The ThrottleStop Guide

[Sirhcz0r]

So there is no way to get past 1.73ghz@4cores on a 720QM?

Not with ThrottleStop. You'll need SetFSB to do that, and it may or may not support your laptop's motherboard.

[unclewebb]

On the 720QM, by the time all 4 cores are active, you'll be lucky if you are getting any turbo boost and will probably be running mostly with the default 12 multiplier at 1.6 GHz. If your motherboard supports it, the best thing you can do is get a 920XM ES CPU off of Ebay and sell your 720QM to recoup some of that cost. The 920XM ES are currently selling for about $470 including shipping. I think they were under $400 for a while but it must be Christmas pricing at the moment.

When fully loaded, if your power supply is capable, the 920XM can be adjusted to run over 100% faster than a 720QM. These are Intel's first Extreme CPUs that are in a whole different league when it comes to performance compared to the non-Extreme Quad Core CPUs. The 720QM has the multiplier and turbo TDP/TDC locked so there is nothing ThrottleStop can do. SetFSB, if it works, might get you a 10% performance boost. When you start to increase the BCLK, you will end up hitting the turbo TDP/TDC limits sooner so the BCLK goes up but the multiplier will start to throttle sooner. The overall performance gain might not be as much as a BLCK increase leads you to believe.

I'd much rather have a 100% performance boost by switching to an XM CPU.

[lenovoy560acpi]

I was messing around with the rt msr tool to find how the i7 sets up processor speeds and voltages. If it can change clock speeds, control itself at idle, etc,
it must have some way of doing it. So I took the whole msr table, took everything important from it and included it here . It might help figure out how to modify the i7s. I know that use different architecture,(they use uncore clock etc like amd chips), but it still might be doable. This might include other stuff like harddrives,etc so if you need that information then i could also provide that.

processor: i7 q740

key
passive read: done without reading the current msr state(not always needed)
msr read: reading the current msr state 0x10(the edx changes from reading the msr)
standard boilerplate msr reading that shows up through most of the table(0x02)
unique registry: means a different reading than the standard boilerplate(eax)
unique edx registry: means a different reading on just the edx
dual unique registry: means different readings on both the eax and edx
completely unique registry: there are different readings on each core
in either the eax or edx so a picture is included.
non unique registry: been previously used may use a word to identify it.

[unclewebb]

ThrottleStop 2.90 beta 8
http://www.mediafire.com/?p0psm43trbkj5su

Edit: I broke the Power Saver feature during the recent beta 7 update but it's all better in beta 8.

I added Atom support to this version. I changed the timers that ThrottleStop uses to accomplish this so if ThrottleStop used to work for you and now it doesn't, let me know. I haven't seen any problems on the Core 2 and Core i and Atom testing so far.

I also included initial Sandy Bridge support. I have no hardware and last time I checked, Intel had not released their updated documentation so this is my best wild guess. Some key registers have changed in Sandy Bridge so I'll have to wait for some feedback.

I also added in a few safety features so if you change your CPU, ThrottleStop will not try to use your previous settings and will try to start up safely so you can make some adjustments.

lenovoy560acpi: The Core i7-740QM has a locked maximum multiplier and the turbo TDP/TDC values are also locked by Intel so there isn't too much any software can do with one. If anyone finds a magic register that controls core voltage, they'll be a hero. Intel moved this register or it doesn't exist any more when they switched from Core 2 to Core i.

About the only way to make a 740QM run faster is with SetFSB but not all motherboards are supported. The performance improvement won't be huge because the turbo TDP/TDC values are still locked so when loaded, you will hit those limits sooner which reduces the turbo multiplier so overall MHz might not increase as much as you would think it should.

Here is where the Intel documentation can be found.

Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manuals

The Appendix in Volume 3B is where all the MSR registers are listed. This will help you to make a lot more sense out of what you've found. Unfortunately, this is the public documentation and some of the important stuff is hidden. You have to have some connections and sign an NDA to get the good stuff from Intel. You usually have to work for a company to get this. Individual programmers like myself are at a disadvantage when they have to waste a lot of time playing this guessing game of what is hiding in what register. I've been very lucky and have had some help from testers like rge and somebody over on XtremeSystems and TPU.

The MSR Tool is only designed to read the first 4 threads of a Core i7 Quad. I've been thinking of updating that program to read all 8 threads and fix a bug or two. Maybe someday.

