Running Throttlestop on an Envy 17 SB

I did some testing with unclewebb late last evening. Tried all kinds of settings, etc....how to get the best performance out of Throttlestop AND keep the machine cooler. Here are some setup screens that I will explain and if unclewebb wants to jump in and add...more the merrier...

In photo 1...you set up Throttlestop to stop your throttling.

1. Set Multiplier...Turbo
Do NOT disable Turbo

That will give you maximum turbo boost performance, no throttling and higher temps

Now...if you want a balance...we can add a separate step and create a second profile. This profile is photo 3. It is basically running your processor at rated speed, with no turbo boost. Good performance with lower heat.

1. Set Multiplier...turbo
DO disable turbo.

If you have a 2630, you CPU will run at 2.0 GHZ and stay there. Temps are about 10-12C lower than option 1


THEN...there is a balanced mode where you set between the two modes and let thermal temp throttle between turbo boost and not. In order to run the third option...you must create profile 1 and profile 2. I left mine at default names performance and gaming.

Having created the two profiles...you now leave page 1 on profile 1 and hit the options key. See capture photo 2

Check the alarm button...uncleweb suggested setting DTS to 10, which means change profile at 10C below the CPU temp threshold. I chose 12 on mine. When the temperature hits the alarm threshold...it will automatically enable profile 2. So in my case, I would get turbo boost up to 88C, then profile 2 would kick in and throttle my CPU to 2.0 GHZ...until the temp dropped. Mind you...if you are running tests and are watching to see what Throttlestop does...you will see the machine do a light show between profile 1 and profile 2. Temps with this scenario are somewhere in between.

To put it in uncleweb's own words...not to paraphrase:

I think when users discover that there is a simple solution to this problem that they won't feel so bad about buying the HP Envy 17. It's such a pain trying to buy a performance laptop that doesn't have one limitation or another. ThrottleStop might be useful while waiting for HP to maybe come up with a solution. I kind of doubt they will at the moment to be honest.


Uncleweb...thank you for your patience and teaching me how to use Throttlestop to it's utmost abilities. All Envy owners owe you a great deal of gratitude. As Lennon and McCartney penned: "The Love you take is equal to the love you make" You are much revered here...

 

Nice writeup.

 

this is just awesome information bobmitch. kudos to you and of course uncleweb. I love the balanced solution here.

still -- curious minds want to know: what is HP (and others) doing to produce this throttling, and what does throttlestop do to mitigate this?

 

dlleno, going by what other Envy users posted when they spoke with HP reps/execs regarding this issue, is that a BIOS "fix" is coming soon. Although no specific date was given, they said just check frequently. I'm just wondering how exactely HP will fix the throttle, as we know Dell/Alienware increased the voltage a bit, but if HP does that, won't it increase the temps as well, and we know HP only has 1 heatsink...so....

KJ

 

OK...what I did was run some tests. I used the third scenario with a balance between profile 1 and profile 2. I let the alarm kick in the throttle.

Some basic findings...overall temps testing just CPU by itself and then adding GPU to the mix didn't really alter temps that much. Coolsense kicks in and runs fans full blast both ways...

Here are the results. I ran wPrime by itself with the mix of profiles then ran wPrime with Furmark together for second test. Throttlestop log results below...

You can tell when the test really begins. The CPU jumps up and stays over 20 x 100. Higher turbo with wPrime by itself...less thermal. Add furmark and heat generated by GPU only adds a few degrees C and profile 2 rules the roost!

uncleweb...would love an opinion

 

Amazing, this should be sticky or something, Gonna read it through again soon and put up some settings to

 

Nice write up Bobmitch. Users should be able to live with this solution while HP thinks about doing something about it.

If the default 20 multiplier is still causing too much heat then you can also use ThrottleStop and in your second profile you can lower the Set Multiplier value down a few notches to 18 or 16 or whatever. The 16 multiplier is still 100% faster than the 8 multiplier that HP designed these laptops to use when the CPU and GPU are being stressed simultaneously. Hopefully some more users can play with ThrottleStop and post their results. It really is very easy to set up with a couple of mouse clicks so no one needs to be intimidated by all the options.

