The ThrottleStop Guide

Hey unclewebb,

My 4710mq is running kind of hot so I would like to use ThrottleStop to reduce some of the temperature. I got -100mV offset voltage stable and it has helped, but I was wondering what VCCIN is? What is the default VCCIN for a 4710mq (I think it's 1.8v, is it?), and would reducing that potentially bring down the temperature of the CPU?

Thanks.

 

Just letting you know that today windows defender flagged Throttlestop.exe as a trojan.

http://imgur.com/y9woKUo

 

first i'd like to send my huge thanks to dufus and you unclewebb for the glorious features.

i actually tried powercut feature with -80mV and the laptop reached 100C in 6 mins which scared the hell out of me . haven't done a repaste since november so it's in my to do list. i am getting big pump in benchmark scores so it totally worth it. i only do high usage tasks on AC power so i think it will be ok to enable throttle stop on battery?

 

I think you still might get short term blips in high current load & CPU usage during relatively light use too, I'm thinking it might be safer (for the battery) to disable PowerCut when you're on battery, especially if it's as simple as checking & unchecking a box?

 

Can anyone answer this? I would be extremely grateful if someone could...

 

@i_pk_pjers_i
Throttlestop guide advices you to set it on ~1.75V while using the powercut feature. I have a 4810mq and 1.75V is stable. Hope this helps!

@unclewebb
Thanks for the help! You helped me from the past! This is some serious back to the future stuff.

I disabled Turbo mode and EIST from the BIOS too and bam. Rock solid performance

 

VCCIN is the main input voltage to the CPU. The CPU cores, GPU, cache, etc. all get their voltage from this source. A rule of thumb I have heard among desktop CPU users is that VCCIN should be set about 0.6 V higher than the CPU core voltage. One Haswell desktop guide suggested that when overclocking to 4.7 GHz, 1.4 V for the core and 2.0 V for VCCIN. Every CPU is unique so if you are adjusting VCCIN, you need to do some stability testing. My 4700MQ seems to need more VCCIN voltage compared to most. More like +0.7 V or +0.75 V over vCore. When VCCIN is not set to a fixed value, the CPU simply says it is at its Default setting but no idea what voltage that is. Increasing VCCIN usually increases the CPU core temperature so only running as much VCCIN as you need to be stable is a good idea.

Defender has been complaining for a while. ThrottleStop is not a Trojan. I am not sitting at home, secretly overclocking users computers via ThrottleStop. I am sure there are probably some users that would be quite happy if Dufus or I performed some magic with their laptop but ultimately, any overclocking or voltage adjustments are totally up to the user. Nothing hiding in ThrottleStop. Maybe I can sue Microsoft for slander.



Rising Antivirus from China was complaining the other day but now it is giving ThrottleStop the thumbs up too. All clean.

Always nice to hear some appreciation. Thanks for your support and I would also like to thank Dufus for all of the wonderful ideas he has sent me over the years. TS would have died a long time ago without his help.

That's nothing. I think when running Prime95 with PowerCut enabled, my laptop goes from idle temps to 100°C within a second or two. Powerful stuff. I have no idea how much power it is consuming but I know it is a lot. Some things are best not to know. If you decide to run PowerCut while on battery power, you will need to keep a close eye on power consumption which is not possible when using PowerCut. I like my battery too much to abuse it with PowerCut.

The problem is that on some computers, disabling PowerCut is not that simple. Once PowerCut is enabled, it can only be disabled by rebooting or by using stand by mode and then resuming. Stand by / resume is quick and simple and that works for me. On some computers, you might need to do a full reboot which is kind of a hassle.

@wikileaker - Sorry for not remembering you but 7 years is kind of a long time ago. I post so much crap in so many forums that to be honest, 7 days is a long time ago in "forum time".

Edit - A quick log file while running Prime95 with PowerCut enabled.

