Undervolt CPU in Vista??

Hi,
I've just installed Vista 32 Ultimate on my Compaq v2000z (with Turion 64 CPU). Everything went well regarding compatibility of HW. However, voltage override doesn't seem to work.
When I was running XP, I was using RMClock to undervolt my CPU to reduce heat produced. In Vista, RMClock does not seem to function correctly. It change the multiplier fine and it shows low voltage, but CPU-z is showing different, higher voltage. Usually, the VCore are the same for both programs but in Vista are different. CPU-z seems to be correct though (coz temp is much higher than XP, look like undervolt doesn't work).
Anyone else try this?

 

I took it back. RMClock doesn't seem to be able to force anything in Vista at all! I try force power saving and have the multiplier fix at x4 but the CPU frequency seems to jump up and down freely.

 

Anyone?

 

I am not very good in underclocking but you might want to check Notebook Hardware Control, maybe they have Vista support.

Good luck,

Charlie

 

Not underclock but undervolt only. I will check the Notebook Hardware Control.

Thanks,

 

Tempoct, have you adjusted Vista's power scheme? If the power scheme of the OS is still managing the CPU, RMCLock cannot work ( what version of RM CLock are you using?)

 

Vista differs radically from XP in terms of system security at the expense of user rights. Vista does not allow such tampering.

"Decreased OS reliability: Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual. This means that if there is an unusual voltage fluctuation in the system, or an unexpected value turned out by a process, a tilt-bit will be tripped and Vista will consider this as a hack attack and treat it as such. These tilt-bits also have implications with the denial of service to flawed drivers."

Source:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

I hope I'm wrong. If not, I'm switching to Linux!

 

Thanks everyone. I did try Vista power management and there's no way to override it (for now).
Batt life is a bit less. Says 1.5 hrs for web browsing on standard 6-cell (v2000z, 1GB DDR333, 5400rpm HDD) but the temperature is high due to voltage is running at full spec.

Batt life is quite short compared to XP. Vista manage things in different way and I don't know all to tweak the setting yet. Vista uses a lot of RAM while idle. This is not a bad thing since the OS does prefetch/cache most use/ most likely to use program in the memory to make it ready to launch. As a result, RAM is not wasted at all the time. Vista will unload those memory when needed by apps (like game). Nevertheless, the Aero glass interface and new mem management does put some tax on the batt life. Vista surely needs more processing power than XP.

I use "balanced" power management scheme though. Maybe if I tried "Power saving", it might got better batt life.

I think bc135 is on the right track. This is indeed a "feature" rather than flaw. I believe it's a matter of time until someone will come out with tools like RMClock or alternative more-flexible power option in Vista.

I think I have to accept this as an early adopter. Maybe Vista is the way to go on desktop but for notebook, it needs more tweak. Good news is, the drivers are all available in both 32 and 64 bit version. I felt that 32 bit is still has better support and more mature.
Anymore thought?

 

BTW, I tried NHC pre-release 04 and got very BAD distorted BSOD right away.

 

I wont try to underclock with Vista at least not yet. It is a bit risky.

 

Vista will be terrible for notebooks; technology-wise, it might bring down laptops. It's already hindering battery life, while hybrid HDDs and Superfetch technologies are years away from being implemented. For now, it is useless to put Vista on a mobile machine. Check out the link I gave and you can see for yourself what to think of Vista.

 

Couple of things in general:
1) Hybrid HDDs are here...they are just too expensive. Give it a year or two.
2) SuperFetch is here as soon as Vista is. ReadyDrive will be here with Hybrid HDDs, SuperFetch merely requires tech similar to the upcoming next-gen Robson tech that will be released shortly after Vista (probably March with the next Core 2 Duo chips).
3) Battery life is a little lower, but a lot of people are blaming device drivers for that. I myself only loose about 15min of life on my machine, but then again I haven't even spent time trying to optimize the Vista platform for battery performance. My guess is that we'll all be fine here.