It sounds dumb but I don't quite know what ThrottleStop is doing to solve this.

I've never had my hands on a Sandy Bridge desktop or mobile CPU for testing purposes let alone an HP Envy 17. Imagine what I could do if I actually had access to Intel's full documentation and some toys to play with.

My best guess is that based on power consumption, the bios tells the CPU to gear down to its lowest speed and ThrottleStop tells the CPU to ignore that request and continue running at full speed. That seems to be working. One register in the CPU controls the multiplier and whether turbo boost is being requested. ThrottleStop just checks that register on a regular basis and makes sure that it is set appropriately. I hate to say too much or the HP engineers might come up with a bios that doesn't fix the problem and puts an end to what ThrottleStop is doing to solve it.

 

I wanted mine to do like yours Bobmitch Change when it got to hot, I hope I got all settings right but I'm gonna attach photos maybe you can see so it's the way it should, but mine seem to reset all settings every time I start ThrottleStop even if I press save "/

 

Glad someone was able to take over, I had already set up several configurations to figure out a way to reduce the TDP, however the only thing I could come up with for the 2820QM was to basically lower the multiplier to about 2.0 ghz to get it to a respectable temperature.

Now I don't have an Envy so I can't test further .

Thanks Bobmitch!

 

That made me smile and think... It would have been great if HP would be cool/chill and down for hiring you to help them resolve this issue. Sending an Envy with full documentation about Intel's chip inside, and how they worked the programming/BIOS for the Envy. That would be great, maybe even fly you to their corprate offices to offer you a well paying job, as you seem pretty knowledgable about tech.

Anway, that was just wishful thinking....I'm still hoping the exec who promised a BIOS fix was not kidding.

KJ

 

MiRRe89: If you are having problems with ThrottleStop not saving your settings then try unzipping it again to a new folder. I unzipped it to C:\Program Files(x86) and it works fine.

If it ends up in a folder that you don't have full write access to then it seems to block the settings from being saved. Another thing you can try is right click on the ThrottleStop.ini configuration file and make sure that you have the appropriate read / write file permissions. That's usually what causes this problem.

 

That's it!!! Good job...now you can test it and watch the show!

 

You were the driving force from the beginning! Hopefully HP can come up with something of a satisfactory nature. You are owed many thanks as well! I hope you frequent here HP or not!

 

Oh haha stupid me, I ran it from the Rar archive the hole time so no wonder it didn't save settings I'll unpack it to a folder Thanks!

THANK YOU It already worked out PERFECT while playing Black ops, omg It ran so fine it almost criminal haha, it did run almost perfect without TS too but there was some small lag spikes rarely without TS that's now gone so, MUCH LOVE haha

 

Glad it worked...did you monitor your temps? You can do that with Hwinfo32 or TS itself

 

Yea I always monitor my temps I've always been "careful" with them or how to say, same on my HDX. They went up at highest to 83Celsius that's like 1Celsius higher then it normally does without TS so I don't really think there's gonna be heat problems with TS?

I doesn't stay on 80+ either it's often around 70Celsius something but at HIGHEST 83 so, I'm cool with temps so far. And if I minimize the game it still cools down super fast to around 50+Celsius, so awesome

I'm nice so in Fahrenheit, do you use Fahrenheit?
83C = 181.4F
80C = 176F
70C = 158F
50C = 122F

And oh, even with TS running and playing, the Envy still feels cooler then the HDX did (It got pretty damn hot)

 

I use C. Mine topped off around 90, which is better than the 97 I was getting last night. Mind you...I was using full throttle last night. I really like the balanced profile...much cooler and gives a bit more headroom. If I run and lock at 2.0 GHZ, thermals aren't much different. Looking good!

