unclewebb

Edit: I had a talk with 2.0™ who is a moderator on the Notebook Review forum. He explained to me the legitimate reasons why they decided to close the "New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)" thread. There were too many trolls, too many off topic posts and too many complaints about that thread going to the NBR moderators. It became a "high maintenance" thread for NBR and after 600+ pages, nothing new was being discussed or accomplished. My original opinion was not based on all of these facts.

Here's the kind of leech site I was talking about. Throttlestop He has so many links posted that it looks like a ThrottleStop porn site. Google likes it so he better get some ads up so he can start making some cash. Surprising he doesn't have a ThrottleStop download link up yet.

Welcome to T|I Xonar. Talented individuals are always welcome here. That's funny. Crazy stuff like that doesn't happen at T|I. You must be thinking of NBR where every time they get a phone call from Dell; posts and threads magically start to disappear. Throttling, what throttling? My favorite is when a mod arrives and proclaims that quite a few posts needed to be cleaned up. aka. Deleted. Over here at T|I if you buy a laptop and it turns out to be a piece of shit, don't be afraid to come to the forums and tell it like it is. Honesty is appreciated over here. It is definitely not a reason to be banned. I also got fed up with other sites stealing my work and distributing it as if it was their own. That's why the ThrottleStop beta editions expire and the link takes users directly to Tech|Inferno.

Download ThrottleStop 4.10 from my signature. There have been a few improvements since TS 3.00. You need to significantly improve cooling before you can maximize the performance of your 920XM

Just for the record, ThrottleStop is still useful for the M18x. It lets you push the maximum TDP power limit up past 99 watts to 130 watts and beyond. What you do with all that extra heat is up to you to figure out. The 130 watt setting helps benchers get a little more out of their XM CPUs but probably isn't needed for 24/7 use. ThrottleStop also continues to be a great monitoring tool and can create a log of your CPU's performance while gaming. No need to be wondering what's going on when you can have some cold hard numbers to look at. It will give you some insight into what multiplier your laptop is really running at while gaming. BTW, nice computer porn Brian!

The M15x had some terrible throttling issues when it was first released so update to the latest bios version and make sure your heatsink and fan are clean. Re-doing the thermal paste is also a good idea. Turn on the ThrottleStop Log File option while gaming and post your log file so we can have a look. The more data the better. You can upload it to Free File Sharing Made Simple - MediaFire and then post a link here. There are two different types of clock modulation throttling that can be used to slow a CPU down to a crawl. When you look in the ThrottleStopLog.txt file, you should see two columns of numbers that are always at 100.0%. Any numbers below 100.0 are a sign of a problem.

I am kind of biased but I think ThrottleStop 3.50 is worth upgrading to. The price is right, more features and I think it is more efficient too. It also has a new C States reporting window that might be handy to monitor how the JJB tweak actually works. The R2 with a 940XM is a beast. Good luck getting the most out of it.

I don't see Intel changing the register locations in Ivy so ThrottleStop will probably work with them with only a minor update as long as the laptop manufacturer cooperates and doesn't set any of the lock bits. A bios mod will fix that if they do.

It's the same BS as when Dell's throttling laptop problems first started to surface. Dell did a great job of quickly putting out a press release and telling the world that there was a new bios release for the throttling Latitude E6400 and everything was now fixed. There was not a single review that I ever found that bothered to test Dell's claims. I even requested some major sites like Tom's Hardware to get to the bottom of this issue but I was ignored. Dell had more throttling laptops in their line up than laptops that didn't throttle but no one wanted to bite the hand of Dell. Most computer review sites and magazines do little more than regurgitate anything that Dell or Intel tells them. I wonder if the all new adjustable TDP feature is going to be an option that you will have to pay extra for. Kind of like how Dell charges extra for the M18x overclocking option.

