The ThrottleStop Guide

Hi,

I have tried to find this information without any luck. Can any locked Skylake (e.g. 6700HQ) owner confirm whether there's any OC allowance? I know Haswell's "free" +2 is gone, but what about the 2/3/4C frequencies? Any chance of running over 3.1GHz when all cores are active? (In the past, this was a little more common - there were ways to always use the 1C turbo frequency)

For reference, for example on Haswell, the 47xx have +2 bins and 48xx +4 if I'm not mistaken. On top of that, depending on the microcode, you can do what I described above (1C freq for 4C), or even fully unlock them. I don't know about Broadwell, much less Skylake.

Thank you.

 

I would really like this app for my MSI laptop

 

Hi,

I have tried to redo your settings, but somehow not working for me, I get always these very low clocks with power saver enabled. Even under load. Would you take a look on my settings, please? Do you have the same?
Would not be there a way to tell this problem to Dell and maybe they could fix it with a bios update?

 

Hi,

you didn't link your TS settings. The important bit is PowerSaver C0%, e.g. here is mine: https://yadi.sk/i/CqHbAR4vt3FsA

However you have 8 cores, so 100% load on one core would be ~12 (12% of total), so try setting yours to 8 or some such.

HTH

 

It was included as attached file. So now I've enabled that BD Prochot and finally I have found the 800MHz mod, which was missing until now. But it is stuck always on that;

 

No, I'm talking about this: https://yadi.sk/i/xDW1uyfKt7XXQ

Try setting it to something like 8.

 

Oh, ok thanks. Setting that thing to 8 really fixed things. But for plus I also had to check out the BD Prochot, because that thing was keeping strictly at 800MHz. Now again my minimum is 900MHz, but whatever, I have working speedstep .

I have noticed too, after sleep Throttlestop must be restarted...

 

Not him, but im also interested in that "app". My current system's PROCHOT value is set to 85C, which occasionally, on random reboots, changes to 95C ( my CPU is 4710HQ ). I still havent figured out how to "force" it to change, just a series of reboots using windows GUI and hardware power button... Id like there to be an easier way.

Does it involve BIOS modding? If so, maybe i could apply the method to my own motherboards bios ( ASUS N551JM ) and test it out.

 

Hello there. First of all, I want to thank unclewebb and Dufus for a great job with TS. It's been of great help with some Intel computers that were extremely annoying with their throttling mechanisms.
I've got a question though:
I've already modified my Lenovo Y50-70 with a modded bios containing uCode 02. With TS, I'm able to get up to 42-43x with -5mV undervolt and up to 46-47x with +100mV overvolting.
The main issue here is that it keeps throttling even with modified PL and PPL settings at a TDP of 58-59W.
I have seen that @hdneo has been able to get way past that limitation with TDPs in the excess of 75W.
Where in the BIOS (I'm using modded 1.13 BIOS) or what do I have to modify to get around that limitation? I am perfectly aware I need to upgrade the thermals of my laptop but I want to make the effort worth it by getting past 58W TDP.

 

downgrade microcode to ver 01 then use powercut option in ts.
which voltage use @ 42-43x and 46-47?

 

I have set these voltages:

For 43x, I have this voltage setup (Already changed back to uC 01, Powercut still shows up as disabled):


For 46x (When I still was on uC 02):

 

@unclewebb If you need testers, happy for you to send me the newest beta with C8, C9 and C10 state detection. I believe my skylake 6500U CPU should support these states.

 

set your vccin near 1.8 volt then it will be unlock.

 

I cooked up an autohotkey script to automatically restart ThrottleStop on wake up.

Autohotkey: https://autohotkey.com/

Script: https://yadi.sk/d/Npul2DvUtE2Gu

Edit at the end to specify directory where you have ThrottleStop:
Run,ThrottleStop.exe,c:\BIN\ThrottleStop_810\
(last part is directory)

Must be run with elevated privileges to work.

What the script does -- when wake up is detected, it sends Escape to ThrottleStop window (even if window if not visible) -- this causes ThrottleStop to exit. Then it starts ThrottleStop again.

Works for me (tm).

