number if a manufacturer ever decides to fully use or abuse this register.

@suitslft - I think a peak core temperature of 80C is not that hot at all. CPUs are tiny and when you move 1 cm away from where the peak core temperature is measured, that part of the CPU might only be at 60C. Heat dissipates very quickly as you move away from the peak. Yes, heat can damage electronics and I probably do not worry enough but I do not think that a peak core temperature of 80C is going to hurt anything nearby unless a laptop or device is really poorly designed with bottom of the barrel capacitors, etc.

When I originally wrote ThrottleStop, I was a little concerned that maybe there was a reason for all of the throttling schemes that I was hearing about but most of these schemes have turned out to be completely overkill. The mods at NBR were also concerned and asked me to write a warning in the first post of this guide but it really has not been necessary.

5 years later, there are not a lot of threads about heat baked laptops that have died an early death with or without ThrottleStop. Based on that, I think people worry too much. My closets are full of old CPUs and electronics that continue to run just fine. I usually get bored with a CPU or laptop long before it is even close to dying.

Manufacturers should be held accountable. If I bought a laptop with a Core i7-4720HQ and it was limping along at only 1.4 GHz, I would be sending it back immediately. That's pathetic.

 

Can confirm. I abused my D900F's i7-950 at 90c-95c all day streaming for years and it worked right up until voltage issues in my house killed my RAM and motherboard. If heat kills a CPU, it's long after it becomes worthless in power. Voltage however might be a different story =D.

Don't get me wrong. It's good to keep things cool. Longer life is longer life and you'll never know when a piece of hardware is gonna die. Forcing thermal throttle is not a good idea either, I can guarantee that much. But something like a 80c throttle point? Screw that. A thin laptop or one with bad cooling can barely exist with that.

 

Came across this Video of an i7-6820HK running at 4.2GHz, shame the camera guy used a bit too much zooming and a little shaky but otherwise good to see.



Core voltage looks good, power limits set to 100W but quickly turns away from it when hitting 96°C and thermally throttling before the bench finishes. Still, that would be the equivalent of a 4.6GHz Haswell so not bad, especially if it can be cooled adequately.

A shot from the video.

 

I see it pulling 87W for TDP as well. Nice thermal throttling Intel.

"We've never been able to do that before" that's a blatant lie.

Well, either way, we'll see how they hold long TDP. If they throttle to 47W in a Clevo then they're done.

 

Great news, thanks for sharing Dufus

 

I've recently upgraded to Windows 10 and throttlestop 8.00b2 runs just fine except occasionally when switching power profiles it will crash / exit. I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

I have the settings under 'Default Profiles' for both AC Profile and Battery Profile checked and filled in with valid profiles. It used to work flawlessly on Win 7 so I'm thinking it may be a compatibility issue with Win 10?

Steps to reproduce: 1. Fill in AC Profile and Battery profiles. 2. Remove power.

 

Schoffi on the previous page was having some issues but I think his problems are mostly Asus Zenbook related. I am still waiting for some more info.

@wspawn - I am using Windows 10 and I can switch back and forth between AC and battery profiles without any issues. No crashes. Can you post some more details? What CPU do you have and can you show me how you have each profile setup as well as how the Options window looks. As I keep saying, I haven't found a single difference between Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 as far as ThrottleStop goes that is. For me, ThrottleStop works exactly the same.

 

Maybe im asking too much, but i need a guide to make work my 4500u properly.
My english is bad so i cant understand long uncewebb posts.
And pictures in main "guide" dont work.
Could someone please make guide about 4500u?

 

Give this a try.

https://translate.google.com/

Can you post some pictures of how you have ThrottleStop setup? What laptop do you have? What problems are you having?

The Core i7-4500U is rated at only 15 Watts. Intel designed the 4500U so it will throttle and ThrottleStop might not fix this problem. U CPUs will run fast for a little while and then they throttle and slow down. Intel did not design this CPU to run at 3,0 GHz for a long time when fully loaded. They are supposed to slow down to reduce power consumption. ThrottleStop can help a little but there is no way to completely fix this problem.

