Questionable Support Problems....

Me: The computer was shipped with a set of errors that still occur from XoticPC. They almost always appear as 8 yellow exclamation points back to back under system in event viewer:

Message:
Event 37, Kernal-Processor-Power

The speed of processor (*replace with numbers 1-7 here*) in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for 23 seconds since the last report.




How do I fix this? People say in the forums to use maximum power mode in OS. But I do not want to not be able to power saving functionality. I've never gotten this error in any of my other laptops before. Is there a BIOS update that fixes this?

*Provides serial number* and other numbers for the order to be found*


Sager: Hi Tom, please save the error logs in the Windows event viewer to a file. Let me see the file.

Me: Event Logs

Me: Hi. I also heard that it is because of Intel's Rapid Start Technology in the bios. I don't know if the logs would be harmful in the long run, that's why I'm asking about it. It happens on battery power and on ac power.

On an unrelated note, how do I turn on the ability to use the laptop specific keys without having to press 'Fn' with it?

Sager: If you remove the battery and run the computer on AC power alone, do you still see the warning message?

Me: Yes, it still shows.
It still shows when turning Intel Rapid Start off too.

Me: It also still shows if putting the Nvidia Driver (331.93) or Power Options on Maximum Performance Mode.

Sager: If you uninstall the hot key driver, does the symptom still occur?

Me: Sorry, but you've lost me there. Does the hotkey driver have something to do with the error logs?

Me: Do you have a bios update for my machine?

Sager: I do not know what caused that warning. Just to try something.

Me, mentally: wut.

Sager: Your computer has the latest BIOS version installed according to the shipping date.



So what am I supposed to do and what am I supposed to say? 2 girls, 1 cu......I mean 2 questions, no answers.



XoticPC has also got a session going but there's a couple of pms starting from the 30th and now it is 8:18pm on the 31st. Only like 3 emails have been sent to me requesting info.




Here is what I've been googling:

https://www.eventid.net/display-eve...nel-Processor-Power-eventno-10756-phase-1.htm

Kernel Processor Power (Error ID 37 in event viewer) [Solved] - CPUs - CPUs

Kernel-Processor-Power Event ID 37 even after Clean Boot

kernel-processor-power event 37 - HP Support Forum - 2307233


Microsoft rep thinks something is wrong with the Mobo. A user said cleaning it out will do the trick (but it's brand new). Other ppl said power issue (but it happens without a battery, with a battery, plugged in, and not plugged in).

What am I supposed to do!?

Question 1: Event ID 37; what's the cause?
Question 2: Special Function Key Option (like Qosmio) [Don't have to press FN to use a special key]; How with this machine?

 

The system limits the speed of the cpu to save power, that's what power saving is so that's normal behaviour at least.

 

How come I didn't get these warnings on my HPDV6 or Qosmio? They had power saving things too.
Do you see these in your logs too?

 

OK well let's suppose there is something wrong. You need to do the basic diagnostics. A cpu will throttle for temperature reasons so what are they like?

If you are unsure you should always hunt out more information...

 

Temps seem normal.

SPECCY (cold boot):
CPU: 43C
MB: 46C
GC: 30C
HDD1: 40C
HDD2: 23C

They only seem to show at the end of a startup. Doesn't seem to happen in safe mode. Still happens on normal mode without a graphics driver. Happened on every graphics driver I've tried. I've asked in 4 places. I've googled. The subject doesn't exceed the first google page. I've tried setting graphics card to maximum performance. I've tried setting the battery to maximum performance. I've tried CHKDSK. I don't get any systems slowdowns that I know of.


Here's a solution for HP machines: http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLia...g-limited-by-system/td-p/4539905#.UsRAG7R6FZ8

But I don't have that in the bios.


I also get normal event id 26's which say:

Processor 7 in group 0 exposes the following:

2 idle state(s)
16 performance state(s)
0 throttle state(s)

EventID.Net says:
This event is typically recorded after a bugcheck crash to indicate the state of the processor(s) when the crashed happened. The bugcheck crash is initiated by the operating system when it detects an anomaly in the behavior of various system-levels drivers.
http://www.eventid.net/display-even...nel-Processor-Power-eventno-10955-phase-1.htm


1. Could it actually be that they need to make a new bios?

2. Do you see these in your logs too (under System)?

 

Do these errors get logged everyday? I see these in mine as well but only on one particular day, and even in that case, the computer didn't feel any less responsive than it was. In fact I didn't even know I had this "problem" until clicking this thread.

As for disabling C states you'll probably need a modded/unlocked BIOS. Honestly if you're not experiencing anything unusual I would just disregard those warnings. Windows seems to like to log every tiny little detail, and some "errors" have been present in the event log the day the OS was installed. To this day I have yet to experience any side effects (apart from self-induced BSODs due to fiddling with XTU), with all the benchmarks pointing to an above-average performance for a system with my specs if anything.

