# Does software like ThrottleStop and QuickCPU make any permanent changes to OS?



## The red spirit (Aug 21, 2021)

And do they make any permanent changes to OS after uninstall?


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## unclewebb (Aug 21, 2021)

In Quick CPU, the core parking and frequency scaling features might need to be reset before you delete Quick CPU. If this program has an uninstaller, it would likely reset everything for you.

The only ThrottleStop feature that can make a permanent change to the Windows power plan is the C States - AC Off / On feature. 

If you use this ThrottleStop feature to disable all of your C states, you will need to use ThrottleStop to re-enable the C states.   






Are you having any computer problems that you think ThrottleStop is causing even when you are not using ThrottleStop? I cannot think of anything else that would cause any long term issues. If you reboot and do not run ThrottleStop, it cannot make any changes to your CPU.


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## The red spirit (Aug 21, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> In Quick CPU, the core parking and frequency scaling features might need to be reset before you delete Quick CPU. If this program has an uninstaller, it would likely reset everything for you.
> 
> The only ThrottleStop feature that can make a permanent change to the Windows power plan is the C States - AC Off / On feature.
> 
> ...


My computer likely has some issues. My clock speed speed is seemingly is less flexible and stays high for a long time after boot up. But I'm not 100% sure about that. 

I probably fucked up something with this software. By this software, I mean QuickCPU. It had some presets like high performance, power saver. I messed with them and it seems that ever since then, my CPU doesn't work quite the same. Before my messing around, my C states seemingly didn't work well. No matter what I do in BIOS, CPU doesn't enter into Core C6 and any package C states. 

My clock speed staying high is likely related to Speedshift minimum speed to be set to 2.9GHz, which I highly doubt is stock. I think I also left Speedshift EPP at 128, because I wanted to see what it does, but I didn't know that there was no reset button, so it is 128 ever since.

BTW is there any TS guide as to what all options do? I would like to read more about some things.


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## unclewebb (Aug 21, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> stays high for a long time after boot up


Intel CPUs will run at full speed if they have something to do. If you have installed stuff on your computer that runs all of the time, this will keep the CPU busy and it will run at full speed.

Run ThrottleStop and see what it reports for C0% when your computer is idle at the desktop. Low C0% means your CPU is mostly idle. High C0% means there is a lot of crap running in the background. Use the Task Manager Details tab to find out what is running on your computer.






If you think QuickCPU has changed your power plan settings, open up Power Options and try using the Restore plan defaults option.
That should reset anything that has been changed.





Speed Shift Min is typically 4 or 8 depending on the CPU. ThrottleStop will show you what the default MIn and Max values are.





On most recent computers, Windows is able to manage the Speed Shift EPP setting just fine. I would not check that option in ThrottleStop if Windows is able to manage this. The Balanced power plan with slider set to Best Performance typically sets EPP to 84 which is a good setting. Look in the ThrottleStop FIVR monitoring table to see what EPP your CPU is using. Change Windows settings and watch for changes in EPP. If you want maximum speed all of the time, switch to the Windows High Performance power plan. You can use ThrottleStop to access this power plan if Windows has hidden it.



The red spirit said:


> any TS guide


The TS download includes links to a guide and links to the two main forums. I stopped writing guides because ThrottleStop supports way more CPUs than I can afford to own.

The ThrottleStop thread here on TechPowerUp already has 15 pages of content. You can learn a lot by reading through this forum. There are also lots of YouTube videos available if you like to learn that way.

I work day and night to make sure that everyone gets their ThrottleStop questions answered. If you cannot figure something out, just ask. Post some pics of how ThrottleStop is setup on your computer. If you want default settings, exit ThrottleStop, delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file and reboot your computer. When you start back up and run ThrottleStop, it will create a new ThrottleStop.INI configuration file with all default settings that it reads from the CPU. You can experiment without having to worry too much about screwing things up. It is easy to go back to default settings and start again.