If you have some questions, you can send me an email in your language. My name and email address is in the About box of ThrottleStop.

 

Ok. Now i see that it will throttle to 2.4 because of TDP and there is no solution. Thanks.

 

Hello.

Is this configuration ok?



@unclewebb

 

Maybe. It depends on what laptop model you have and if that laptop model has any particular throttling problems. I like Dell laptops but some of them from this era used either Clock Modulation throttling or Chipset Clock Modulation throttling. I am not sure what you use your laptop for but it is always a good idea to turn on the ThrottleStop - Log File feature so you have a record of what your CPU is doing. Those two modulation columns in the log file should always be showing 100.0. If either of them go below 100.0, you will need to check off the appropriate type of clock modulation on the top left hand side of ThrottleStop to correct that problem. There is no point in checking either of these off in ThrottleStop if your laptop model does not use this type of throttling. Most of the latest laptop models use throttling methods based on power consumption so they no longer use either type of clock modulation for throttling purposes.

Make sure you are using the Windows High Performance profile and you can probably decrease the Voltage ID if you want your CPU to run cooler and more efficiently. Somewhere around 1.10 volts instead of 1.25 volts might be a good place to start. If you go too low, you will lose stability so if you want to successfully under volt your CPU, you need to do some full load testing with some stress testing programs. I like using Prime95 for Core 2 CPUs.

If you are using your laptop on your lap, I would also consider checking off C States. This might help reduce idle temps a little.

@dekoy897 - The Limit Reasons tool that Dufus wrote shows more detailed information about why a CPU is throttling. You can click on the headings of that program to clear the previous results before you start testing.

 

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T61.
Log shows always 100.000 on both.
Yeah I'm using High Performance.
1.1 volt set
I use it on a desk. C states set.

So I have to ask: Does C states option slows system to set in max frequency?
Thanks.

 

Clock modulation throttling was a problem for many Dell laptops. If your Lenovo T61 does not use clock modulation throttling, there is no need to check the top two boxes on the left side of ThrottleStop.

In simple terms, the low power C States allow parts of the core or all of the core to be turned off when not needed. This saves power and reduces the CPU core temperature.

Here is a guide from 2008 that better explains the Core 2 Duo C States.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/ever...ow-about-the-cpu-c-states-power-saving-modes/

 

i can confirm that the automatic profile switching from AC to battery crashes Throttlestop on my windows 10 64Bit Clevo P651SG

 

Does throttlestop work on carrizo laptops? I plan on buying the toshiba radius 14 with the fx-8800p. I've heard some report it throttles to 1.3ghz in the HP so I'd like to prevent that if it's a factor with toshiba as well. Is it possible for this to unlock the TDP? It's limited to 15w but is capable of 35w.

 

Sorry. ThrottleStop is only for Intel Core i and the older Core 2 Duo processors. AMD processors are not supported.

I would love to fix this bug but you need to provide me with a lot more information. I need to see what your AC profile looks like, I need to see your battery profile and I need to see what Options you have checked off. If you have a 4th Gen CPU, I also need to see how the FIVR window looks for each profile.

Does just ThrottleStop crash or does your laptop freeze up or crash and you have to reboot? Is there a BSOD?

I am using Windows 10 x64 and ThrottleStop profile switching is working OK for me. No crashes.

ThrottleStop works best when using the Windows High Performance profile with the Minimum processor state set to 100%. Part of the problem might be because most people use the Windows Balanced profile when on battery power which has the Minimum processor state set to 5% by default. This might cause a problem. To be honest, you are not supposed to be using ThrottleStop when on battery power. Depending on your settings, if you try to force your CPU to full speed, you can damage your battery if you are not careful.

Edit - Are you using the DC Exit Time option? This causes ThrottleStop to exit when you switch to battery power.

 

@unclewebb, How's the Skylake support going? No more FIVR control and a new power limit register for these, PL4. yay!!

Surprised no ones posted throttling problems yet, no news is good news I guess.