Code:

   DATE       TIME    MULTI   C0%   CKMOD  CHIPM   BAT_mW  TEMP  GPU     VID   POWER
2016-03-12  15:16:11  34.98    3.7  100.0  100.0        0   43     0   1.0463    0.9
2016-03-12  15:16:11  34.29   12.6  100.0  100.0        0   51     0   1.0458    0.9
2016-03-12  15:16:12  33.95   93.3  100.0  100.0        0   96     0   1.0804    1.3
2016-03-12  15:16:12  33.97  100.0  100.0  100.0        0   98     0   1.0745    1.2
2016-03-12  15:16:13  33.39   99.9  100.0  100.0        0   98     0   1.0504    1.2
2016-03-12  15:16:13  33.12   99.8  100.0  100.0        0   99     0   1.0745    1.2   TEMP
2016-03-12  15:16:14  33.05   99.8  100.0  100.0        0   98     0   1.0745    1.2   TEMP
2016-03-12  15:16:14  32.87   99.8  100.0  100.0        0   98     0   1.0023    1.2   TEMP
2016-03-12  15:16:15  32.80   99.9  100.0  100.0        0   99     0   1.0504    1.2   TEMP

From idle to full temp in the blink of an eye. The log file that shows the limit reasons is a handy feature.

 

I have my i7 4710MQ running at 3.3GHz @ -120mV @ 1.70v VCCIN and it seems to be perfectly stable. Temperatures are still a bit higher than I like although I suppose I could underclock if I wanted REALLY low temps..

 

How hot is it?
My 4810mq runs at 3.9GHz , static 1.095V and 1.75VCCIN. Max temp is 83C. I think I could run it 4.0GHz but 3.9 is enough now, still 1 year warranty left I'll tweak voltages a bit more, I think it can handle less and drop temps a bit more.
I changed to static voltage because it took more voltage to be stable in adaptive.

 

My max temp is like 84C, but only in Prime95 - everything else is less than 80c.

 

I am facing a strange problem since I upgraded to v8.1
Throttlestop starts using 20-50% of my cpu CONTINUOUSLY after a few hours of usage. I need to restart throttlestop and again after a few hours the cpu usage problem starts happening.
Any idea what's causing this ?

http://imgur.com/VMVt6vg

 

it requires a reboot to disable it

 

As a fellow developer, I know the feeling. So I'm glad to report, though perhaps a little late, that you successfully restored correct SLFM behavior. It's clear you take great pride in your work, and rightly so. Not only is Throttlestop more functional and versatile than rival apps like the IETU, you could never expect this level of support from Intel. Please let me know if you ever have need to test the Core2 feature set.

 

I tried uninstalling the DPTF driver but that didn't stop the 0.49G throttling. Yet when I loaded Throttlestop in monitor mode, the throttling was gone and the processor was bursting to 2G!! This has got to be a clue at the scene of the crime, can you explain what's happening UncelWebb?

 

That was a good laugh. First time I came across it. Glad they cleared it up.

 

On my laptop, after hours of usage, ThrottleStop v8.1 is not doing much of anything when it comes to memory or CPU usage. Here is what I am seeing with it minimized to the system tray.





I am seeing less than 1 MB of memory usage and virtually zero CPU usage. If a person was in the middle of a TS Bench, it would be normal to see high memory and CPU usage but other than that, if ThrottleStop is working normally, you shouldn't be seeing it do much of anything. Can you post some screenshots of how you have ThrottleStop setup and a screenshot of the Options window? Are you using the Run Program feature in the Options window? What date and time does ThrottleStop show in the About menu?

Opera seems to be chewing up a lot of CPU resources so is there anything going on with it? Can you close it down when troubleshooting?

If anyone is seeing anything unusual, can you post some screenshots? Other than the VCCIN stuff, v8.1 is not much different than all of the previous versions. Where did you download it from? Can you also post a screenshot of the Task Manager - Details tab that shows ThrottleStop.exe?

Thanks for reporting that bug and confirming that it has been fixed. I hate buggy software as much as anyone so I appreciate it when users let me know about any issues. It took me a few hours to find it but in the end, it was a very simple fix. I deleted a couple of lines of code that I forgot to delete during the overhaul of 2015. Problem solved.