 

Well the logs are designed to give you the most information possible, so yes if everything is behaving like it should then I would not worry either.

Your idle temps look fine, you could double check load temperatures (along with frequencies) if you are still worried.

 

I think these are normal in our case. I have had them on my P157SM and my old P150HM.

I think it's the way the CPU boost works and HotKey does play a role also as does additional power management beyond just what windows does. I generally get them when under high load or gaming. Basically the system is limiting the CPU speed for power and/or heat reasons. That doesn't mean it's limiting it below the default rates. When I get them it's just because it's lowering the boost limit. For example say I am running 1 core and it's running at 3.84GHz, if I start to use more cores it throttles the speed back to about 3.60GHz and sometimes triggers the message. My CPU is rated at 2.8 and the rest is just boost and normal.

I've never seen mine bottleneck below the rated speed.

On Win8 if you pull up task manager you can see your current CPU speed. If you put a load on the system is it = or > vs. what the rated speed is? If so you're fine.
Just because you see warning in Event log doesn't mean a problem exists. Heck, MS has some bugs that cause warnings right out the door on fresh installs and calls them normal.

Basically if you're not having a problem don't worry about it. If you are, you need to show evidence of an issue and not just what a windows log shows. Something that can show that while under load your CPU is not properly maintaining speed at or better vs. what it's rated. Be it a video or monitoring software.

Now my next advise is make sure Hotkey is set to max performance if that's what you want in addition to windows power savings set to high performance. If you rather give up some speed for battery pick another options.

 

MemTest came back fine.

Yes, the warnings get logged everyday. It usually happens when the computer completes its boot process when I have logged into windows 100% of the time.

I uninstalled hotkey. Nothing changed. Before I uninstalled it, I saw that it was version 7.0026. When I reinstalled it from the disk, it was 7.0031. So is every driver that came preinstalled not updated?

I put hotkey in max performance and same with battery. Nothing changed. So I reverted it. I'm on Windows 7 Ultimate.

So how long have ya'll had ya'lls computer? I'm just trying not to have anything break in the long run after warranty runs out.

(checking to see if other drivers aren't up to date)

 

The only way to be sure things wont break out of warranty is to have a long warranty, the best you can do is monitor temps and keep everything running as smooth as possible.

 

They often come pre-loaded with drivers that may not be latest because they often update the drivers, esp when new OS comes out, such as Win 8.1 just did. I always run the latest if I happen to see a newer one out or am reinstalling the driver/windows.

I've been with Sager for going on 4 years with two different machines. I always opted for 3 year warranty though as for 149 it's a deal on a $2200+ I spend on each machine

Like I said, don't worry about seeing those in the event log. Use something to monitor your CPU speed and see if you're having any real problems. It could just be the boost being limited (which is normal) and that's just the way it's getting reported. Different laptop vendors and drivers report things differently. It could just be Windows is interpreting it a different way and that's why you never seen on other machines, that and this one probably does things different and faster as is newer.

I highly doubt you have anything to worry about. Like I said, I sometimes get these too, but I am on 8.1. Windows 8 handles performance a bit different and actually more efficient vs 7. Nothing in the world is error free. My car navigation if I go into the dev debug (hidden screen) even tosses tons of errors, doesn't mean it's broken, just poor programing lol. Basically if you're not having any problems don't worry about it. Event logs are intended to help when having issues or to warn about them but it's not 100% perfect.

Are you having any other issues performance wise? Have you played any games or done any benchmarks? You can do some of those things and compare to what others with similar setup. You will never get two machines 100% identical but gives you an idea.

 

Machine is about 40 days old, and apart from slower booting times (I'm talking 10s vs 15s here) due to increased startup load, it runs like how it was out of the box.

At this point I'd say run a benchmark with PCMark7 and see if your results are within the norm.

 

Alright, I reinstalled drivers from the disk it came with. Most of them were newer drivers (still didn't help with the event logs though). After doing do, bluetooth has disappeared from device manager. How do I get it to show back up?




When trying to install the combo drivers from the disc, it says can't install, device not found. Doesn't turn on with hotkey either.

 

When installing the wireless drivers they do include a few different ones on the disc as there are many options to select for your configuration, you have the: Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 + Bluetooth 4.0 , so make sure thats the one you're installing. If you cant find them on the disc you can get them directly from Sager here: Software Upgrade, you want "Qualcomm Killer Wireless-N Wireless LAN Driver for Windows 8.1 64 BIT" Even though thats for 8.1 it should also work on your Windows 7. If from some reason it doesnt you can get them here too: Killer Gaming :: Support :: Driver Download Support

 

I think I may have installed some things that weren't installed before.

From the driver disc, do I have to reinstall contents from 08_IME, 09_TBT, 00_IRST, 04_TPM, and 06_IRStart?

Also in the Option folder, there are drivers for bluetooth and wlan in these folders: Intel, Intel2, Killer, and Realtek. So you are saying ONLY INSTALL the ones from Killer?

