Undervolting the Q9200

I know there's another thread about this somewhere but it was getting a bit old, long and messy so I figured I would start a new one.

I just acquired a Q9200 and installed it fine in my M860TU. My first priority was to undervolt it to keep the temps down. The available tools to do this are far from being ideal. RMClock has not been updated in years, CrystalCPUID seems to report random voltages, and CPUGenie costs 15$ Also the overall feeling I got from people on NBR trying to undervolt Quad Core CPU was not positive at all.

So I wasnt expecting much... but to my surprise, after a couple hours I obtained great results. Here's how I've done it:

A) I always keep my windows power plan to high performance.

B) First I figured I would use the trial version of CPUGenie to find my optimal voltages because its testing tool is just great. I found that my chip is stable at minimal voltage (1.05V) for all multipliers except 9x (1.075V).

C) I considered buying a license for CPUGenie but changed my mind when I realized the damn thing would not run automatically at windows startup despite selecting the option to do so.

D) I decided to uninstall CPUGenie and set those optimal voltages in RMClock. Surprisingly RMClock offers a 10x multiplier, which in theory OCs my chip from 2.4 to 2.66Ghz. After playing around with orthos and RMClock I found that 1.125V was stable at 10x. In my RMClock settings I disabled the Super LFM and the IDA mode.

And... that's it! From what I can tell I have a great underclock using RMClock. Here are a few things worth noticing:

1- Most values reported by RMClock sensors are wrong (throtling, CPU load, CPU clock), but the voltages (fid and vid) are fine.

2- CPU-Z 153 gives wrong voltage, multiplier and CPU clock readings.

3- Crystal CPUID is all wrong (multipliers, clock, voltages)

4- How do I monitor then? Everest Ultimate is consistant with both RMClock and CPUGenie for voltages, multipliers and clock speeds.

5- The 10x multiplier seems to be set for some reason in the BIOS, but I cant check it directly because the M860TU BIOS does not allow multiplier editing. However CPUGenie's PowerMonitor, under the "ACPI P-State Viewer" tab, shows 3 P-States: 10x (1.3V), 9x (1.162V) and 6x (1.05V). However the 10x multiplier was not available to select as a valid profile in CPUGenie, so that's another incentive to use RMClock.

6- The voltage readings from Everest are not exactly synchronized with the clock readings (when the CPU throttles), but I believe it is only a display issue since my computer would crash whenever the voltage would be at 1.05 and the multiplier at 10x. I think the voltage readings are at much higher frequency than the clock/multiplier readings.

7- In performance on demand mode, Windows seems to override RMClock to set the Super LFM and often downclock from 1.6Ghz to 800Mhz when at the lowest multiplier, even if it is not selected from the RMClock profile. This was also the case with my P9700. This is fine since it keeps the right voltage (1.05V).

8- Sometimes when in maximal performance mode (10x) the clock falls to 9x when the CPU is not needed. I think this is also windows overriding RMClock. The undervolt seems to stick though. EDIT: Actually I think the 10x multiplier is just the IDA mode (sort of the ancestor to Intel Turbo Boost, it overclocks one core when the other cores arent needed)... when trying to stress all 4 cores at once (using OCCT) it falls to 9x. I cant seem to disable the IDA mode even if I uncheck it from my RMClock profile.

9- I tried the "unlock voltages" option in CPUGenie and it does not work. No matter how low I would set it Everest would report 1.05V. Another reason for not buying CPUGenie.

Hope these observations can help clarify some things.

 

that is great! what are your temps? idle and under load?

I have a Q9100 in my NP8662 and it is awesome although temps do reach 70 after an hour of gaming

 

Idle temps are around 33-35C after the undervolt. When all 4 cores are under max load temps plateau at around 60C.

Of course the temps go higher when gaming but this is not due to the CPU, it is due to the fact that our CPU shares the heatsink and fan with the GPU. For example I played dragon age for 10-15 minutes. The GPU temps go quickly to 70C after 5 minutes, then the CPU temps slowly tend towards the GPU temps ~ 65C after 15 minutes.

Lets try to keep this thread on undervolting though

 

I have a q9200 in my m570tu and rm clock behaves like you discribed here as well, with one difference. The 10x multiplier is there and i can select it but only when I enable my 1x overclock in the bios. then i can select it in rm clock just fine. Undervolt wise i see the same settings as you 1.05 for all but my top which i have at 1.075. I used the cpu defaults setting on the management tab to force a custom p-state at my fastest speed that i wanted.

 

Just got my Q9200 in and installed yesterday. I think I'm going to go ahead and buy CPUGenie, as I like the interface and the fact that it reads everything correctly.

 

I used CPUGenie for quite some time on the QX9300 and it was extremely stable. Even after I left it running the undervolting wizard over night for about 12 hours, it didn't crash once. The 30 day fully functional demo period is great too. You can also set CPUGenie to take care of all power functions with an extreme battery saving mode.

 

hey roymathieu, did you use the stock thermal paste or redid it?

 

and sidetopic: congrats, laptopnut that you are getting w860cu so quick haha looking forward to the tests and benchs

 

Thanks, I am really looking forward to it. It is going to take quite some time for me to install all of my games on it though.

 

redid it with arcting cooling mx-2... but when i did install the cpu i was in a mcdonald's with Crylo and we didnt have proper cleaning fluid. i'll reapply arctic silver 5 when i get the chance and clean the part properly

 

Wait, so you were changing your CPU in a McDonald's? That seems to be an odd place to be taking your notebook apart...

 

Nah it was cool, and none of the people there were even looking at us while he was taking his laptop apart. There was plenty of room to do it and a plug right next to the table we were sitting at. I was supposed to bring some Isopropyl but I forgot.

 

Try doing that here at a San Francisco McDonalds in the morning.

 

I wouldn't change a CPU in the Macdonalds around here without Police backup.

 

hahaha i know it's weird but everything went fine the place was pretty quiet.

Crylo you new avatar is... hmmm... damn i cant find any words for it

 

You mentioned that CPUGenie wouldn't start automatically for you.

I do not have this issue.

 

yeah i believe i read somewhere that it's a bug that can happen when you make several installations of cpugenie (i tried v 1.1 before installing 1.4 demo) I think I could've corrected this by uninstalling, clearing all registry entries and reinstalling but I was too lazy to do so and I decided to stick with RMClock which I'm more used to

 

Better or worse than the super tard in my last avatar? lol