By default, ThrottleStop checks for a few of the more common throttling issues right off the bat and immediately sets various registers to their default values. I agree that in Monitoring mode, ThrottleStop should not be doing this. Most users are so happy that their laptop problem is finally solved that they never complain about this ThrotteStop feature. It is hard to say what the exact problem is. If you did a register dump and showed me every value in every register of your CPU before running ThrottleStop and then did the same thing again after running ThrottleStop, I might be able to find the source of your problem. If this is important to you, send me a PM and maybe in a few days I will look into this further for you. You would need to run some shady tools for me and I am sure that Windows Defender would be waving the red flag again.

 

I wasn't doing a bench within TS. It typically uses <0.2% cpu but sometimes suddenly jumps to 20%+ and stays there until I exit and restart TS. I downloaded TS from majorgeeks from the link in one of your posts.

Opera uses a lot more resources than chrome for some reason but is not the cause of this issue as it happens randomly whether opera is running or not.

screenshot of options menu

http://imgur.com/gLGU9dm

Screenshot of details menu ( TS using <1% CPU right now )

http://imgur.com/ohjjVYI

I don't mind running any tests for you if it helps improve TS.

Thanks again

 

Using the HashCheck program, ThrottleStop.exe reports this.



http://code.kliu.org/hashcheck/

ThrottleStop.exe at MajorGeeks is the same as the one I originally uploaded. The version of ThrottleStop you have on your computer should report the same checksum values as above.

Next time this happens, can you post another screenshot of the Task Manager Details tab showing CPU and memory usage of ThrottleStop. I wish I had an answer for you but I am scratching my head here. No one else has ever reported an issue like this so I am trying to figure out if this is a ThrottleStop problem or an issue with something else on your computer. As mentioned, I can run ThrottleStop for hours / days without any memory or CPU usage issues. In all the years of development, I cannot think of a single time that any user ever reported a bug like this. TS 8.1 has a different version number but besides VCCIN, it is identical to all the versions that came before it.

The next version with more thorough control of the Interrupt Response Limits should be ready in the next day or two. When it is ready, you can give that version a try to see if it makes any difference.

 

The hash check is exactly the same as yours.
Screenshot of details page in task manager ( TS using 10+% CPU constantly ) :

http://imgur.com/qBM0W1y

 

Trojan detected by Windows defender in the exe from the first post. Win32/Varpes.M!plock.

 

Yep. The same for me with the new 8.1 Version. I just came here to check if there are any updates and after downloading my Windows Defender detected the file as a Trojan. I'm currently using Throttlestop 8 Beta 7 without any issues so I don't understand why Throttlestop 8.1 is seen as Trojan. I know that some antiviruses don't like Throttlestop but since it doesn't detect anything for Throttlestop 6 and 8, why is it detecting TS 8.1 as a trojan :| ?

I'm not saying that you uploaded it as a Trojan, uncleweb. I just wanted to warn you in case the file got corrupted after uploading it on the web. Waiting for an answer from your side about this issue in order to know if it will be safe to ignore the threat on TS 8.1 or not.

Btw, for TS 8 Beta 7 the tray icon doesn't work at all and it is quite stressing -_- . That's why I came to search for an update.

 

Code:

SHA256: 4e2c0f6b64eb1839ea0a4f9b29e4f8b9468ce833b6f07f108a644a348b7d6c47
File name: ThrottleStop.exe
Detection ratio: 0 / 56
Analysis date: 2016-03-15 16:40:28 UTC ( 3 minutes ago )

Either 56 antivirus programs are wrong and Windows Defender is right or Windows Defender is reporting a false positive.

Maybe Windows Defender automatically has a fit every time a program changes. Avast used to do that too with ThrottleStop until I contacted them and asked for an explanation. I cannot change Windows Defender so if you believe that ThrottleStop is a trojan in disguise, do not run it.

