The ThrottleStop Guide

If PowerCut will work on a 3rd Gen U, send it my way. I am always game to try something new, even when Avast complains. I will have to bribe my daughter to get my hands on her Asus U for testing purposes. That might take a day or two but I am definitely interested. Too many users are content with mediocre, under performing laptops. Manufacturers are more than willing to keep selling them.

 

Today it was the first time that Windows Defender also complained about Throttlestop (pointing to https://www.microsoft.com/security/...rpes.M!plock&threatid=2147708972&enterprise=0 ), although I am pretty sure there is nothing to worry about!

 

I keep seeing replies like this but I've never found out where do you guys ask for testers and what exactly do you need for the test?
I can make some tests if I have the CPU you require, currently I have a laptop with i5 5200U.

 

Hello people, 1st post here

I´ve been trying to get turbo boost working on my laptop for quite a bit of time now. I can´t get it to work, can you advise me on these settings?

sorry if the images are too big

 

@andrer2926 - I love big images. NBR mods, maybe not so much.

Can you try running the Limit Reasons tool that Dufus wrote. It is built into ThrottleStop. I think your CPU is supported.

ThrottleStop shows that TDP Throttle is lit up and XTU also shows Power Limit Throttling at 100%. Something is definitely wrong. Can you also post a screenshot of the ThrottleStop - TPL window. The bios might be setting one of the power limits way too low which is disabling Turbo Boost. I do not see anything obvious so far.

 

hi there. thanks for the response
btw, i have no acess to any option on BIOS. It´s an Acer model, for what i have found they use to block these kind of things.
there ya go

 

On my 4700MQ, if the PP0 Power Limit is set too low, POWER lights up in red like you are seeing. For a test, I set this to 30 in the TPL window and ran the TS Bench for a quick test.

http://i.imgur.com/QAob2jo.png

During the TS Bench, I usually see the full 34.00 multiplier and zero throttling but instead I am seeing TDP Throttle in ThrottleStop and POWER throttling in Limit Reasons which is the same as you are seeing. The multiplier confirms the throttling.

In your screenshot, PP0 Power Limit is set to zero but it is not checked so in the previous 4th Gen CPUs, this value should be ignored when set like this. For a test, try checking this option and set it to 25. Hit Apply and see if POWER turns to yellow in Limit Reasons. After you try that, go to the right hand side and check TDP Level Control, set that to 0 and check the Lock option. Hit Apply again to see if that helps.

There is another duplicate PP0 register that ThrottleStop does not have access to. If you are still having problems, we can try using RW Everything to see what value is in that register.

 

One could also preliminary check with DufusDump which shows this register and much more.

 

some improvement! power doesnt show anymore in "limit reasons". i got 2 yellow "EDP" markers on uncore and ring. PL2 disappeared aswell. But turbo boost still doesnt kick in.
Btw, i locked the "pp0 power limit" at 25 and set turbo time limit to them max aswell (28). Unlocked everything but Speedstep at the main screen as you have in your ss.Now i cant go back with the power limit, as with tdp level control, which you said to lock. Is that fine? What´s the next move?

btw: Running Bench 1024m 4 threads right now. Multiplier sticks to 22 maxed, no changes. Max temp 52C.

 

You could try sticking your "Non turbo ratio" from 22 to 7.

 

weird, that gives me back tdp throttle check again. Power shows as red or yellow im limit reasons.
Is that possible that Acer deactivated turbo boost?

 

Probably the firmware trying to reduce your clocks so that it just appears turbo is disabled. Do you not see turbo when idle?

 

nope. I never saw my cpu running higher than 2.2/2.19 ghz base, it´s locked there.

 

I agree with Dufus. Head back to the previous page and download and run the DufusDump tool. Attach the file it creates to your post or copy and paste the data to www.pastebin.com and post a link here.

Try a Non Turbo Ratio of 0 or 21. Use any setting so POWER is not red in Limit Reasons. Run something simple like a single thread of the TS Bench test and then run the DufusDump tool.

 

http://pastebin.com/4i1ea7Gr
i put it at 0 and no red power alert.

btw, avast triggers alert on download confirmed

edit: i just noticed something. On the Intel Utility, it has a thing called " active core count", which i remember going to 2 as i did a stress test. Now it stays on 1 even on stress test after this changes on TS. Even though TS shows % on all 4 threads during the test on intel. Not sure if useful

 

Code:

0x199 00000000:00001600  00000000:00001600  00000000:00001600  00000000:00001600

That is the multiplier request register. 16 in hex is equivalent to 22 in decimal. This might be why you are limited to this multiplier. Click on the Turn On button in ThrottleStop and adjust the Set Multiplier value to the maximum and check this box off. Do another single threaded test and see if there is any turbo boost.