P.S. Script I shared is not exactly the version I'm using and is untested, but it 'should' work. I only deleted some lines that are specific for my setup. YMMV

 

I tested that and it actually enabled PowerCut. However I am in a bigger dilemma.
I had mentioned the paste was dry and it needed replacement, since it was throttling by itself. I have now replaced the thermal paste and it's throttling even worse (3.2Ghz vs 3.8Ghz before repaste!!)

 

That is very nice of you, I' ve wanted to say how cool would be that! However I do not know how to use it. I've installed your above link, I've downloaded your script file to the Throttlestop folder, I've done the edit in your script file to give the exact location of Throttlestop, than i did not know how to continue, so I did right click on the script file and clicked compile script. Something not good happened, Throttlestop not running and it's icon also changed... Could you please give some more advice how to make it good?

 

Sorry, should've made it more clear I suppose.

You don't need to compile the script (I have no idea what it actually does tbh).

You just need to 'start' the script by e.g. double-clicking it (if it doesn't automatically launch, select autohotkey.exe as the stuff to 'run with').

However it must be run with elevated privileges. If you have UAC on, you could try something like:
- Create a shortcut to cmd.exe
- Open shortcut properties, 'Shortcut' tab
- Adjust target to something like (edit path to wherever you have the script): C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start c:\ThrottleStop\ThrottleStop.ahk
- Under Advanced check Run as administrator

 

Another happy ThrottleStop customer - Dell 9550

 

And it is working now, awesome! Thanks!

 

Cool

Let's hope ThrottleStop devs will have time to look into the problem so the script won't be necessary...


As an aside (probably not a very useful one) -- in addition to having to enable 'Power Saver' to get SpeedStep to actually 'sort of' work, I also found PowerSaver C0% (under Options) to behave strangely. E.g. with 4 cores and 'PowerSaver C0%' set to 10 the CPU will upclock/turbo more or less normally under single-thread load. With 'PowerSaver C0%' set to 13 or more (still less than 25 which ought to be the fully-loaded single-core limit) it'll upclock/turbo, but somewhat unstably -- once in a few seconds it would momentarily downclock -- often quite significantly, causing perceptible slowdown in benchmark progress.

Just posting it here in case it's useful for someone in a similar situation.

 

@Solf_ - The Power Saver feature was designed for the original Core 2 Duo CPUs which were released about 10 years ago. No further development of ThrottleStop Power Saver ever happened after that because

a) it is a crappy way to control a CPU and
b) the modern C States are a much better way to reduce power consumption while maintaining maximum performance.

Here's a good example. The first picture shows my CPU when it is idle using the Windows Balanced power profile. The multiplier is at its minimum (8) across all threads. This is as good as it gets. Power consumption is measured at the wall for the entire laptop is only 17 Watts.



Next up is the exact same laptop but now it is using the Windows High Performance profile and the reported multiplier is at the max. Full turbo boost in action and much higher VID voltage. Guess what?



Power consumption is identical at 17 Watts. How is that possible? Well, the individual cores are spending 99% of their time in the C7 state where they are disconnected from the voltage rail. Technically speaking, they are running at 0 volts and 0 MHz 99% of the time so in this state, the reported MHz of what the active cores are doing the other 1% of the time really doesn't make any difference. I keep telling people that the easiest way to reduce heat and power consumption and fan noise is to keep a close eye on the ThrottleStop C State data. This is much more important than MHz.

Next up I adjusted the C7 Interrupt Response Limit (IRL) and this disabled the Package C3 and Package C6 C States. Huge change in MHz makes no difference but without the Package C6 C State, power consumption is way up to 23 Watts at the wall.



The last thing I did was I tweaked the C7 IRL setting and power consumption dropped to only 14 Watts at the wall.



C State residency time is about the same as during my previous 17 Watt screenshot but this little tweak did far more than playing with the MHz. The other interesting thing is the TDP data reports higher power consumption in this last screenshot but actual power consumption from the wall has decreased. That is why I tell people not to trust TDP data when a CPU is lightly loaded. It is just a meaningless number.