Mine may have been a bit higher because I was running the test while the machine was in my lap. I wanted to see if I could feel the heat...didn't. Palmrest warmer than usual...but not that "scorching" hot that people with the first Gen Envy used to complain about

 

Oh in the lap I have mine on an external flash that also lifts the laptop up from the table so there's plenty of room for airflow underneath it I don't know if that really does a different or not but it feels better to have it this way

 

I created a third profile which really helps thermals. Profile one has turbo enabled and allows the cpu to run full tilt. Profile three, as opposed to the 2.0 GHZ non turbo mode I created earlier...now runs the CPU at 1.6 GHZ, instead. here is a screenshot. Notice...total temps NEVER hit 90...they stay high 80's. Slight temp improvement

 

Thanks I'm gonna put that as third setting on my TS, haven't run that program in a while, hooked up on sims 3 again and that isn't affected by throttling at all (understandable) But I still run it on highest on every possible setting so it's good

 

Bump for those who need to see it

 

I have a couple of questions. I'm really not that "up" on this stuff, so forgive me for being overly cautious.

1) When i first ran throttlestop, without even a load it was showing 798mhz. I only had internet explorer open. Why is that?

2) Once I set up the profiles as Bobmitch did, it was consistently around where it should be, however, it still bounces all over the place. Is this normal?

3) I made a third profile as Bobmitch did. Now, when does that kick in? do I have to do anythign within the options as shown in your guide where you told it to kick from profile 1 to profile 2 if it gets to 88?

Thanks! This is really going to make this laptop more of a joy than it already is.

Edit: After using TS, I fired The Witcher 2 and actually experienced unplayable framrate drop. The mhz was staying consistently ~1800-2300. When I turn it off, however, it would drop at times, and pick up at others, and the game played without any framrate issues. One thing I did notices is that there may have been more texture pop in with TS turned off rather than on.

As I said, i'm new to all of this. Can anyone help me make sense out of it?

Edit #2: So I ran the stress test on the forums, and of course the mhz dropped to 798. Why is it, though, that even with the TS on i'm only getting 18-20 FPS? Basically, im trying to figure out how it is possible that the game runs better with the processors being throttled. To some extent, the test shows this to, as sometimes with the MHz at 798 the fps goes to 30.

 

HP released a BIOS update fixing the throttling issue on 5/27/11. ThrottleStop, while a great tool, is no longer necessary.

HP Notebook System BIOS Update (Intel Processors) HP ENVY 17t-2100 CTO 3D Edition Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

 

Is this real? Mine is not a 3D, will this BIOS update still work?

Edit: Nice!!

 

I have a hp envy 17 , but is not 3d model.

How can I know if that bios is compatible with my model. Im having exactly that issue.

 

The bios for the second generation Envy 17 / Envy 17 3D is f.15 You have a specific part number for your computer. Go to drivers and downloads and put in your part number (mine is XG360AV). You should be able to go to your specific download page and get f.15

Hit Fn-Esc and your part number is there. You should also be ablel to run HP Software Assistant...refresh and the bios update is probably there...Get it either way. Bios update is pretty easy...Click the executable and it takes care of itself...after reboot...no more throttling

 

thanks for your reply, but I have this model HP ENVY 17t-1100 CTO and the only bios I can download is F.1D.

HP Notebook System BIOS Update (Intel Processors) HP ENVY 17t-1100 CTO Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

What can I do?

 

Notify support and let them know that the first Generation Envy also has Throttling issue, like the one cured on the Sandy Bridge. Also...until you get a fix, you can use Throttlestop. Unclewebb created a pretty fantastic program that will stop throttling and give you control back...

 

@jonyhp

Search my Mae on these forums and you'll find my thread about throttling on the 1st Gen Envy. That'll give you and idea of the trouble I went through to get HP to acknowledge the issue and the steps I took.

 

hey metril, thanks for your reply.

I read a thread started by you but I couldn find a solution....

The only fix is using throttle stop?

 

@ jonyhp

The only fix is throttlestop, or you could pursue a refund/replacement machine with HP.

 

BUMP

Looks like there may be some throttling issues with the new 2011 model Envy's. Read and learn how to use. New throttlestop version is 4.0...but the setup remains the same. Applies to 15 and 17 inch

 

on the envy 15 the CHIPM needs to be checked it throttles CPU with i7 2670qm

you do not have this checked

 

CHIPM??? I don't see it...do you mean Chipset Clock Modulation??

 

yes if u check your logs u will see it gets throttled for a few seconds when temps rise, in the new envy 15 it does it around 76c believe it or not