Edit - CPUs rapidly bounce tasks around from thread to thread and from core to core. When this is happening, I don't think the core count data that XTU shows is anything to be concerned about.

 

no, still the same. Multiplier is 27T unchecked, but it stays at 22...
edit: now red power came on, even on 0..
sliding the multiplier, as soon as i reach to 22, power alert goes yellow and tdp throttle goes off, as soon as i go to 23 T and more, tdp goes on and power alert goes red. Tested at 0 non turbo ratio. On 7, same happens as i go pass 7 multiplier, same for 21. 22 is the same as 0

 

When using Set Multiplier, that box has to be checked.

Almost bedtime here. I will have a look at some more numbers in the DufusDump tomorrow. Try doing another dump with the Set Multiplier checked.

 

here it goes:
multipler checked 27T, Non Turbo Ratio 0, TDP Throttle yes, Limit reasons: Power red core/ EDP yellow Uncore/ EDP yellow ring
http://pastebin.com/GePnBWze

multiplier checked 27T, non turbo ratio 21,TDP Throttle yes, Limit reasons: Power red core/ EDP yellow Uncore/ EDP yellow ring
http://pastebin.com/aE635eyY

didnt manage to get power red alert off with max multiplier, not a clue why. Thanks!

 

How much package power is being shown when throttling occurs? (power red)

 

ok so i managed to get it work. not a clue, but i inserted the battery ( i usually run without it) and turbo boost kicks off imediatly. Now it doesn´t go under 2.5 or so. funny now im actually worried this is too much. How can i set boost to enable only when needed? this thing is always on now ahah Thank you for all your help!

 

As long as C-states are enabled the CPU clocks will stop when idle (0GHz) and further power savings can take place.

Perhaps your maximum processor percentage under Windows power plan for when on battery is less than 100%, this would cause loss of turbo with otherwise normal settings.

See if you can get a -50mV or more core/cache offset to help even further.

FWIW my laptop uses the embedded controller to reduce power limits when on battery. AFAIK it's not available to be adjusted other than through an EC firmware modification unless ones lucky enough to be able to access it through the EC itself and know where the setting is located.

 

BTW, Unclewebb, setting the C7 interrupt reponse limit to 2 makes a difference in terms of noise but does it also affect anything else? Setting to 1 elimates C6/c7 but having it at 2 does not seem to disable either.

I really appreciate that you added this feature to your program, despite you not having received a lot of feedback on it.

 

Hi,
I am using Throttle Stop 800_b7 with Intel Core -i7 - 6700HQ but multiplier setting makes no affect.
I tried restricting it to a lower value to test but it runs at a higher multipler. I can confirm the SpeedStep is enabled and selected but multiplier setting still doesnt work.

Regards.

 

I have heard about this issue but have not had access to any Skylake hardware to find out what is going on yet. On previous generation Core i CPUs, if the Non Turbo Ratio setting in the TPL window was not set correctly, the Set Multiplier feature would have zero effect. Open up the TPL window and show me that setting. If it is not locked, try setting that to zero. Also make sure that you have clicked on the Turn On button to take ThrottleStop out of Monitoring mode.

The next idea I had was maybe you can control the multiplier on these CPUs by adjusting the Clock Modulation percentage. Put a load on the CPU with the TS Bench and then adjust Clock Modulation lower as the benchmark is running and see what happens to the multiplier. On early CPUs, I do not recommend using Clock Modulation for anything but on some Core i CPUs, this was an easy way to control the multiplier in steps of 2 or 3 depending on the CPU model.

@andrer2926 - Some laptop manufacturers have really started cheaping out. Their laptops need power from both the battery and the power adapter in order for them to run at full speed. This allows them to use a small and barely adequate power supply. Small power adapters make consumers happy but the reality is that it truly is inadequate.

Thanks for all of your testing and reporting back exactly what the problem turned out to be. Many testers take days or weeks to provide any feedback or simply disappear. Sticking it out until the end helps other users that have the same problem. You are the kind of tester that Dufus and I miss.

Edit - Almost forgot my usual mantra. A fast CPU is an efficient CPU. A fast CPU can complete background tasks quickly and this allows the CPU to spend more time in the low power C7 C state where the real CPU power savings are. That is a good thing.

Power Optimization – a Reality Check
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~krioukov/realityCheck.pdf

Edit - Here is the latest VirusTotal report of ThrottleStop.exe

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

It seems that only Windows Defender is complaining. I guess Microsoft does not want people adjusting the voltage or tweaking their Surface Pros.