I always find it odd that the mainstream media tends to completely ignore ThrottleStop. It's almost like Intel twists their arms and tells them don't mention ThrottleStop or we will forever cut off your supply of CPUs. Intel didn't like my RealTemp program either and even got a couple of guys to write a paper explaining why RealTemp was all wrong. I have learned to ignore Intel. They must have noticed what ThrottleStop has been up to because they put a lot of effort into all the lock bits they created for Sandy Bridge. Configurable TDP in the next generation sounds like a great idea. I wonder where they got that from.

At the ripe old age of 47, I might be able to lay claim to the title of Official Fossil of Tech|Inferno. Most of you guys were barely out of diapers when I was busy peeking and poking random values into the memory of a Radio Shack TRS-80 to see if I could make it go KA-BOOM! Not much has changed since then. Now I am too old to play any games that move faster than Pong. I am glad that I've been able to help some of you guys get some decent frame rates out of your laptops and set a few world records along the way.

That is one serious bad ass bios mod mw86. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw 100% load and the 50 multiplier across the board. I'll have to send Lenovo W520 owners a link to T|I so they can see what they are missing out on.

Try playing GTA4 on your laptop and you might not feel so lucky. Some games significantly load the CPU and GPU and can cause a throttling fit for the 3830TG. The cooling solution that Acer went with in this model is badly under designed.

The nice thing about ThrottleStop is that you can Disable Turbo within the program itself so you don't have to do this in the bios to control heat. There is no need to reboot and change settings depending on what game you feel like playing. The Acer 3830TG owners are also using the ThrottleStop Alarm feature. They setup 2 separate profiles; one with Turbo Boost enabled and the second profile has Turbo Boost disabled. Based on CPU or GPU core temperature, ThrottleStop can switch profiles back and forth to better balance heat, power consumption and performance. I posted an exact quote from the Intel Datasheet on the previous page. The thermal shutdown temperature for all Intel CPUs since the Core 2 era has always been in the 125C to 130C range. They don't recommend running your CPU this hot but they also don't recommend doing a thermal shutdown at 100C. There is no need to do that. Intel thermal throttling is very well designed and can fully manage a CPU that is running hot. No need to turn a laptop off at 100C unless a manufacturer is trying to hide some other weak link in their design. Intel CPUs are very robust.

I don't think it was meant as an attack on ThrottleStop. A lot of users don't fully understand the program and don't realize that Intel builds some incredible technology into their CPUs when it comes to thermal throttling. Thermal shutdown was intended by Intel to be used as a last ditch attempt to save the CPU from being damaged. Intel never intended it to be used at 100C. Ninjahunter: The thing is that a CPU is very unlikely to ever hit 130C. Maybe if the heatsink fell off but other than that, Intel thermal throttling is designed to keep their CPUs running as fast as possible while keeping the core temperature on the safe side of 100C. Throttling the multiplier and voltage is a great way to fully control a hot CPU. Here is an interesting test I did on my desktop E8400 quite a while ago to check how Intel thermal throttling works. I increased the core voltage and overclocked it by 20%, ran some Prime95 Small FFTs and then to make things interesting I turned off the CPU fan. How long do you think it lasted before blowing up or shutting down? Three hours later Prime95 was still running just fine. No errors. The core temperature came up to a hair under TJMax and just flat lined there. Only once in 3 hours did one core hit TJMax at 100C. The CPU continuously throttled, mostly between 98C and 99C. It happens so frequently that the core temperature is mostly a flat line. All I am saying is that if Intel is able to design great technology like this, why aren't laptop manufacturers using it? Setting a bios shutdown temperature at 100C completely disables what Intel designed these CPUs to do during an emergency. Not smart. DaneGRClose: Good news. Now that the M18x bios has been fully unlocked, ThrottleStop has become more useful on the M18x. Being able to adjust the TDP on the 2920XM has let it come alive.