 

That would require users to get their hands on Skylake notebooks, for one

 

Here the GT72S-6QE with i7-6820HK has already sold out at $3000 a pop. Only GT72-6QD's with i7-6700HQ still in stock. At least these come with DDR4

If you don't mind DDR3 then there's HP and Dell to choose from. Just to list a few.
HP ENVY 14 i7-6700HQ 12GB DDR3 GTX950M
HP 15 i7-6500U 4GB DDR3 R5 M330
HP Pavilion i7-6500U 4GB DDR3 GT940M
Dell Inspiron 5559 i7-6500U 8GB DDR3 R5 M335

Plus a few i5-6200U systems too.

 

I will provide you all the informations (screenshots and even the complete throttlestop folder as .zip?)- but will need some time to do so because there is of a lot of work these days....

what i can tell you now is:
the minimum processor state is set to 100% for the Windows High Performance and also the Balanced Profile.

on "AC unplug" i also switch from high performance profile to the balanced profile with the "run program after profile change" option like it was described from VAS a lot of pages before (here in this thread).
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/page-328

What i use the AC/Battery profile switch for is the following: to set a multiplier of 15 instead of the setting 35 when the PSU is connected. I also enable the "power saver" option and a lighter undervolt and lower TDP.

When it crashes Throttlestop just is gone. After unplugging PSU i still see the icons (CPU Freq. and Temp and NVIDIA Temp. and Profile number) in the Taskbar but they do not change and do vanish on mouseover . I just need to start throttlestop again - and it opens in the correct Profile 3 (which is my battery profile that i have it set to switch to).

 

@Dufus - I was getting ready to buy a desktop Skylake system so I could check out this new technology but then my daughter raided my piggy bank so she could go to school. It will probably be a few months before I recover and think about computer shopping again. Skylake development won't be happening for a while. I still need to turn off the FIVR stuff when a Skylake CPU is detected.

@ AndiiiHD - Thanks for providing me with some more details. If the Minimum processor state is set to 100% for both the High Performance profile and the Balanced profile then why bother switching between Windows profiles? I leave my laptop on the Windows High Performance profile whether it is on AC or battery power. Some of the switching going on seems overly complicated.

The Power Saver option was intended for the original Core 2 CPUs. With a modern Core i CPU that uses the low power C7 core C State, I am not sure if using Power Saver provides any significant advantage.

When I see some screenshots I will try to duplicate the problem you are having. If I can see what is going on, I might be able to fix it. Until then, you might have to simplify your setup. The stuff that vas posted about profile switching looked interesting but maybe using ThrottleStop to do that is not compatible with Windows 10. I will do some testing of this when I have more time.

Edit - You can try to Copy and Paste the contents of the ThrottleStop.INI config file to www.pastebin.com and then post a link here so I can have a look or email it to me.

 

i thought that its usefull to switch profiles to save battery because of what VAS said:

Concerning changing profile to "high performance" I WOULDNT RECOMMEND this way when you use notebook PC ...
There can be many other things linked to profile settings which may have great impact on performance/powersavings balance (e.g. display, wifi power, PCIe, graphics e.t.c. and other vendor/hardware specific features) ...

here the Pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/AMW7dRkJ

unclewebb how is your email for the screenshots? i have created a word .doc....

 

noob question, is tdp throttle same as power throttle?

 

Yes.

 

I have 180w psu atm, does 240w psu solve power throttle?

 

I was getting massive power throttling on my new MSI Dominator pro G. The 5700HQ was going down to 800mhz while temps were extremely cool. I tried throttlestop and set the multi to 35, and that seems to have fixed it. Wonder if MSI knows about this issue. Only happened during gaming when all components were stressed. Prime 95 or any cpu-only benchmark did not cause throttling. Hopefully throttlestop keeps this cpu at 3.5

 

No, if you have a "HQ" CPU. All "HQ" CPUs from Intel are designed to power throttle at 47W. You could have two 330W power bricks attached and you'd still power throttle.

If you have an older MQ CPU, then that might be a different story; you might be able to increase the TDP limits.

