[Guide] How to take full control of the i7-8750H (Advanced version)

Hi guys,

I've been using throttlestop for the first time and I was able to undervolt my 8750H in my MSI GE75 at -160mV (CPU, Cache and GPU). Benchmarks runs pretty stable and the heat was much lower.

BUT: In 3D Mark I got now only 6700 points instead of 7400 (RTX 2070). What could be wrong? If throttlestop is enabled it doesn't make a difference if I undervolt -90mV or -160mV. The score is always lower as without throttlestop.

Do you have any ideas?

 

Do you still have the link to each of the scores, see if you can post them here.

We need to know the Graphic score and the CPU score to know which is not up to the level, total score doesn't explain much detail.

There are quite a few possible reasons:

1. Battery might be below 80% and was charging at a speed of 37W which took a portion of wattage which the PSU is supplying.
2. Check to see if the GPU is throttling, if it is, check if the throttle is caused by Power or by Thermal, you could download HWINFO64 and monitor the status.
3. Back ground processes eating up all the performance, you can try exiting all programs on your system tray and see if you get a higher score.

 

Hi @hackness , Hi guys, i got a friend who got the same MSI GE 73 8RE, but he installed Dragon center right out of the box, updates windows.... update the BIOS and EC Firmware as i told him, but now he would like to undervolt his PC. I heard , but can't remember where, the Dragon center mess in the bios and he needs to delete and do something else in the bios, before undervolt and using throttlestop. Can you guys help if you got info about it, thanks.

 

Regarding to the options changed by the Dragon Center 2.0.

The fix is as below.

Go to Advanced > Power & Performance > CPU - Power Management Control > CPU VR Settings > Core/IA VR Settings

Set VR Current Limit to 928
Set TDC Enable to Disabled
Set TDC Current Limit to 0

If you need to add a negative offset to the reported TDP to avoid the PL1 Throttle, change also the following items:

Set IMON Slope to 50
Set IMON Offset to 31999
Set IMON Prefix to "-" (Negative)

If you want to lessen the temperature and voltage fluctuation, do the followings:

////////////////////WARNING/////////////////////
Before changing the following items, make sure all undervolt offset are set to 0 in ThrottleStop / XTU and the BIOS, this must be done beforehand.

An undervolt offset of -43 ~ -65mV on the cache is as far as you can go undervolting in ThrottleStop at 3.9GHz x 6 cores after you have made the following changes.
////////////////////WARNING/////////////////////

Set AC Loadline to 1
Set DC Loadline to 1

 

Thx @hackness for the response.

I don't follow you on this part (quote :" -43 ~ -65mV on the cache is as far as you can ... "). For me, my pc, undervolting, i use your tips, commands you told me some months ago :
- ( Bios unlock with Set IMON Slope to 50 /Set IMON Offset to 31999 /Set IMON Prefix to "-" ) and with the registry part in your chapter 4 for the Windows EPP, on my MSI GE73 8RF .

I didn't used the AC Loadline 1 or DC Loadline. ( If i'm not wrong, it works fine ). Is this only for my friend ? who installed Dragon Center ?

I read some month ago, that after deleting dragon center, he needs to remove the battery and reset the CMOS Battery (edit, not the ec firmware, the CMOS battery Reset )

EDIT 1 : According to Falkentyne in this post : MSI GT73VR BIOS: unlock, mod, factory restore, clear CMOS and prevent common issues
"...
2) Set CPU power and performance->CPU VR Settings->Core I/A Domain ->IA AC / DC loadline, = 1
**THIS SETTING DISABLES MSI AUTOMATIC OVERVOLTING WHEN THE CPU IS AT HEAVY LOAD**. When setting this to "1", you must **NOT** undervolt your processor anymore!..."