Couple of things here about that article:
1) Vista isn't going to reduce functionality of current media. It will work, and I've messed around with Beta 2, RC1, and RC2 enough to know that.
2) HDCP was a mess, but it is the vendor's fault that some of those cards weren't HDCP compatible. Vista isn't to blame, ATI & nVidia are. They knew the rules and didn't abide by them, but they still tried to take credit for them. Speak with a forum member called Gophn...he has experimented with HDCP stuff and found that notebooks do not need HDCP (since the connection to the internal LCD is physically safe from tampering).
3) Gophn has also found that HDCP is not needed over an analogue connection like VGA. 1080i & 720p HDCP H.264 contect with AACS content protection will still work if you play by the rules.
4) HDCP was imposed by the media corporations, not MS or ATI or nVidia nor anyone else. If you want to blame anyone, blame them. MS and others are trying to follow the rules so that next-gen entertainment will work.
5) I've never heard anything about AES not working under Vista. If you can find another article by another source, then I might consider re-thinking that. However, since PC communications rely on AES don't you think they will find a way to make it all work. People don't 'upgrade' to a product that provides less functionality...at least they aren't supposed to. But in the end the AES problem needs more support.
6) Decreased playback quality is bull on non-HDCP protected content.
7) Elimination of hardware emulators for HDCP enabled equipment is part of the protection scheme...unless it blocks other open source equipement I'd say that is (again) MS doing it's job.
8) That entire section regarding the elimination of unified drivers isn't true either as far as I know. If you'd look at the ATI or nVidia Vista drivers you'd know that. I can't think of other examples right now, but when the two vendors that were specifically named in that article as not being able to do this anymore have in fact created unified drivers for Vista...
9) DOS through Driver Revocation is inaccurate too. MS has specifically stated that is only for the device as being 'Vista Premium Ready' when computers are sold. If the drivers have issues they will still work (however buggy they may be) but they can no longer advertise that the device is 100% Vista ready. That hurts only the equipment sitting in the store shelf. If a device isn't going to work because it is too old and it isn't worth writing Vista drivers, then you probably need to update your PC anyway. Businesses and other institutions that do not want to trade up their equipment probably aren't going to trade up their OSes on those systems anyway...thus making the point moot. At work we still have machines that are running DOS because they do what we want them to. Why fix what isn't broke?
10) DVI amplifiers and such are a problem, but only because you need hardware capability to continue to use the HDCP scheme. Again, only applied to HD content.
11) This is the first time I've heard of tilt bit stuff relating to DOS for hardware operation. Don't you think that vendors would find a way for everything to work happy since they want their products to work? Regardless, the tilt thing needs additional support.

I've only read through about 1/2 that article, but I've seen enough to recognize it as merely an article by someone who either is trying to fan the flames or doesn't know explicitly what he's talking about. There is no collaboration, no 3rd party documentation specifically sited, no test procedures that prove these concepts, no anything to support a lot of this article.

 

"1) Hybrid HDDs are here...they are just too expensive. Give it a year or two.
2) SuperFetch is here as soon as Vista is. ReadyDrive will be here with Hybrid HDDs, SuperFetch merely requires tech similar to the upcoming next-gen Robson tech that will be released shortly after Vista (probably March with the next Core 2 Duo chips)."

I said that none of these technologies have been implemented yet; so Vista really is hamstrung for now. You pay $200 or so for an OS that slows your computer and lowers battery life for what? A pretty interface? New proprietary media formats by MS? I never considered the info questionable, but yours is equally open to questioning. How do you know this?

 

Little confused.
Is that Superfetch for pre-loading most used and most likely to be used program/library to the available memory? This does give some user experience over-usage of memory in vista at idle. However, this is good since unused memory is wasted memory. This is kinda linux-style apps caching.
AFAIK, Superfetch is already here. At least on the RTM version I'm running.

 

I realize I'm open to questioning...that is fine and I understand some people want more. Gophn knows a lot about the HDCP stuff and I'm mostly quoting what he said. Other than that, it's personal experience with the OS. I'll continue to find sources and I'll site them as I can get them but you should know that a majority of comments are based on personal experience.

The point is though that it is only one source. What I'm saying is that more is needed before I would trust it.

I do agree that $200 is a bit much, but it is the primary piece of software running on the PC. I think we'll start seeing a little more of Linux over the long run, but what proprietary MS media formats are you talking about? I know about WMV-HD, but the BluRay/HDDVD stuff is all Hollywood as far as I know.

The only think about that tech with SuperPoop is merely a few months away and not years though. Hybrid HDDs might be the exception though since we're only waiting for prices to lower.

 

I sure wish Linux could mature a little faster in the desktop/laptop sector. All the distributions I've liked haven't been able to run my wireless card, including my personal favorite Kubuntu.

 

It's always been!
My bad. Seems like the new version of RMClock does not display/set the voltage accurately. The actual (I guess) reported from CPU-z is always about 0.1v more than what set at the RMClock.
So, I set RMClock to be lower voltage than usual and it works now!!