[Devenox]

On the 720QM, by the time all 4 cores are active, you'll be lucky if you are getting any turbo boost and will probably be running mostly with the default 12 multiplier at 1.6 GHz. If your motherboard supports it, the best thing you can do is get a 920XM ES CPU off of Ebay and sell your 720QM to recoup some of that cost. The 920XM ES are currently selling for about $470 including shipping. I think they were under $400 for a while but it must be Christmas pricing at the moment.

When fully loaded, if your power supply is capable, the 920XM can be adjusted to run over 100% faster than a 720QM. These are Intel's first Extreme CPUs that are in a whole different league when it comes to performance compared to the non-Extreme Quad Core CPUs. The 720QM has the multiplier and turbo TDP/TDC locked so there is nothing ThrottleStop can do. SetFSB, if it works, might get you a 10% performance boost. When you start to increase the BCLK, you will end up hitting the turbo TDP/TDC limits sooner so the BCLK goes up but the multiplier will start to throttle sooner. The overall performance gain might not be as much as a BLCK increase leads you to believe.

I'd much rather have a 100% performance boost by switching to an XM CPU.

Most motherboards don't support extreme versions because it's 55W part.
Which is ridiculous in any 15" notebook less than 2".
$450+ is much considering even the slowest sandy bridge mobile will crush the 920XM ...
With 450$ you have already paid 1/3 of your new notebook

[JohnnyFlash]

Most motherboards don't support extreme versions because it's 55W part.
Which is ridiculous in any 15" notebook less than 2".
$450+ is much considering even the slowest sandy bridge mobile will crush the 920XM ...
With 450$ you have already paid 1/3 of your new notebook

Don't count on it. Might be a touch better at stock, but not overclocked it won't.

[unclewebb]

ThrottleStop 2.90 beta 8
http://www.mediafire.com/?p0psm43trbkj5su

All the above fixes and I turned Power Saver mode back on.
----------------------------------------------------------
Retail 720QM CPUs sell for $230 on Ebay. That reduces your cost of upgrading to the 920XM. The 55W Max TDP is a specification. Actual power consumption can vary significantly depending on how you have your 920XM set up.

$450+ is much considering even the slowest sandy bridge mobile will crush the 920XM ...

Can you post some tests of that? The tests I've seen so far comparing a Sandy Bridge CPU to a Core i7-875 does not show a performance improvement that is going to crush a 920XM. Intel has made some changes to Sandy Bridge including Turbo Boost 2.0. If you can't adjust the turbo TDP/TDC settings like you can do with a 920XM then the new Sandy Bridge doesn't have a hope of competing with a fully overclocked 920XM or 940XM. It might be 12 to 18 months before Intel releases a second gen Sandy Bridge CPU that can compete, let alone beat, a 920XM or 940XM.

[kyo86sg]

ThrottleStop 2.90 beta 8

Bugs spotted, Am using M15X, 920XM.

Having Clock Modulation and Chipset Clock Mod Tick at 100%. Randomly the Chipset Clock Mod will throttle and behave as untick, what i did was untick and tick chipset clock mod again to resolve. Is it possible for the programme to refresh and remember the settings every 1hr or somehow?

[TANWare]

I can't reset the speed of the system from the old ini file..........

[unclewebb]

I'm not sure if that is an M15x issue or a ThrottleStop issue. Some M15x laptops, especially with the 260M and 920XM, have chipset clock modulation issues because there is not enough power available to power everything that needs to be powered at full speed.

The M115x doesn't use regular Clock Modulation so don't check that one.

If you have the time to do some testing, can you check the log file option and the more data option and then go play a game until you start having some throttling problems. Play for a minute or two or as long as you can stomach the slow and sluggish play and then exit the game and go back to the desktop and give ThrottleStop a chance to return everything to normal. Exit ThrottleStop after that so the log file gets written to the ThrottleStop folder.

Post or send me a screen shot of ThrottleStop about a minute after the game has ended. Don't bother checking and unchecking anything. Just send me a screen shot of exactly how TS was setup while gaming.

Have the Set Multiplier checked and set to the highest possible value and check the chipset clock modulation box and have that set to 100%.

There can be issues that what the bios wants runs at a higher priority level than ThrottleStop does so ThrottleStop is not able to compete and what the bios wants wins out. Once you show me some data, I'll show you how you can adjust ThrottleStop with an INI option to see if it will make any difference.