 

Hi I have an ASUS N551JX which is giving me the event id 37 "The speed of processor 2 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 1 seconds since the last report" however when I disable the C states in the registry I no longer get that error but get a yellow exclamation over my cpu in device manager I believe that the event error is tied to throttling of the cpu but I have no way of disabling it as it's a laptop.

So I am wondering if there is any way besides using throttlestop that I can disable cpu throttling like in the registry ?

 

It is not a good idea to disable the C States on a laptop. This can significantly increase power consumption and it will also decrease performance. Intel's locked CPUs like the 4720HQ need to have the C States enabled in order for them to use full Turbo Boost. No C States = No full turbo boost.

Manufacturers use a variety of throttling methods which means for most laptops, there is no simple solution like a registry mod available that is going to fix things. If your laptop has a throttling problem and using ThrottleStop reduces that problem, why not use ThrottleStop? It is a light weight app that does not consume a lot of CPU cycles and it gives a user a lot of control over how their CPU runs. Using ThrottleStop does not mean that your CPU is going to be constantly on the edge of self destruction. You can use ThrottleStop and slow your CPU down to a crawl if that is what you want to do. It is up to you.

Have you heard bad things about ThrottleStop? Post a link to any horror stories you have heard about on the internet and I will be happy to reply. So far, ThrottleStop has helped way more users than it has hurt. I suggest that you take your time, learn how to use ThrottleStop and don't be afraid to ask specific questions if you do not understand something. Many Asus laptops over the years have seen significant increases in performance by using ThrottleStop.

 

Unclewebb, do you happen to know what method(s) Toshiba uses to throttle their products.

 

I have rarely heard from Toshiba owners in this forum. Dell, Lenovo and Asus are the major laptop manufacturers so I tend to hear about more problems with those brands.

Are you having a specific problem? Turn on the ThrottleStop - Log File option so you have a record of what your CPU is doing and then run the built in TS Bench test to fully load your CPU. If it looks OK in this test then use something simple like the Heaven benchmark to see how your laptop performs while running a benchmark that uses your GPU. If you use your laptop for gaming or 3D rendering or whatever, go play a game or do whatever you use your laptop for. Leave ThrottleStop in Monitoring mode so you can see what is going on. Many popular monitoring apps like CPU-Z continue to ignore both types of clock modulation throttling.

 

No issue, I was just wondering if Toshiba methods for limiting TDP were same with AMD as they are Intel. I'm just miffed about the 8800p able to do 35w but is set to 15w by them so I've digging for info and seeing if it possible to make it user select-able through some means.

 

is there a way to make it throttlestop 8.0 minimize to notification area and start minimized for windows 10 x64. right now, my throttlestop is start open with the window and stay at taskbar forever which is quite annoying as I keep on tab to that program that i don't want to touch at all.

 

Hello owner of throttlestop. I would very much appreciate it if you could sacrifice some of your precious time to read this post.

I own a Toshiba Satellite PRO Laptop with an Intel I 5 Quad Core processor and I have been using throttlestop with some succes to stop some of my CPU throttling firstly caused by Chipset Modulation. Now ,however, I am dealing with a persistent case of TDP power throttling when the power consumption goes beyond 15W or so apparently. My laptop should be able to go up to 25W. I have tried several things; played around with the TDP level control and tried every possible setting. Same thing with the Intel Power Balance. I have also undervolted my CPU core and Cache by -70.3 mV. Nothing helps though and the TDP throttling keeps downclocking my CPU terribly when playing Guild Wars 2.

I have been reading on this forum for hours and hours and have learned a lot about throttling but I am desperately in need of advice for this particular case of TDP throttling. I know I have a pretty weak system for gaming but I would still like to have this laptop perform at it's maximum potential at least and am honestly quite disgusted by the deceptive marketing schemes laptop manufacturers come up with that cause these machines to throttle terribly when there is no need for it!