 

I tried setting non-turbo-ratio to 0 but that also doesnt make any difference.
Please see the snapshot:

http://postimg.org/image/4gbrm089t/

And yes, ThrottleStop is turned on and not in monitoring mode

Btw, I also tried Clock-Modulation and even that doesnt make any difference. CPU continues to run at its base frequency.

 

Something else to look out for on SKL is "speed shift" operation.

 

Most definitely . I haven't done actual tests but according to my battery estimation software, the difference between spending alot of time in C7 and not, can be hours. Which is why it sucks some programs (like Telegram Desktop) insists on really reducing the C7 usage despite doing nothing but sitting in the tray. I guess it's up to the dev to fix that.

I've definitely learned alot about CPU power usage with throttlestop. Before I thought it was about how many MHz/which clock the CPU ran in but I see now that's a counter-productive way of power saving - it's all about finishing tasks and getting quick back into C6/7

 

Hello everybody!

I'm using Throttlestop. It's awesome utility, especially when using it on autostart .
But I have a next question.
Actually I have Teclast X2 Pro, which is based on Broadwell 6W limited CPU/GPU Core M 5Y10.
So the question is to those, who are lowering the voltage in order to decrease Temperature and Power limit use.
When I lower the voltage through offset -75mV - it works well under stress, as total voltage drops only for 9%, from 0.88V to 0.81. But in idle, the stock voltage is only 0.65V, and -75mV is too much (12% ===> 0.57V), which leads to stability issues.
I can also set a fixed voltage (0.81V for example), but it will be fixed and constant, even when CPU is idle, frequency is lowered according to P-states table, thus leading to extra use of Power limit, lowering the perfomance of GPU.
So, does anybody verified, how to lower the voltage only for the Maximum P-sates?

Thanks in advance for the answers!

 

To reduce voltage more on higher multipliers using offset would mean increasing bclk. Without coarse bclk straps that is probably not going to happen significantly.

Does fixed voltage cause temperature throttling? When using fixed voltage and at least idle state C6 the core should be power gated off anyway so if you run full clock to get the work done and then return quickly to idle states you might find the power draw isn't that much higher.

 

I suspect this particular bug will require very little of your time to correct. It's easy to reproduce with a Core 2, but I bet you can put it to bed just by looking at the code. Enable SLFM and save the profile. Then switch profiles, enable SLFM 6, and save that profile. Upon switching back to the original profile, you'll see that SLFM 6 is enabled instead of SLFM as desired. It may seem minor, but in recent releases it's a deal breaker for me. Many thanks.

 

Hi, I just downloaded ThrottleStop 8.00 and I cant get it to work properly. When I set the multiplier to 27 T, it stays at around 22x and randomly going up to 24x. I tried setting NTR to 0 (since I read something about that in this thread), but I dont know what to try now. I used the TS Bench and it went up to 25x consistently.
Specs: Intel Core i5-3337U

 

It looks like I never got around to adding SLFM control for each individual profile. I think you are the first person to ask for this feature in 5+ years of development.

The reason I lost interest in SLFM is because on my T8100, SLFM was a useless feature. When one of these mobile CPUs is idle, it should be using one of the deeper C States where the internal core clock is stopped. Whether software reports that your bus speed is 100 MHz or 200 MHz will not make any difference to power consumption because the CPU core is already stopped.

What CPU model do you have? Is it 45nm or 65nm? Maybe on the early Core 2 Duos, SLFM might make more of a measurable difference. Have you done any power consumption testing of SLFM? Next time I do some programming, I will think about adding this feature.

The 3337U can only use the 27 multiplier when a single core is active. When both cores are active, the maximum multiplier is 25. The U CPU is not like a desktop CPU. You cannot lock a U CPU to a fixed multiplier. It will constantly vary depending on how many cores are active and whether it is operating above or below the turbo power limit. If you are seeing the 25 multiplier while running the TS Bench then it sounds like your CPU is running as Intel designed it to run. You cannot use software to overclock one of these CPUs.

 

Is throttle stop bugged for windows 10? It won't let me minimize to tray. I have throttle stop as a startup program

 

Add a 5-10 second start-up delay. If it loads before the shell then it won't minimize properly.

@unclewebb When in monitoring mode, does TS still set the FIVR options, such as voltage? I seem to get lower power draw and idle frequencies with TS off on my 4720HQ so I'd like to try monitoring only on AC, but I also want to be sure that the undervolts are applied. Thanks.

 

Last night I was setting up my new Clevo P870DM-G and after I installed all drivers and updates, I went to download Throttlestop from the link in the 1st post and Windows Defender (SmartScreen) tags it as a Trojan. I tried it several times, but got the same warning.