 

They include all the drivers for all the possible wireless card options available, you only need to install the one you have which is the Killer.

 

Okay cool. Got it. At first I thought it was some kind of base driver I needed or something for everything to work. It was not very clear on the CD. But I got it running now. thanks.

What about the other question in post 15?

 

You'll want the latest drivers from the intel website, the CD drivers are mostly for emergencies.

 

FWIW don't use IRST unless you are doing raid. The chipset drivers include SATA drivers and actually provide more functionality if not doing raid on the low level side.

For example my disk is hardware level encrypted (not just the normal one all SSD's have but enterprise level) and with RST drivers couldn't be properly controlled to pass through the commands needed. After talking to an Intel Eng. I have worked with in past it's basically been said that the drivers with the chipset (if latest) should always provide some of the best performance and RST is really for raid only and that they do not support a number of low level commands through them.

Was funny as I have always used them myself until I needed to use true hardware encryption hah.

You also don't need TPM as your system won't support/have the hardware for that since it's from Sager so no need to install that.

IRStart just depends if you are using intel rapid start. If you only have an SSD you don't need this neither really. It was mainly to use smaller SSDs as a cache like drive to help speed up regular disks.

 

Ok, thanks.

Also, used all the updates from the site lasst night.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ategory-7-error-kernel-processor-power-2.html

This thread here, a guy got some hardware replaced and he no longer gets them. Sager said use RMA. So unfortunately, that is what I guess I have to do and wait 10 billion more years to use my machine

 

FWIW that user was having other issues too GPU related.

He also did a fresh install.

Before you RMA I would do a clean install and be sure to download latest drivers, don't use anything off disks. Also only install drivers for devices you have and need and nothing more and set all the performance modes properly.

That error is nothing HW related, it's FW/driver related, heck even tells you that "being limited by system firmware."

Something simply either isn't set right or not a good driver loaded for something.

Sager is only going to wipe the drive as well as no indication of a HW issue still and these errors sometimes are normal as that is how boost works. You should really see them too often which is why I think something is just limiting it.

 

Someone on an emu forum told me to update these two from the intel site:

Update Rapid Storage Technology driver
Update Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI)

Couldn't find the one for the MEI so I kept the one I had from the Sager site. I once said before that the warnings didn't show on safe mode. And as I look at the startup closely, I can see that the warnings happen right when the RST first shows in the notification area (near the clock on the taskbar). Whether I turn the options all on or all off, they still show at the same time as the RST. So I believe you are right about it not being hardware or it would have shown in safemode too.

Will install windows again on an empty hdd some time or another to see something.

 

TBH unless you are running raid you shouldn't install RST as it actually offers less low level features. I also doubt that would be causing the issue, time it happens might be around same spot but those are just different SATA drivers. The chipset also include sata drivers though.

 

Just installed an item that wasn't on the installation cd that was on the sager site. It wasn't initially installed either. It's called the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. Opening it up, I see I found a program to replace speccy. It also shows more bios options. SpeedStep was the culprit. That wasn't accessible through the bios. Turning it off through IETU got rid of the warnings. With that said, that is confirmation enough to declare that, in this case, the messages aren't harmful. I know ppl said it earlier but now there's the tangible evidence that it's not.

Lol at poor Sager support. I asked dude a question before I left about some unrelated hardware buying questions. This guy 'hung up' the email without saying anything. Lol, this guy. Also, I sent 2 emails back to back previously just talking about some things that could be the issue, sending links and stuff, this guy answers one email, then answers the 2nd one (the one I sent directly after it) speaking as if it was a different occasion and disreguarded everything I said and it felt like he really didn't understand what I was writing.
Meanwhile, XoticPC tech never got back in touch.....................
#seemslegit.

Just glad I don't have to RMA. Thanks to those who tried.

 

On a laptop you generally want to leave speedstep enabled. It has a somewhat big hit on power usage and heat.

Those messages though really are just things doing they job. When your computer is processing anything, if the work requirement isn't high, IE only using say 5-10% of the CPU, it doesn't need to run at full speed so speedstep lowers the clocks to save power and keep heat lower. Now if the load increases to say 50% the CPU will increase the speeds and/or use boost as at this point the additional processing can make the task finish faster and thus save power/heat.

I personally have used speedstep since the day it was introduced many years ago. Some people have issues, some don't understand it and others like me have had 0 negative impact or issues.

You never did show any issues beyond seeing warnings in the logs. If you didn't see any performance issues, or when under load your CPU wasn't being limited you had 0 issues.
It could just be that some or one of the drivers for Win 7 is not written well and thus was triggering the logs.

That utility though is mainly used by people for overclocking.

Anyway, glad you at least have some piece of mind.

 

Event viewer is for viewing things that happen. Even a warning is not bad. In this case you get a warning the cpu is running slow, which it is supposed to.

I learned a long time ago to just ignore warnings in event viewer.