Overclocking help

I used to be able overclock my CPU quite a lot, from 2.83 GHz -> 3.6 GHz. But now, when I am in the Windows environment, (and I have a program to show me) it tells me the speed is 2550 MHz, but then after a second or two, it jumps to 3610 MHz. It used to stay at 3.6 GHz, but now it's all over the place, jumping UNDER the stock speed -> above stock speed. What would be causing this? It stays fine in the BIOS and reports the nice 3.6 GHz, but as soon as Windows starts, it jumps. I figure it's a program, but I removed the program that seemed to cause it. Any ideas?

Thank you.

~Nicane

your cpu slows itself down when not in heavy use to save power and heat.

as soon as your cpu needs to do something, the clock speed rises to max value.

you can control this behaviour in your bios - i forget the exact setting. let me reboot and have a look...

It doesn't do that though. Like when I am running games or compressing or something, it still does this. Even when it's at 50% usage.

go to your bios and turn both EIST and C1E off - they'll probably be buried in a sub-sub menu somewhere.

EIST = enhanced intel speedstep technology
C1E = enhanced cpu state 1

Ohhhh thank you. I don't have an option for EIST, but C1E was enabled. I don't know why I enabled that. :) But thank you very much. Now it's staying at a nice and even 3,613 MHz. :)

If you have EIST enabled then in your Power Plan you will have two added entries for CPU processor. A minimum and maximum speed. This will make Windows 7 (and maybe even other programs) adjust CPU speed according to what you set.

If you set both to 100% then it negates EIST.

Nicane said:

Ohhhh thank you. I don't have an option for EIST, but C1E was enabled. I don't know why I enabled that. :) But thank you very much. Now it's staying at a nice and even 3,613 MHz. :)

glad to be of help :)

Why would you want to disable this CPU life prolonging feature?

If you are running something that needs the power, the power will be there. When the power is not needed, the CPU will cool down, prolonging its life span.

It doesn't do that though. It just jumps back and forth every second or two, even when I'm not doing anything. And who cares about the life? Might as well use what I can with it and buy a new one in a few years when this one is outdated anyway.

Antman said:

Why would you want to disable this CPU life prolonging feature?

If you are running something that needs the power, the power will be there. When the power is not needed, the CPU will cool down, prolonging its life span.

Another reason is that when overclocking the speed step and C1E halt state can cause instablity with the overclock.

Sometimes you can run them when overclocking other times it just won't work. No doubt they are handy features for saving power.