Solved Where's the "turbo" speed?

[HoneycombAG]

So I upgraded my processor to one of these Richland APUs, but at the same time, I got rid of the honkin' huge CPU cooler in the process. Wish I hadn't, but I didn't have any thermal grease anymore, but every time the APU gets up to maximum load and tries to throttle into the turbo-frequency range, it only does so for like 15 seconds before the fans kick on, then it's back to the stock speed again.

 

[Mellon Head]

Turbo speed on your AMD processor is thermally controlled, along with other processes to keep it from overtaxing the processor and doing damage. What is probably happening is that the APU is enabling turbo mode and then when the temperature rises in the core, it goes outside what turbo mode sees as a safe margin, shutting down the turbo function.

A better cooler will probably help with allowing turbo mode to stay on longer.

From Wikipedia (Which I don't really consider to be a reputable resource, but in this case it's right), the Richland series features:

"Temperature Smart Turbo Core technology. An advancement of the existing Turbo Core technology, which allows internal software to adjust the CPU and GPU clock speed to maximise performance within the constrains of the Thermal design power of the APU."

 

[AddRAM]

You put a different cpu cooler on it and didn`t use any Thermal compound ?

Stop what you are doing and fix it, put it back the way it was.

 

[LMiller7]

Not getting the "turbo" speed isn't the problem but a symptom of a cooling problem. As stated in post #1 it is entering turbo speed but does not remain there, probably because it cannot tolerate the resulting heat. Solve the cooling problem and the turbo speed problem will solve itself.

All else being equal the faster a CPU runs the hotter it will get. That is the laws of physics. To use turbo speed for any length of time requires that the cooling be working optimally and may be beyond the capabilities of the stock cooler.

 

[Solarstarshines]

You put a different cpu cooler on it and didn`t use any Thermal compound ?

Stop what you are doing and fix it, put it back the way it was.

That was sort of the Obvious right

 

[AddRAM]

"it only does so for like 15 seconds before the fans kick on"

A cpu fan is supposed to run all the time.

If things are set right (in the bios for example) the speed of the cpu fan should go up with the temperature of the cpu.

A Turbo speed does not run at it`s maximum all the time, it`s supposed to throttle down.

Only when you`re doing major work, or if you run IBT at let`s say the high setting will the Turbo speed be maxed for the entire time.

You need to address Reply #3 Pronto

 

[HoneycombAG]

You put a different cpu cooler on it and didn`t use any Thermal compound ?

Stop what you are doing and fix it, put it back the way it was.

The cooler did have a tube of thermal compound, but I used it to treat the other computers around me, so I didn't have any to re-apply the aftermarket cooler.

Most, if not all of the processors have a heatsink-fan cooling solution with a pad of thermal compound already applied to it, so what's the point?

 

[Layback Bear]

To put it simple.
If you did not remove old thermal compound and apply properly new thermal compound when installing your cpu cooler. Don't use your computer until you do. It's absolutely a must thing to do.
Also the fans on your cooler must work properly. These are not options they are must things or you will cook your cpu and motherboard if you haven't already.

If we are not understanding your problem, please state it again to help us help you.

 

[Mellon Head]

The cooler did have a tube of thermal compound, but I used it to treat the other computers around me, so I didn't have any to re-apply the aftermarket cooler.

Most, if not all of the processors have a heatsink-fan cooling solution with a pad of thermal compound already applied to it, so what's the point?

Don't be upset. He's trying to help, and may not have understood your meaning.

I think what you meant to say was that you took your stock AMD cooler and put it on the APU instead of the aftermarket cooler, because you had no paste, and the stock cooler did? Am I right?

Now, as far as Turbo Mode goes, this is direct from AMD:

AMD Turbo Core technology dynamically adjusts to give you a performance boost just when the operating system requests the highest processor performance. If a core is operating below maximum limits and your workload demands additional performance, the processor frequency will dynamically increase until the upper limit of frequency is reached. As your workload subsides, the core returns to normal frequency. This gives you optimized application performance within the thermal and power limits of your APU.

So, in other words, Turbo Core does not run your APU at turbo speed all the time, only when what you're doing demands it. It also will shut down if it gets too hot, as I mentioned in post #2.

 

[HoneycombAG]

The BIOS runs the CPU at full frequency (not turbo frequency) on boot, until Windows starts and Cool 'n Quiet takes precedence. Other than that, I have the minimum "hot" temperature set so the fans do speed up when it gets past that range.

That aftermarket cooler I have is just too big to fit in my case, and put my 120mm fans in at the same time. Think there might be time to deploy water-cooling on this?