Can you post a screenshot of ThrottleStop while this is happening? I still do not know what CPU model you have. Seeing what ThrottleStop is reporting might give me a hint. Until I find a way to recreate the problem you are having or hear from other users having the same problem, it is going to be difficult to find a solution.

Read the included Read_Me file and clean out the Windows icon cache. That should solve any icon issues.

 

Thank you very much ! Now the taskbar icon works. About the Trojan, I didn't want to sound like I don't trust you. It just felt quite weird to use 2 versions of TS before without any notifications from Windows Defender and now I got a big Trojan message ). I really appreciate all the work you've done with this software. It even does wonders for laptops. I'm now running the 4710hq at 3.7Ghz .

 

ThrottleStop has always been intended for laptops. Desktops generally have more bios options and less throttling issues compared to laptops so TS is not as popular in the desktop community.

TS 6 is not compatible with Windows 7 and up. If you run TS 6, it seems to screw up the Windows icon cache which results in some random icon bugs when you switch to TS8. If you clear the icon cache, this forces Windows to rebuild it. After that, do not run TS6 and everything should be fine.

 

I'm with "most users", happy as a clam my laptop's working - I think it's Lenovo who should be asking you for help with this. Thanks again, and a homeless woman is very grateful to you also!

 

ThrottleStop 8.10 Beta 2
https://www.sendspace.com/file/rnpe1c

March 16, 2016

Code:

  File: ThrottleStop.exe
CRC-32: 43f58473
   MD4: 215d1a0f948de8e27f7e1a70cd7d0c61
   MD5: 95abe57810f9c0dcfc549e41d83f2f9a
SHA-1: 1a07f46bcaf8acd89f9b0ab3940ae07eb8e03075

New Features:
- redesigned the C State Interrupt Response Limit feature.
- changed microcode reporting in the FIVR window.
- fixed possible bug where log file could grow forever if log file does not exist.



VirusTotal Results

SHA256: 696c428e94b980a085e9a5fbcd858e26abd35f8748484d1b5c9713659a0487ad
File name: ThrottleStop.exe
Detection ratio: 0 / 56
Analysis date: 2016-03-16 17:30:27 UTC ( 2 minutes ago )

 

Sure, I will post a screenshot of TS when this happens again. I have a XPS13 with i7-5500u FYI

 

Hello everyone,

The last few versions of ThrottleStop have had an issue for me where I cannot minimize ThrottleStop to the tray. I tried a few different third party programs to accomplish this as well, and one did actually minimize it to the tray, however I could still see the ThrottleStop icon in the task bar. I tried with the task bar checked, unchecked, I tried clearing icon cache in Windows, I tried rebuilding it, I tried starting ThrottleStop with a delay, etc. I have run out of ideas. Does anyone have any other ideas? Unclewebb, is there anything else I can try?

Thanks.

 

For those wondering what the new IRL feature might be good for, here are a couple of examples.



On my 4700MQ, a C7 IRL setting of 84 allows the CPU to spend lots of time in the C7 Package C State. This minimizes power consumption and should maximize battery run time.

Simply changing this from 84 to 32 does the opposite.



This setting completely eliminates the Package C States from being used. The individual cores are still able to spend the majority of their idle time in C7 but the CPU package no longer drops down into any Package C State. In theory, this might give better SSD performance when lightly loaded. I have been helping @Kocane who has a problem with an irritating coil whine noise coming from his laptop. Using this feature to adjust idle power consumption might help his sanity. No other software gives users access to this setting so I thought being able to fine tune the C States might be useful. I know my music friends over at GearSlutz have a hate on for the C States so this might be useful for music production as well.

I have not had this issue with any recent versions of ThrottleStop. I have tested this on multiple computers using a variety of operating systems including Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10.

To try and solve this I would exit ThrottleStop, clean the icon cache, start ThrottleStop, make sure Task Bar is not checked on the main TS screen and then click on the Minimize gadget and see what happens. After you click on Save, the ThrottleStop.INI file should have this line in it.

