W7 Can't Stop CPU Throttling

Not sure which forums to start posting this at so I will start here and move my way around. So here goes: I seem to be unable to stop Windows 7 RC1 7100 from auto Throttling my CPU. CPUID reports that the multiplier is fluctuation anywhere from x21 down to 8x dropping my corespeed from 3519 down to 1300mhz. vCore remains stable at 1.304v.

I know this is purely a Windows 7//Vista problem as when I boot back over to Win XP x32 SP3 I get no fluctuations what so ever. I have tried going into the "Power Management" options in Control Panel and chossing the high performance profile and even making my own custom profile and manually setting the CPU to 100%. Temps are all nominal(~36-39C idle).

EIST, C-State, Overspeed Protection and TurboMode are all disabled in bios. And other 'power managment' in the Advanced BiOS(ACPI is Enabled but i dont think that is a problem) features and all Power Management Features are turned off.

Mobo is a MSI x58 Platinum SLI

I've did some googling and came across somethign that mentioned this registry directory:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager]

Two entries caught my eye: ProcessorContrl and ProtectionMode

I was tempted to tinker with some settings but I figure I'd come here before i shoot myself in the foot. Any help would be appreciated as this auto throttling is quite annoying.

Edit: C1E is also disabled in the BIOS.

Seems like you've covered all your bases - not sure where else to go with this as I am still on a 780i mobo - I have the Core i7 965 EE CPU, just have to save up for he Classified, some 2000 MHz RAM (to the tune of 12 GB) and I'll be rockin'....

Detailed System specs (look under your user name, near the bottom of any of your posts, to the left) will help us out a bit in troubleshooting for ya....

FWIW - the only times I saw CPU throttling active on my Q6600 was when I enabled C1E and / or The Thermal protection was enabled, but ISTR that power management not being set to *both* S1 and S3 played some havoc with my system as well....

Sure I'll post the system specs here in a sec. If you need the dxdiag leme know.
http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus...table-overclock-overclock-52.html#post5942596

• Processor model: Intel Core i7 920
• CPU clock speed: 3.52GHz
• Hyperthreading: On
• CPU Bclk speed: 168Hz
• CPU multiplier setting: 21x
• CPU core model: Bloomfield
• CPU batch/stepping: 3838A, C0
• CPU voltage: 1.288V
• Motherboard model: X58 MSI Platinum SLI
• Cooling: COOLER MASTER Hyper N 520 RR-920-N520-GP 92mm Sleeve CPU Cooler
• RAM size/model: 6GB OCZ Gold DDR3-1600(OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
• RAM speed: DDR3-1336
• SuperPI result (1M): 11.750s

C1E, EIST, C-State, SpreadSPec, Overspeed Protection: Disabled
DRAM timings 8-9-9-19 1.5v ~1333mhz
CPU: +.06v
QPI: +.13v
CPU PLL: Auto
Mem Ratio to Uncore: 4:8


Edit here it is:
CPU
i7 920 @ 3.5ghz
Motherboard
MSI X58 Platinum SLI
BIOS: v3.4
Memory
OCZ Gold PC1600(OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
Graphics Card
eVGA 260 GTX SSC
Sound Card
X-Fi Extreme Music
Power Supply
Antec TP-650 650W Continuous power ATX12V V2.3
Case
Lian Li
CPU cooling
COOLER MASTER Hyper N 520 RR-920-N520-GP 92mm OS
Windows XP SP3 32bit//Windows 7 RC1

Hmmm - I wonder....

Although the BIOS is reporting that you have C1E disabled, enable it and boot back into 7 and see if it still fluctuates - if it does hen reboot, disable, and boot back into 7 again.

Try to notice if there are differences in the frequency and / or amplitude of the fluctuations changes depending upon the setting - that will help determine if it is an independent setting or (perhaps) a native / non-native driver issue....

Yea I was thinking the same thing, might be a BIOS issue. I have a thread goign over at the OCN forums as well. I foudn a post there, which I linked in the thread there as reference, where a member had a similar issue which was resolved by a BIOS upgrade. Unfortunantly for me this BIOS update is the altest and just came out a few weeks ago so I may be SOL for a bit.

Here is the link over there, I'll resume this tomorrow morning... Gotta get up early and resume the job hunt tomorrow and it's getting late here. Thanks for your input and I'd appreciate it if you could follow up.

W7 Can't Stop CPU Throttling - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

OK, your last couple of posts there got me thinking....

First off, yeah, once you install Windows with ACPI enabled or disabled, you cannot simply change the setting and expect it to work without some heavy duty registry editing.

But, I know you said you've rebooted 8 times - try mu suggestion, and ***make sure you shutdown, wait 30 seconds, and let it cold boot****

I have an issue with older (pre15.23) nForce drivers and the current Windows 7 native drivers for my mobo - it goofs up my VT on resuming from sleep - and it keeps it b0rked if I perform a warm boot (reboot). But if I shutdown and restart (cold reboot) it starts to work without changing a single setting in the BIOS - hell, without even entering the BIOS.

I finally figured out that it was the away-mode driver for the nVidia chipset and NICs that was the root of the problem - and apparently the native Windows 7 drivers don't have that one little tiny driver installed....