Is that a false positive? Anyone have that pop up?

I've been using the same TS8 on two other PCs without issue. Just curious if anything changed in the download link?

Thanks.

 

Check the download with other virus scanners to be sure, but this has been reported as a false positive for the last few versions.

 

Probably that dodgy LR0101.EXE program in the package. VirusTotal is a nice online virus checker with over 50 different antivirus checkers. It helps decide which are really infected and which checkers are not so good at knowing the difference between a real virus and a legit piece of software.

Unfortunately programs written in assembler can draw a lot of false positives.

 

Happened to me also. It's a false positive. Allow it on Windows Defender.

 

I scanned it on another PC with updated Norton's and Malwarebytes. No alerts there.

SmartScreen probably wants an official Windows Certificate for it.

Thanks everyone.

 

ThrottleStop 8.00 works fine for me in Windows 10. If you have any system tray issues, clean the Windows icon cache by following the directions in the included ReadMe file. To auto start ThrottleStop, use the method as outlined in the second post of this thread. I use the Task Scheduler and ThrottleStop starts up fine without needing any special delay or other tricks.

Limit Reasons is a great program but I think I need to create something similar and add it directly to ThrottleStop to try and keep Windows Defender happy.

Everything in the FIVR window should work in Monitoring mode. The Turn On - Turn Off button only controls the two types of Clock Modulation and the Set Multiplier feature. I am not a big fan of Turn On - Turn Off because it is confusing. I added it in the early days of development because some Dell owners with first Gen Core i7 CPUs were scared to give ThrottleStop a try. The 920XM is a beast when it is not throttling. I would like to ditch that button but I know there would be complaints and more confusion so it is easier to just leave it as is. When you make FIVR voltage changes in ThrottleStop, you should be able to see accurate results in HWiNFO.

CPUID HWMonitor might still be bugged when using negative offset voltages but I haven't tested the latest version.

 

I finally had a chance to run the PowerCut program that Dufus has been working on. I originally thought it was only for the low power U CPUs but he suggested that I give it a try on my 4700MQ so I did.



That screenshot is while running Prime95 v27.9. Normally, the 4700MQ will start to immediately throttle (PL2) and report approximately 56 Watts. After a little bit of time, it will throttle further (PL1) down to 47 Watts which is the rated TDP for this chip. I am still using the default Lenovo bios where everything is locked solid so I really didn't think running PowerCut would make any difference. Wrong!!

PowerCut has tricked my CPU so when fully loaded, it is only reporting 1.3 Watts of power consumption. No more power limit throttling here. I have no idea how much power my CPU was really consuming but I know it must have been a lot because it instantly started to thermal throttle. I might need to head to the meat locker to see what this CPU is really capable of. It looks like EDP / Current Limit throttling might be the next thing holding me back. Windows Defender and Intel are definitely not going to like PowerCut but I like it already. Thanks Dufus.

7 KB of dynamite!



Edit - Just for the record, after resuming from Stand By mode, my CPU was back to normal. Easy enough to run PowerCut again. A low power U CPU might become a totally different animal after using this program.

 

Looks like some Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut is up your alley eh @unclewebb? =D

 

WHOA that is awesome. Safe to use this on U series laptops that can't run both the CPU and iGPU at the same time at full speed?

 

Intel CPUs are well protected temperature wise. With PowerCut enabled, my example shows thermal throttling kicking in at 100°C just like Intel intended so no worries. Some laptops with low power U CPUs are nowhere near their temperature limit when they start throttling. It is the power limits that are killing performance so this might be a game changer for a well cooled laptop with a U CPU. A 15 Watt CPU is built using the exact same technology as a 47 Watt CPU so pushing a 15 Watt CPU a little harder should be OK.

I would not recommend using PowerCut while on battery power. If you have a tablet, you might want to pick up a good pair of oven mitts before doing any serious gaming.

 

Or some Gelid GC Extreme which is pretty good too

 

Conductonaut is the equivalent of a cheaper Liquid Ultra. Otherwise I'd just tell him to use ICD because that's the best non-liquid-metal as far as I know.

 

what do you think of GELID Extreme vs IC Diamond?

Also, in a few months time when I want to repaste my CLU, do I need to clean it off completely or simply topup more CLU?

 

ICD from all the tests I've seen is a bit better and lasts longer on components

You should clean it off.

 

That's what scares me man. Like when I was applying LCU, I had some stick on my palms and anything I touch, it would stick on to it too. I am afraid while cleaning it that I might mess up the whole area