Learn to maximize C State residency time. I let my CPU run at full speed and when idle, the fan is virtually silent and my laptop is cool. The first program I would ditch is Intel XTU. It significantly interferes with the C States. Shame on Intel for not having programmers that are a little more on the ball.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that Set Multiplier does not work correctly if the Non Turbo Ratio is not set to zero. The Power Saver feature uses the same CPU register as the Set Multiplier feature so some of your problems are probably because of this. Next time I look at ThrottleStop, I will see what I can do but it sounds like your script solved your problem. Also, XTU and ThrottleStop are both writing different information to the same CPU registers. That is never a good idea and another reason to ditch XTU, fancy graphs and all.

 

XTU is only useful if you want to bench XTU numbers. Then uninstall or disable this huge Bloat/Crapware!! And Unclewebb how it's going with the Papusan version?

 

Hi, thanks for replying! Using a kill-a-watt meter is a great idea too -- especially since I have one laying around

I imagine SpeedStep/Power Saver vs C-states depends heavily on what C-states are available. Apparently Dell is known to disable all the more 'advanced' power-saving features.

So I dug up my kill-a-watt and did some actual testing. I had external monitor connected via HDMI with laptop display off -- hopefully that helps to remove variance due to display illumination and stuff

The results are:

Completely idle laptop -- nothing really running except ThrottleStop:
power saver -- 10.7-10.9W
full turbo -- 11.1-11.5W
so about 0.5W difference

Idle laptop + process explorer (which does tend to reliably require 2-3 percents of CPU time) -- I tend to have it running most of the time, so it's relevant for me:
power saver -- 10.7-11.5W
full turbo -- 11.0-12.0W
so again about 0.5W difference

Laptop with all the crap I usually have open -- process explorer, Skype, Thunderbird, Firefox (FF is 'idle' -- bunch of tabs is open, but they do not have excessive CPU-consuming javascript) -- basically this is my most realistic 'idle' scenario for the laptop:
(listed numbers reflect the majority of the time -- sometimes it spikes a few watts when I guess something happens in one of the open apps)
power saver -- 13.1-14.4W
full turbo -- 14.7-16.0W
this is 1.5+W difference

So, at least 'as configured' on my laptop using Power Saver does, in fact have noticeable effect on the power drain.

Regarding C-states -- here's what I linked previously with the mostly-idle laptop: https://yadi.sk/i/J98uTzIFt3Fv8

You mentioned that tuning IRL might help -- I might try that. Looking through the thread though -- it seems like mostly 'try and see what happens' thing? Or is there any method to this?


"The other thing I forgot to mention is that Set Multiplier does not work correctly if the Non Turbo Ratio is not set to zero. The Power Saver feature uses the same CPU register as the Set Multiplier feature so some of your problems are probably because of this."

Thing is -- this combination of settings ( https://yadi.sk/i/CqHbAR4vt3FsA ) is about the only thing that appears to 'work' -- i.e. use both 'turbo' and 'speedstep'. Yes, if I set 'non turbo ratio' to zero, I can force-set 32 multiplier. But with 'non turbo ratio' set to default 22 I can use 23 or 24T to effectively request max turbo frequency. And not checking Power Saver is a non-option if I want to try to have speedstep working.


Anyway, I'll probably try messing with IRL and I'll report the results if I do try it.


WRT XTU -- I only used it for nice charts to demonstrate how stuff reacts to different ThrottleOptions.

 

@unclewebb Not sure if you saw my earlier message to you - can I have the latest "alpha" version with all C state monitoring enabled. I'd love to test this for you.

 

Try sending him a PM instead.

 

@illuzn - Thanks for your offer to help. The code I wrote is only in RealTemp so far. If I can ever find someone with a CPU that uses C8 / C9 / C10 then I will add some of this new code to ThrottleStop. Hopefully your laptop uses some of these mysterious C States. Intel adds new features but I am sure that some manufacturers turn them off. My Asus desktop Skylake board has an option for C8 but I don't see it.



@Solf_ I think your Kill-a-Watt has better resolution compared to the one I have. A savings of 1.5 Watts does not sound like much but on a system that is only drawing 15 Watts, I agree that a 10% savings is not that bad at all. Power Saver is not for me but if you are happy with it, I won't argue. It's effectiveness really depends on how you have your laptop setup and what apps you have running in the background.

I saw your C State screenshot before and that is when I noticed that you have a lot of stuff running on your system. It also shows that Package C3 and Package C6 are probably disabled. You would have to contact Dell to ask them about that. A 6th Gen Skylake would be using a lot less power at idle if all of the package C States were enabled. Did you ever check this when you had Windows 10 installed?