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## The red spirit (Aug 22, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> Intel CPUs will run at full speed if they have something to do. If you have installed stuff on your computer that runs all of the time, this will keep the CPU busy and it will run at full speed.
> 
> Run ThrottleStop and see what it reports for C0% when your computer is idle at the desktop. Low C0% means your CPU is mostly idle. High C0% means there is a lot of crap running in the background. Use the Task Manager Details tab to find out what is running on your computer.
> 
> ...


Thanks, that actually fixed my problem. That's a bit odd, I ran Windows troubleshooter earlier and it said that it indeed reset power plans, but it seems that it didn't quite works as expected. Now my CPU works like it did before.




unclewebb said:


> Speed Shift Min is typically 4 or 8 depending on the CPU. ThrottleStop will show you what the default MIn and Max values are.
> 
> View attachment 213645


Mine are 1 and 43. Min value is oddly low, isn't it?




unclewebb said:


> On most recent computers, Windows is able to manage the Speed Shift EPP setting just fine. I would not check that option in ThrottleStop if Windows is able to manage this. The Balanced power plan with slider set to Best Performance typically sets EPP to 84 which is a good setting. Look in the ThrottleStop FIVR monitoring table to see what EPP your CPU is using. Change Windows settings and watch for changes in EPP. If you want maximum speed all of the time, switch to the Windows High Performance power plan. You can use ThrottleStop to access this power plan if Windows has hidden it.


With balanced it is 84, with ultimate performance it is 0, with power saver it is 153. If it changes, then everything is fine, right?




unclewebb said:


> The TS download includes links to a guide and links to the two main forums. I stopped writing guides because ThrottleStop supports way more CPUs than I can afford to own.


Aw, sorry for that. I meant not exactly a guide, but rather an explanation of what each option is supposed to do. I have read the rest of your replay and yeah I have to admit, that I didn't notice those links. 

I'm particularly interested in what does demotion and undemotion settings do, then what package C state request does. Mostly because I mentioned that my C states are likely somewhat broken. My CPU never goes into Core C6 state, but it goes to Core C3 and C7 states just fine. My CPU doesn't enter any package states at all. This isn't new problem, my PC has been like this since the day I assembled it and I don't really need all C states to works well, but I'm curious why they don't works as expected. Also, whatever package PKG percentage means, it's stuck at 0. C state behavior is unaffected by Windows power plan. I tested it at power saver and at ultimate performance, I get identical results.


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## unclewebb (Aug 22, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> 1 and 43


What does ThrottleStop show for default Min and Max? If the default Min is 8, using any Speed Shift Min value between 1 and 8 is exactly the same to the CPU. It does not matter. Most motherboards set the Min to 1.

Your testing shows that Windows is setting Speed Shift EPP exactly as it should be. That means there is no need to check the Speed Shift EPP option in ThrottleStop. This option is provided for older computers or for computers that are not Speed Shift aware. 



The red spirit said:


> what does demotion and undemotion settings do


On modern CPUs, these settings do virtually nothing. Check and uncheck them one by one, press Apply, and you will probably see little to no difference in how much time your CPU spends in the various C states. To minimize power consumption, I check all the ones on the right hand side but it makes very little difference one way or the other. 

It is common for some CPUs not to use all of the C states. If your CPU is using core C7, that is saving more power compared to core C6. There is no point in it using core C6 so it doesn't.  

Post a picture of your C states window and the main ThrottleStop window too. I am not even sure what CPU you are talking about. Some computers disable the package C states in the BIOS. Sometimes the package C states are disabled because of your ThrottleStop settings. 

The package percent means the percentage of time that the CPU package is spending in a package C state.  0.0 means it is not spending any time in any of the package C states. That is OK. 

If you have questions, just ask. There is no updated explanation of anything. I prefer talking in the forums, obviously.


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## The red spirit (Aug 22, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> What does ThrottleStop show for default Min and Max? If the default Min is 8, using any Speed Shift Min value between 1 and 8 is exactly the same to the CPU. It does not matter. Most motherboards set the Min to 1.


Min is 1 and max is 43



unclewebb said:


> Post a picture of your C states window and the main ThrottleStop window too. I am not even sure what CPU you are talking about. Some computers disable the package C states in the BIOS. Sometimes the package C states are disabled because of your ThrottleStop settings.