Here is a log file of what happens when I am playing GW2. ( I play it utilizing all 4 of my cores and on quite low settings.)
As you can see there is quite some throttling going on sometimes the CPU clocks down all the way to 1300 Mhz and throttlestop reports TDP throttling so I assume that is the cause. I did some extensive testing and some of the PL things in the limit reasons option where red when in guild wars 2.

http://pastebin.com/pdgMb5vk

And screenshots of my current throttlestop settings.
http://snag.gy/Qm7YW.jpg
http://snag.gy/S2X7C.jpg


Thank you.

 

@jrs3000 - I do not have any experience with throttling AMD CPUs. As far as I know, AMD and Intel are completely different so the registers that ThrottleStop accesses in the Intel CPUs are going to be completely different than the registers in an AMD CPU.

@Applesniper - Did you clear the Task Bar option (the one above the Log File option)? Did you go into the Options window and check the Start Minimized option? Did you read the included ReadMe file? Give that a try and if you are still having problems, let me know. I am using Windows 10 and ThrottleStop 8.00 starts minimized in my system tray. No problems.

@Madara Uchiha5

The Core i5-4210U is a 15 Watt CPU.

http://ark.intel.com/products/81016/Intel-Core-i5-4210U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz

Intel designed this CPU series to run at a maximum of 15 Watts. These CPUs are designed to throttle. They will reduce the multiplier to keep power consumption under this long term limit. For short periods of time, this CPU can go over 15 Watts but long term, 15 Watts is the max. There is nothing that ThrottleStop can do about that.

If you are looking at Limit Reasons, that is what PL1 and PL2 refer to. When those turn red, the CPU has reached the long(PL1) or short term(PL2) power limit.

 

Are all laptop TDP power limits this low or did I just get ripped off buying this laptop? Anyway thanks for answerring I'm just going to have to get a decent desktop to play my games.

 

@ unclewebb thanks so much I was looking it in the option window not the main window that is why i didn't find it. Thanks so much it works perfect now.

 

No, of course they're not.

You just did not do your research properly when you selected it. Keep reading on this forum and the desktop review forum too to get a balanced system that will be more appropriate for the uses you expect of it.

 

Nope, you bought a laptop with an ultra low power CPU.
My 4800MQ:

 

So @unclewebb remember how I said throttlestop didn't work with the set multipliers and I couldn't get my CPU to go under 2.7GHz even on battery? Well I restarted my PC like twice and sat in the BIOS after one restart for about 3 minutes and suddenly it can downclock again!

I will never understand intel!

 

I love that you're still working on this after so many years!

Just found that the 8.0 beta allows voltage adjustment on my 4790K. Very excited to be able to set profiles for rendering, gaming and browsing. Keep up the awesome work! How does one donate to the cause?

(Now if someone would just unlock my GTX 980...)

 

is there anything i can do to processor cache frequency to reach higher frequency? i can't understand that cache ratio min / max

here are my settings

http://i.imgur.com/1v5DrfD.png

http://i.imgur.com/cFwSkEE.png

http://i.imgur.com/A52zAdr.png

http://i.imgur.com/84NP8OK.png

 

In the FIVR Control section, click on CPU Cache. Next check off Unlock Adjustable Voltage and then go to the bottom and you should be able to set the Cache Ratio to 35. After that, hit Apply and then go back and you should be able to adjust the Cache Min / Max to 35 for both values. For benchmarking, this might give you a tiny increase in performance. For most apps, overclocking the cache ratio is probably not going to make any noticeable difference to performance.

@JohnnyFlash - I love that you're still working on this after so many years!

Thanks for the positive feedback. I don't work as hard as I would like to on this project but it has been fun to watch ThrottleStop progress and support the vast majority of Intel's processors made in the last 9 years. I had no idea my afternoon project would turn into this.

Donation is a dirty word on NBR so someday I might put a price tag on ThrottleStop. Save your money for that so I can afford to continue working on this useful tool. Adjustable VCCIN for the 4th Gen CPUs will be added to the next release as well as a few minor things. I am still thinking about buying a 6th Gen Core i5-6600K so I can add another Intel CPU to the family tree.