@Papusan - Sorry Pap. Summer arrived. My wife is a school teacher. I never get anything done during the summer.

 

Hey!

I'm using XTU and not very satisfied for the moment...
Is throttlestop optimized for skylake? I heard the version 8.2 will be good, any dte of release?

Thanks a lot!

 

Bug in, see the last sentence in the post above yours.

 

I think for Skylake CPUs these switchers turn on / off differet things than for earlier CPUs. Like this Power saver is the new Speed step switch or the BD Prochot the 800MHz mod.

 

M bad, didn t read it to the end... Guess i'll have to wait then!
Thanks!

 

Yeah, this does seem like a possibility.

Skylake has this new Speed Shift, maybe that's what is being turned on by the 'Power Saver' checkbox. I don't need to touch BD Prochot myself (I keep it as it was -- checked) -- so at least on my system it doesn't appear to force low frequencies.

 

The register that Power Saver toggles dates back at least 20 years. Intel has been using that same register to control CPU speed for a long time. The IA32_PERF_CTL (Performance Control) register that ThrottleStop writes data to has nothing to do with Speed Shift. I think most of the trouble that you had / are having with Power Saver is because the Non Turbo Ratio is not set to zero. Even if you set this to zero with ThrottleStop, the bios might be changing this value when the computer resumes from sleep. Any changes to the Non Turbo Ratio will block the Performance Control register from working correctly. This might cause the CPU to get stuck at a fixed frequency.

As for BD PROCHOT, I have never come across a situation where this throttling method should be turned on. Turning off BD PROCHOT has probably saved a few computers from ending up in the garbage. Over and over again, a sensor will randomly fail and it will force the CPU to immediately throttle down to 800 MHz and chug along at that speed indefinitely, regardless of load. Whoever thought that would be a good idea was wrong.

@Bug in - Most of the Skylake related bugs in ThrottleStop 8.10 are pretty minor. With Skylake CPUs, the CPU Core and CPU Cache voltage have to both be adjusted equally. ThrottleStop 8.10 lets you adjust these independently. In the next release, when running on a Skylake CPU, when you adjust the CPU Core voltage, the CPU Cache voltage will adjust automatically to the same value. As long as you make sure you do this manually, ThrottleStop 8.10 works fine on Skylake.

The other bug is a CPU speed reporting bug. On Skylake mobile CPUs, the reported BCLK might be off by something minor like +0.2%. This bug causes the CPU multiplier to be off by a similar percentage. On Skylake desktop CPUs, ThrottleStop 8.10 does not correctly report the BCLK if you are doing any BCLK overclocking. All of these related bugs should be fixed for the next release. I think I posted a picture of the new version in action a while ago. Same BCLK and multiplier as CPU-Z is reporting. TS 8.10 reports a BCLK of about 99.7 MHz during this test which is wrong.

http://i.imgur.com/Xkj9ZUz.png

Some people get scared off by beta software but in my opinion, the bugs are pretty minor at the moment. Nothing anywhere near a show stopper. I am sure the guys over at Intel working on XTU would give their right arms if their bug list was only that long.

 

As far as I can tell, this doesn't agree with the observed behavior (for me)

It seems that for me 'Non Turbo Ratio' controls what multiplier I should set to request 'full turbo' (anything bigger than 'Non Turbo Ratio' effectively requests full turbo). Setting it to zero does indeed allow me to specify exact multiplier/frequency -- but this is simply not what I want to do (unless I have to). 'Request full turbo' is fine by me.

After computer resumes from sleep -- if I don't restart ThrottleStop -- then even if I change 'Non Turbo Ratio' -- it doesn't help (CPU still stays in 'power saver' mode -- which, btw, is not a fixed frequency in my case, it's jumping between 8-12 multiplier or so (800-1200MHz)). Or, in other words, it doesn't look like the problem with wake up has to do with 'Non Turbo Ratio' register value.

That is not to say that your theory isn't right -- I'm just not sure how the behavior I am seeing can be reconciled with this theory.