The computer is my main one, which is in my system specs. Anyway, here's a screenshot of TS with HWiNFO64 summary:




I took this screenshot, when I just opened TS, so it hasn't logged much data. Usually C7 percentages are in 90s.


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## unclewebb (Aug 22, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> Min is 1 and max is 43


The BIOS has set the Min and Max to 1 and 43. ThrottleStop will show you the default values your CPU supports. The BIOS guys are too lazy to query the correct minimum value so they just set the Min to 1. Luckily it makes no difference. Setting Min to 1 or 8 tells the CPU to use the minimum multiplier.





The 10400F can benefit from having the turbo power limits set sky high. What do you have PL1 and PL2 set to in the TPL window? I set these to the max, 4095.






If you look in the C States window on the right hand side it says, Package C State *Locked*. That means the BIOS has locked this setting and it has locked it to C1. That is why none of your package C states are working. In ThrottleStop, do not request C10. This is pointless. The CPU is locked to C1 so set the Request value in ThrottleStop to C1.

You can probably access this setting in the BIOS but with a desktop computer that is plugged in, I would not bother. Leave it locked to package C1. There is not a huge difference in power consumption whether the package C states are available or not. Core C7 is the most important one.


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## The red spirit (Aug 22, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> The BIOS has set the Min and Max to 1 and 43. ThrottleStop will show you the default values your CPU supports. The BIOS guys are too lazy to query the correct minimum value so they just set the Min to 1. Luckily it makes no difference. Setting Min to 1 or 8 tells the CPU to use the minimum multiplier.
> 
> View attachment 213778


I thought that those low values weren't for frequency itself, but for entering C states correctly. Some C states mean that core clock is set to 0 (if not mostly shut down)




unclewebb said:


> The 10400F can benefit from having the turbo power limits set sky high. What do you have PL1 and PL2 set to in the TPL window? I set these to the max, 4095.


It does benefit from high values, but not really sky high ones. If I set PL1 to say 10 watts, then there's almost no point in creasing it further. Under stress test, I don't think that I have seen CPU reaching 140 watts, it stays at 130s. In games, CPU uses 45-55 watts even at full all core clock boost. Stock 65 watt PL1 is very reasonable for i5 10400F, my motherboard defaults to 80 watts. I set it to 70 watts, because that's all I need. I left PL2 at Intel spec, meaning 137 watts and 28 seconds.

TPU did a review about similar chip, here's what they found out:








						Intel Core i5-10400F Review - Six Cores with HT for Under $200
					

Intel's new Core i5-10400F offers a large performance jump over the previous generation Core i5-9400F because of its six-core/twelve-thread design. In this Core i5-10400F review we also test the feasibility of overclocking through BCLK, or by relaxing the PL1 and PL2 Turbo Limits.




					www.techpowerup.com
				




They gained just a fraction of percent more performance. That's odd, I have seen some tasks benefiting from higher PL certainly more than that, but those tasks are benchmarks. In realistic heavy productivity tasks it might be possible to gain up to 10% more performance, but that comes at much higher power usage:








						Intel Core i5-10400F Review - Six Cores with HT for Under $200
					

Intel's new Core i5-10400F offers a large performance jump over the previous generation Core i5-9400F because of its six-core/twelve-thread design. In this Core i5-10400F review we also test the feasibility of overclocking through BCLK, or by relaxing the PL1 and PL2 Turbo Limits.




					www.techpowerup.com
				




Yeah, that's not a lot more, but I'm fine with PL1 set to 70 watts. I may change it one day, when I will need more performance, but currently it's fine. And when such dark day comes, I guess this i5 will be e-waste tier anyway. I only raised my PL1, because I decided not to use some power saving features. Things like ring down-bin, energy efficient turbo and etc. 