ThrottleStop does not prevent the Intel thermal protection from working correctly. No software can do that. Intel builds thermal protection into their CPUs at the hardware level that can not be disabled by any software. Intel sets the thermal shutdown temperature to 130C. When a laptop manufacturer decides to lower the thermal shutdown temperature to 100C in the bios, that completely screws up the Intel designed thermal throttling system. The Intel designed system is fantastic. It can balance heat and power consumption thousands of times a second and keep a CPU running reliably at maximum possible power while staying just under the 100C throttling temperature for hours or likely days if it needed to. If the bios guys were smart, they would set the bios shutdown temperature slightly higher than the Intel 100C thermal throttling temperature so the CPU could still throttle when necessary and control itself without these instant shutdowns that are being initiated by the bios. The bios writers need to read and follow the Intel docs so there are no false shutdowns before the CPU has reached a critical temperature.

Thanks StamatisX. mw86 has done some testing for me and the initial results are not good. Dell is doing some significant throttling of the M18x when running on battery power. His 2920XM is being limited to only 12W when running on battery power which decreases performance significantly. As the load tries to go up, the throttling increases. The other thing is that some of this throttling appears to have been implemented so some monitoring software might not catch it. The first thread has clock modulation set at the correct 100.0% value while the other 7 threads are being throttled down to only 62.5% on top of the multiplier reductions. I thought Dell had learned that users were fed up with this but I guess not. The good news is that ThrottleStop is able to eliminate this throttling. mw86's testing is looking very interesting so far. I'll post some pics to show what's going on later tonight I hope.

StamatisX: I think I had some similar results when testing on a Core i5 desktop but couldn't figure out why something that consumes less watts can result in more turbo throttling. When designing the TS Bench, I had one eye on the Kill-a-Watt meter and I kept adjusting the algorithm by adding some ugly looking math functions until I saw a big number on the Kill-a-Watt. Very scientific. The Kill-a-Watt is not 100% accurate but the one I have seems to be fairly consistent from day to day. Gives you a rough idea how much torture you are putting your PSU through. Did you try any quick Prime95 or LinX testing for some comparison numbers?

TS Bench is a mild load in comparison to wPrime or Prime95. I know Prime95 uses some highly optimized assembler code that can take advantage of what these CPUs are capable of. If you have a Kill-a-Watt meter handy, that's an interesting way to compare different benchmark programs and separate the men from the boys. TS Bench is in the boys category. Congrats svl7 on pushing the envelope. A 30X multi might not be practical for 24/7 use but it looks like a lot of fun. The 45nm Core i7 series is very robust so I don't think you'll hurt your CPU playing with it. Many users on XtremeSystems have pushed very similar desktop CPUs to well over 4000 MHz with lots of voltage and have rarely had a problem. There are less reports of these degrading compared to the newer 32nm CPUs.

fractalus on NBR did some testing and found that using the ThrottleStop Alarm feature on his 3830TG works great. He was able to set up ThrottleStop so when the CPU core temps get up to 90C, ThrottleStop switches profiles and turns off the turbo boost feature so he can keep gaming at 2300 MHz just fine. The core temperature peaked at 94C which is still within the Intel specification so it wasn't hitting the 100C Intel thermal throttling point. At about 85C, the Acer bios is designed to drop the CPU all the way down to the minimum speed of 1200 MHz which is definitely noticeable when trying to game. 2300 MHz vs 1200 MHz is almost a 100% gain in CPU speed for fractalus. The 3830TG has a poor cooling solution but at least with the help of ThrottleStop, it's a usable laptop now without dropping down to Pentium III speeds.