Well the thing is I've had those settings disabled for a good 2 months(like 2+ weeks with the new bios verson). Have had plenty of cold boots with those BIOS settings in place, however, I don't think i've had a cold boot since i changed the power management options in W7. Though I have booted to XP and back since then to run some tests.

nah, since it works in XP and not in Win7 (I conveniently forgot this, sorry, I can be an idiot sometimes) obviously your BIOS is working.

It *has* to be a driver issue - what third party drivers did you install? Also, running any apps like SpeedFan or apps to make your system 'greener' or reduce the carbon footprint?

johngalt said:

nah, since it works in XP and not in Win7 (I conveniently forgot this, sorry, I can be an idiot sometimes) obviously your BIOS is working.

It *has* to be a driver issue - what third party drivers did you install? Also, running any apps like SpeedFan or apps to make your system 'greener' or reduce the carbon footprint?

Click to expand...

None.. The only drivers I installed after I installed W7 RC1 were the latest Nvidia and SoundBlaster Drivers. Also I ran prime95 and the multiplier ramped up to x21 and fluctuated between 21 and 20x. No more droppign down to as low as x6(~800mhz). Though, in XP I'm fairly confident that it did not waiver at all as I have the mult set to x21 in the BIOS with overspeed prot//turbo mode disabled.

Of course it is ramping up - the *demand* is there on the CPU b/c of the Prime95. Kill Prime and give it up to 5 min and it will start dropping again.

That is why I wanted you to disable it and see if there was a change in the fluctuations....and then re-enable it again.

Also, when you flashed your BIOS, did you reset to defaults, then reboot and re-set all your options?

Oh yea, it ramped back down immediately after I close it And when the BIOS was flashed and updated it automatically reset to defaults and I manually reentered all the values listed on the webpage i had written down in my mobo manual.

Leme reboot and enable, sit for 5 mins watch reboot and redisable and see if it has any effect.

OK, but hurry - I am jonesing to wipe m HD clean and start from scratch (finally!) with the RC....and I have a Desktop to clean install and a laptop to upgrade....

No dice, throttling going on in both instances and is just as sporadic as ever - literally changing second to second at times. =[

second to second.....hmmmm....

I'd try a fresh install of 7 (perhaps on a small 30 GB partition as a test) *without* any third party drivers and see if it does the same thing....

Out of interest why are you concerned about the CPU being throttled, when it needs to speed up it does it instantly and drops back down when idle.

When you look at it changing second to second, do you also notice any CPU activity?

That project will have to wait until this weekend. One more tidbit of info not sure on the validity of this reply I got(i looked into the program and was a bit confused as to its functionality and how it would impact any settings... it looked just like an application interface for the power management options in control panel)

W7 Can't Stop CPU Throttling

Leme know if you got anything out of it of if you got anything out of tinkering with it.

Mr GRiM said:

Out of interest why are you concerned about the CPU being throttled, when it needs to speed up it does it instantly and drops back down when idle.

When you look at it changing second to second, do you also notice and CPU activity?

Click to expand...

I haven't been able to establish any strong correlations by observing the performance graphs in task manager with the throttling CPUz reports... CPUz's multiplier fluctuation updates seems just as sporadic, going from 8x to 16 to 21 to any number higher or lower randomly, with the graph's being flat lined with basic web browsing to spikes appearing in task manager with folding software being run.

Edit: I'm concerned because I'm not to fond of power saving features which throttle such as this due to possible performance impacts. A great example would be the multipliers running rock solid 24/7 in winxp under a full or null load while running prime95 in W7 i get fluctuations from 21-20x. I didn't go i7 to have something choke it off.

Bilco said:

That project will have to wait until this weekend. One more tidbit of info not sure on the validity of this reply I got(i looked into the program and was a bit confused as to its functionality and how it would impact any settings... it looked just like an application interface for the power management options in control panel)

W7 Can't Stop CPU Throttling

Leme know if you got anything out of it of if you got anything out of tinkering with it.

Click to expand...

He did not read what you had written - yu *already* have the BIOS info set correctly....

At this point I'd make a good thorough backup, and then either install another copy of 7 (the keys are good for multiple installs) or else wipe this one and install again and try the no driver approach....

I *really* believe it is the driver....

Oh, um....which drive for the video cards did you install? Which driver *specifically* - not just the version, but the size of the Driver DL....

Mr GRiM said:

Out of interest why are you concerned about the CPU being throttled, when it needs to speed up it does it instantly and drops back down when idle.

When you look at it changing second to second, do you also notice any CPU activity?

Click to expand...

My interest in this is purely academic - if I turn a feature off and it is still enabled, then I need to troubleshoot the issue - and it if lies with the OS then M$ needs a report.

This is *still* a Beta OS - an M$ still asks for feedback on issues.

johngalt said:

He did not read what you had written - yu *already* have the BIOS info set correctly....

At this point I'd make a good thorough backup, and then either install another copy of 7 (the keys are good for multiple installs) or else wipe this one and install again and try the no driver approach....

I *really* believe it is the driver....

Oh, um....which drive for the video cards did you install? Which driver *specifically* - not just the version, but the size of the Driver DL....



My interest in this is purely academic - if I turn a feature off and it is still enabled, then I need to troubleshoot the issue - and it if lies with the OS then M$ needs a report.

This is *still* a Beta OS - an M$ still asks for feedback on issues.

Click to expand...

185.81_geforce_win7_32bit_english_beta Size: 79.9 MB (83,788,720 bytes)
SBXF_W7DRVBTA_US_2_18_0013 Size: 49.0 MB (51,422,920 bytes)