TaskBar=0

You should not need any third party programs to accomplish this. They might be doing more harm than good.

 

I've been having lower benchmark performance of my SSD that is linked to the cores staying C-states (alleviated by running one thread of Prime95 when benching). I thought I'd give your C state Interrupt Response Limit a go, but it didn't improve benchmarks - I found out by keeping the C6 window open that even at default settings during the Crystal Disk benchmark that the CPU spends zero time in the Package C-states, it's just the core C-states that are causing the problem. Well, it's not really a problem, system is still snappy, just lower benchmark results, although I figure that when SSD will be pushed in real life then it's likely the CPU will too, thus eliminating any performance issues in the real world. Was curious to try the new Throttlestop feature though, pity it didn't affect my results.

 

Screenshot of TS when cpu usage was >10%

 

Hello there! I've been using ThrottleStop for quite some time, but I still couldn't understand the outcome from what i've been doing now, I'm really obsessed with battery runtime

I have i3-5005u
CPU Core Offset Voltage set to -60.5 mV
also for GPU but at -49.8 mV

what I don't understand is that I set everything as you can see from my photo, Package Power only uses 2-3 W but then why dropping watt still got so high at 6.9-7.1 W?
I also underclock it to 5 multiplier but seems pointless since it doesn't effect when it hits 8

Is there anyway I could decrease power consumption to like 5 W or 4.5 W?

Edit: By the way, I have set C7 Interupt Response Limit to over 512 and C6 to 256

 

Hi. I have an i5 4590S that sits in a pre-built HP business desktop. The S series i5 is the same as a normal 4590 apart form the specified TDP (65w instead of 84w) and the max turbo boost under load (3.3 instead of 3.5 GHz). The max single core turbo boost frequency is the same (3.7 GHz). Unfortunately the HP motherboard BIOS is very limited and it doesn't have a feature common to most H81 Intel motherboards. ASUS calls the feature I'm missing Multi Core Enhancement. Basically it allows you to run all 4 cores at the CPU's maximum turbo boost, i.e. in my case it would be 4 active cores at 3.7 instead of 3.3 GHz. Could I achieve this using Throttlestop, saving me having to buy a replacement motherboard + a copy of windows? Also, if i did this do I have to adjust other parameters like TDP, voltage etc? Most importantly, if I try and do the above what are the dangers of bricking my CPU? Thanks.

 

One question here.
I've configured windows task manager to run throttlestop on startup(login), unchecked "task bar" option and checked "start minimized" option in throttlestop.
On startup, throttlestop only appears in the system tray, which is what I want.
But if I double click the system tray icon and the throttlestop window appears, I cannot make it back ONLY to the tray when minimize the window. It stays on the task bar unless I exit the program and start it again.

 

Uncheck the "task bar" option in throttlstop main window and check "start minimized" in the option window. This should make it minimized to system tray when it FIRST starts.

 

I already tried that before, it did not help. I have tried Unclewebb's latest suggestions, it did not help either.

 

Using 24% CPU right now. Few screenshots below

 

Funnily enough, Windows Defender thinks TS8 v10 is a severe level trojan hack tool... but TS8 v10_b2 is fine xD

 

That is why I do not worry too much about Windows Defender. Making minor changes helps throw the hound dogs off the trail.

@akg7091 - I wish I had a solution for you but on every computer I run ThrottleStop, CPU load and memory usage is minimal. Usually ~1 MB of memory and next to nothing for CPU usage. The only time ThrottleStop should be gobbling up CPU resources is when a user is running the TS Bench.

ThrottleStop has slightly different code paths for different CPU families. The code path that ThrottleStop uses when running on a 5th Gen U Broadwell is almost identical to when ThrottleStop is running on my 4th Gen Haswell so I am having a hard time understanding why ThrottleStop is a bloated pig on your system but is fine on all of my systems.

My plan is to go through all of the code, line by line, to see if there is anything that doesn't look right. I really need other users to post their results for CPU and memory usage so I can determine if this is a common problem or if it is only a problem on your laptop.