When I first started working on ThrottleStop, I spent months abusing Dell in the forums as I discovered one throttling Dell laptop model after another. They got so pissed off with me informing their customers about some of the shit they were shipping that they banned me from their forums to shut me up. I was honored! Do you know what? All the bitching finally paid off. Dell got their shit together and with the laptops they've designed during the last year, you rarely hear about any throttling issues. It's not impossible to build a high performance laptop that can run at its rated speed. I thought other manufacturers would learn from the lessons that the user community taught Dell but they obviously haven't. There are too many new Sandy Bridge laptops running way too close to the thermal throttling point at 100C or being prematurely throttled to prevent hitting this limit. I was helping one user with a Sandy Bridge Mac Book Pro that he was trying to run Windows 7 on. He was struggling to run his CPU at 50% load. The cooling solution was so bad that this load alone was enough to trigger heat related thermal throttling. He wasn't doing any severe stress testing. He was just trying to play a simple game but that was causing more heat than his laptop was designed to dissipate. It's a sad world. The typical consumer has no idea why the performance they paid for can't be used because of bad design. They take this and never complain so laptop manufacturers are more than happy to turn out more of the same. Put shit in a fancy box and make it look nice and they know consumers will lap it up.

Some more testing is showing that Acer is using CPU throttling to cool their new Sandy Bridge laptops down because they cheaped out on the cooling solution. So far, Acer, HP and Asus are all pulling shit like this with some of their new Sandy Bridge laptops. While gaming, the Core i5-2410M in the 3830TG first turned off Turbo Boost and dropped from 2700 MHz down to the default 2300 MHz. That's crap but 30 seconds later it's a real kick in the balls when it drops down to 1200 MHz and stays there. Frame rates go in the toilet after that. No use waiting for a bios update because this is just bad design. They are depending on consumers to be stupid and to put up with a new Sandy Bridge laptop that runs at less than half of its Intel designed speed while gaming. Finally a chance to use the smiley that shows exactly how Acer is treating their customers.

Notebook Check did a review on the Acer 3830TG Review Acer Aspire 3830TG Subnotebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews They mentioned the throttling issues in various Acer models and mentioned ThrottleStop 3.00 from Tech | Inferno but never did any proper testing to see how or if ThrottleStop could help out with this problem. Translation: We couldn't find our asshole with both hands and our review was mostly done so we didn't bother to put any effort into figuring out what ThrottleStop was all about. We're lazy so we'll wait for Acer to figure something out. ThrottleStop has turned many throttling Acer laptops into something that was a lot more usable and didn't run like a slug. If you end up with one of these, give ThrottleStop a shot and it might be able to continue the tradition of fixing things when the manufacturer decides to ship a half ass product that doesn't live up to the specifications.

HP gets a gold star tonight for releasing a bios update that fixes the throttling issues in the Envy 17. Dell could learn a thing or two about handling a throttling problem in a speedy and professional manner the way HP did. HP Product search results TITLE: HP Notebook System BIOS Update (Intel Processors) VERSION: F.15 REV: A DESCRIPTION: This package provides an update to the System BIOS. The update installs on supported notebook models using a supported Microsof Windows Operating System. A reboot is required to complete the installation. PRODUCT MODEL(S): HP ENVY 17 OPERATING SYSTEM(S): Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise 64 Edition Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic 64 Edition Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Edition Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 Edition FIXES: - Fixes an issue where the notebook operates slower than expected when running multiple programs.

New HP Envy 17 owners are starting to see the light over on the NBR forum. I'm seeing log files while gaming where their systems are spending 80% to 90% of the time throttled down to the minimum which is only 798 MHz. They are not overheating, just throttling for the hell of it I guess. As soon as they start using ThrottleStop, their problem is instantly solved and a 2630QM is then averaging 2600 MHz instead of 800 MHz while gaming. Core temperatures then shoot up over 20C higher since the CPU is finally being utilized. Maybe that's why the ThrottleStop download page here on Tech | Inferno seems to be getting a good work out since yesterday. There will be more HP users heading this way, guaranteed. I mentioned to them that Dell finally saw the light about 6 months ago. The forums used to be full of one throttling Dell laptop problem after another but you rarely hear about throttling with their recent releases since last fall. No flaming, just telling it like it is.