So i 'm confused

EDIT 2 : I have just check my bios and had never install dragon center, got this parameters :

VR CURRENT LIMIT 512
TDC ENABLE
TDC CURRENT LIMIT 640

 

That info is a little outdated, actually you can still undervolt, just not as much as AC / DC Loadline set to 180, At 180 you can have a voltage offset of around -165mV, but at AC / DC Loadline set to 1, you can only go for -43mV~-65mV, but this is only limited to the Cache's voltage offset.

You can also use the AC / DC Loadline = 1, at that time you were asking how to prevent the PL1 from kicking in due to the 45W limit, so I only wrote the IMON Part.

Yep that's the default value in MSI laptop.

However you must reset the voltage offset before doing the AC / DC Loadline = 1 tweak, otherwise you might see BSOD or freeze once ThrottleStop is loaded.

Once you have set your desired undervolt settings, you can run TS Bench in ThrottleStop 3-5 times and see if the application reports errors back, if you see errors reported by TS Bench, it means you have gone too far undervolting.

 

So why differents parameters for the MSI Dragon center fix ? (Quote : ...Set VR Current Limit to 928 / Set TDC Enable to Disabled / Set TDC Current Limit to 0 ... ). ?

Does my friend, have to delete dragon center, clear the CMOS battery , change those VR CL / TDC E / TDC CL but wich numbers ?

-1 Default value like mine ?

-2 Or yours, ( 928........ ) the second one ? If this value, why differents value from the default to fix dragon center ?

(sry for my english, not native and thx for your patience ) ( Edit : For my part, my pc, i won't use the Loadline command, throttlestop works fine....)

 

I haven't personally compared before and after of what Dragon center changes but from what I know it's around those 3 items, VR Current Limit to 928 is to increase the original current limit from 128A to 232A, so you won't get Throttles caused by the current limit. TDC stands for Thermal Design Current. TDC Current Limit to 0 is to revert the 640 back to Intel default value.

Anyways, no matter before installing the Dragon Center or after you have installed, the default will always be:
VR Current Limit = 512 / TDC Enable = Enabled / TDC Current Limit = 640

 

If anyone can enlighten my lantern about it, no dragon center installed, default value on my MSI GE73 8RE, I would appreciate it. Cause with your value hackness, i wouldn't use throttlestop ? ( for "...VR Current Limit to 928 is to increase the original current limit from 128A to 232A, so you won't get Throttles caused by the current limit..."), or maybe for getting better temps. I'm so confuse lol.
And with my friends value, with dragon center installed, got same value as mine. I just wanna understand it, don't wanna mess with my friends, who ask me to help him....
(Maybe Falkentyne knows more about it, but i don't wanna disturb him with a notification "@" ... )

Thx hackness for the help anyway. your guide and kindness helped me a lot.

 

Well, if you go into the BIOS and reset all settings back to default, you should see that the following items will be set to this, which is the default value:

AC Loadline = 180
DC Loadline = 180
VR Current Limit = 512
TDC Enable = Enabled
TDC Current Limit = 640

These values aren't set by the Dragon Center, they are the default value of the MSI BIOS.

I believe that people were saying what the Dragon Center is doing, is that if you change some of the values in the BIOS, the Dragon Center resets some of the values back to MSI Default, I haven't personally compared which of the values were changed by the Dragon Center so I could only tell you what I saw by reading the forum posts.

VR Current Limit has nothing to do with the temperature, it is the maximum value of current that can be used by the CPU.

The part that the temperature might get affected is the AC / DC Loadline, if you set them to 1, the voltage behavior will be more stable, the high and low will be much closer, as the voltage doesn't fluctuate much, you get a more stable temperature.

And yes the VR Current Limit is the iccMax in the ThrottleStop, however I'm not sure if you move the slider in ThrottleStop, does it also make changes on the BIOS level, and is it working? That's why I change it in the BIOS instead of inside the ThrottleStop. However one thing is for sure, if you change it to 928 in the BIOS, you'll see the iccMax gets raised to 232A in the ThrottleStop.
.