@i_pk_pjers_i - Make sure that ThrottleStop is not running before doing the clear icon cache step. After that, I have never had an issue. I have never needed to use any 3rd party apps to manage ThrottleStop minimizing. The Task Scheduler works OK for me without needing to add any timing delay.



I create a new task for ThrottleStop and put it in the main Task Scheduler Library folder. A ThrottleStop task should be in the same folder that GoogleUpdate is in.

@Zvelekva - I do not think you will be able to use ThrottleStop for Multi Core Enhancement purposes. You will not hurt anything if you want to give this a try. It is very difficult to brick one's laptop by using ThrottleStop. All of the changes ThrottleStop makes are temporary. If you ever screw up any settings, exit ThrottleStop, delete the program or delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file, reboot and start again.

 

I know. I just found it funny that so many places labelled it as clean but essentially MSE felt otherwise. I know it's clean, though.

As for me, it uses 0% to 0.1% of my CPU and 1.3MB of RAM after running for approximately 6 hours. No problems here, even when the CPU is idle at 0.8GHz.

 

Hello uncle ...
Getting problem after upgrade to TS810.
It cant start for the first time. When I launch it (just nothing shown on display/systray) but task manager shows its running.
when start it for the 2nd time - it does show app window.
click on checkbox "show cpu MHz" does nothing
tray icons missing (but GPU icon shown OK)
UPD: It seems like issue somehow related to icons cache.
When I copy TS810 app over TS800 and start it - everything went just fine ...

 

this solved the problem to me:

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5645-icon-cache-rebuild-windows-10-a.html

Download the bat, run it with highest privileges and reboot (do all of this without TS running on the background)

Hope it will help

 

@unclewebb, as requested, I am reporting CPU / memory usage for ThrottleStop on my 4790K. CPU usage is less than .1% and memory usage is about 1.7 MBs. Everything looks good at my end.

 

I also just checked ThrottleStop on my 5005U, and CPU / memory usage looks good as well. CPU usage is usually at 0% and memory usage at .5 MBs.

 

This is almost exactly what I did as soon as I figured out issue related to icon cache. Anyway TY for response

 

Mine's at 1.95MB for memory usage, and 0.01% Average CPU Usage - that's Throttlestop v6.0 though.

 

It starts off with <1% CPU and negligible ram but after letting the system run for a day or so both CPU and memory usage climb through the roof. If I restart TS CPU usage is again <1%
I am using 8.1 beta 2
Let me know if you want me to run any tests. Thanks again for the help and the wonderful software

 

Thanks for all of the feedback about CPU / memory usage.

Your 5th Generation Broadwell U CPU is very similar to the 5th Generation Broadwell U CPU that @akg7091 has in his laptop so it is good to know that this problem is not specific to that family of CPUs. I will do some long term testing with the latest TS version. During previous tests, I have never seen any significant change in CPU or memory usage.

If you want to do some more testing, in Windows 10, open up the Task Manager, go to the Details tab and right mouse click on the headings and it will let you select some more columns of information to view.



Things like Handles, Threads, User Objects and GDI Objects should remain fairly stable over time. The problem seems like some sort of memory leak so if this is happening, you should see some of those items continuously going up and up and up.

Unfortunately, ThrottleStop 6 is not fully compatible with Windows 7 and up when it comes to the system tray icons. I know that running TS 6 and then switching to TS 8 will usually cause problems but it looks like running different versions of TS 8 can also confuse Windows. If possible, I might build a Clear Icon Cache button into ThrottleStop since this is a common problem with programs besides ThrottleStop or maybe come up with some other fix to keep Windows and Windows Defender both happy. Defender didn't like TS 8 so I had to give TS a new number to keep Defender happy but now the icon cache is not happy because two different programs are trying to use the same icons. Maybe TS 8.2 will have a fix to keep them both happy at the same time.

 

Ah, thanks for that tip, could come in useful in the future, didn't know you could do that with Task Manager.