 

Hi hdneo,
how can I mod my bios and downgrade my microcode? I've searched for the modding bios. Firstly downgrade to v1.14 (I found the file). Than next what should I do?

 

I'm a happy new user of throttlestop on a Lenovo Yoga 700-11 (Intel Core m3-6Y30). By undervolting the battery lasts nearly an hour longer . Thanks for this wonderful programm!

One question: Would it be possible to minimize the programm in tray instead of the task bar. Minimized to tray it will not be listed in windows' task switching, which would be a bit more comfortable for a undisturbed work . I realized this by starting throttlestop with a programm called trayconizer but this seems to be a bit buggy.

 

Err, that's exactly how ThrottleStop 8.10 works for me -- only shows up in system tray (under Windows 7).

Not sure what (if anything) controls that, but here are my options: https://yadi.sk/i/CqHbAR4vt3FsA

 

look at here:
http://donovan6000.blogspot.com/2013/06/insyde-bios-modding-cpu-microcodes.html

 

Are you comparing battery life with ThrottleStop vs power option in "High Performance" or in "Balanced"?

 

Hi unclewebb,

My laptop is i5-4200U CPU, how to lock to C7 state? The 'Package C State Limit Locked' in C1 and the C7 IRL is in C3 position. Thanks for your help.

 

Just to clarify, if one wants to adjust the "Set Multiplier" variable, what does he need to do in the FIVR window at the "Non Turbo Ratio" screen?

- Make sure Lock is unclicked?
- Change the number in the box to 0 (and click or unclick lock)?

FYI - The default "Non Turbo Ratio" setting on my screen is 31 and the lock box is unclicked.[/user]

 

That's strange, I'm using Windows 10, this is what it looks like while Throttlestop is minimized: http://www.mir-studios.de/ts_minimized.png

I don't know if I got your point, I only use one profile for all situations in which I unlocked the voltage adjustments. I made an offset of -85mV for CPU core and -10.7 for all other parts here. The voltage adjustments only make a difference if CPU is not idle.

 

If you go in windows "control panel > hardware and sound > power options" are you using high performance or balanced?

I ask because I read that ThrottleStop should be used on High Performance when plugged in. And that closing ThrottleStop but using "balanced" in the windows "power options" is best for battery use.

 

If ThrottleStop shows that the Package C State Limit is Locked, that means the manufacturer set the lock bit in the bios for this register so this cannot be adjusted. In the Interrupt Response Limit section, If you click on the round dots for C3, C6, C7; you should be able to adjust each one of these individually. With the Package C States locked, adjusting IRL is probably not going to do anything for you.

@pressing - If you are using the Set Multiplier option, the Non Turbo Ratio in the FIVR window needs to be set to zero. There is no need to use the Lock option. This was only included in case some laptop somewhere was setting the Non Turbo Ratio to different values. If you set it to zero and it stays at zero, no need to Lock it.

@spreeni - Did you try toggling the ThrottleStop - Task Bar option? Go a cm or two above the Save button on the main screen. Make sure the Task Bar option is not checked if you do not want ThrottleStop to minimize to your Task Bar.

 

Ah, now I see. I use the default windows profile balanced, I never changed it anyway, only the display timeout. I use throttlestop just for undervolting my CPU, all other c-states etc. are not touched.

 

I understand you should use ThrottleStop only in High Performance, not Balanced. Do a search on this thread to confirm.

 

thank you very much, this was the option I was looking for. I searched it in the options-menue. Now everything's running perfectly.

 

Thanks for your answer with explanation.

 

If you are only using ThrottleStop for under volting purposes, you can use whatever Windows power profile you like.

The only time you need to avoid the Balanced profile is if you are using the ThrottleStop Set Multiplier feature. I avoid the Balanced profile but that is mostly because my laptop is plugged in 99% of the time.

 

A question on the 6820HK, is it power draw unlocked? Like XMs you can unlock the power limit and overvolt as long as you keep temps under control? I'm planning to test a GT72 to break the superpi record on hwbot.

@D2 Ultima

 

ALL skylake i7 chips are power draw unlocked on mobile. As for if the laptop specifically allows unlocked power? That's a different story. I don't know if the GT72 allows unlocked TDP, but it should. You may need an unlocked sBIOS from Svet, but I think those machines are fine. And a 330W brick.