For i5, PL mods don't mean much, but once you move to i7 or i9, then it's game changing. For some reason TPU graphs don't show that, but I'm sure that i9 gains more than 10% performance:








						Intel Core i9-10900 Review - Fail at Stock, Impressive when Unlocked
					

In our Core i9-10900 review we're taking a close look at what can be gained from unlocking the power limit of this 65 W processor. Results are impressive: up to 40% faster apps and performance that rivals the Core i9-10900K at much lower pricing, but heat output is increased, too.




					www.techpowerup.com
				




Unfortunately all that performance can only be gained by completely ruining power consumption of chip:








						Intel Core i9-10900 Review - Fail at Stock, Impressive when Unlocked
					

In our Core i9-10900 review we're taking a close look at what can be gained from unlocking the power limit of this 65 W processor. Results are impressive: up to 40% faster apps and performance that rivals the Core i9-10900K at much lower pricing, but heat output is increased, too.




					www.techpowerup.com
				




20-30% more performance for nearly twice the power usage? Seems like an awful deal to me. If I had i9, I would set PL1 to 95 watts, but not to 4096 watts (in other words unlocked wattage). I think that would yield some nice performance gains, without wrecking power usage too much. And it might be possible to undervolt it somewhat, so it could be an interesting chip to mess with. But Intel suggested PL2 would need to go into garbage instantly, it's is legit motherboard frying high. I would set PL2 to 120-150 watts. 




unclewebb said:


> If you look in the C States window on the right hand side it says, Package C State *Locked*. That means the BIOS has locked this setting and it has locked it to C1. That is why none of your package C states are working. In ThrottleStop, do not request C10. This is pointless. The CPU is locked to C1 so set the Request value in ThrottleStop to C1.


What is request value supposed to do? Troubleshoot C states, when their adjustments are unlocked?




unclewebb said:


> You can probably access this setting in the BIOS but with a desktop computer that is plugged in, I would not bother. Leave it locked to package C1. There is not a huge difference in power consumption whether the package C states are available or not. Core C7 is the most important one.


I don't think I could, I specifically enabled all C states and set minimum C state to C10. There are no other C state related option for my board, so I guess that's locked and not available to user. Here's a manual of my board:








						B460M AORUS PRO (rev. 1.0) Support | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global
					

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...




					www.gigabyte.com
				




Probably nothing interesting in it. 

The only mystifying setting is voltage optimization. It claims to do something for power efficiency, but in BIOS it claims that only for mobile SKUs (I can't even put those in my board, there aren't any mobile LGA 1200 chips). For some reason I also have TVB options in BIOS, despite my chip not having such functionality. I searched, what voltage optimization setting is supposed to do, but I only found another confused person wondering the same thing. I enabled it once, but it seemingly did nothing. I assume that it's some leftover setting for mobile chips and that Giga is too sloppy to clean those up from their "peasant" Aorus boards. But I might be wrong.


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## unclewebb (Aug 22, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> I thought that those low values weren't for frequency itself, but for entering C states correctly.


The Speed Shift Min and Max variables control the minimum and maximum CPU speed. They have nothing to do with the C states. On some CPUs, there has been a recent update that has disabled the functionality of these. They both still work correctly on my desktop 10850K.

I was helping a user the other day with his Core i7-11700F. Increasing the default 65W TDP limit made a huge difference. Power consumption at full load when stress testing went up to 190W so the CPU could run indefinitely at full speed. Your Core i5-10400F is not nearly as power hungry so there is not as much performance to be gained when going beyond the default spec. I still like setting both power limits sky high. Max power limits ensures no power limit throttling. A big number like 4095W looks cool even if the CPU has no chance of ever reaching this value.



The red spirit said:


> What is request value supposed to do?


When the package C state register is not locked, the ThrottleStop Request value lets you decide which package C states your CPU gets to use. Setting this to C1 disables all package C states. Here are some examples.













My desktop computer does not allow me to access any package C states greater than C3.



The red spirit said:


> I'm sure that i9 gains more than 10% performance:


The Intel default TDP for a 10850K is 125W. That is what Intel recommends the PL1 power limit should be set to. If you want maximum performance out of one of these CPUs, you need to set the power limits way higher than that. There are no free lunches though. Some extra watts definitely warms the cores.   






The same CPU is not as much fun when limited to the 125W TDP value.
Runs a lot cooler.


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## The red spirit (Aug 22, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> I was helping a user the other day with his Core i7-11700F. Increasing the default 65W TDP limit made a huge difference. Power consumption at full load when stress testing went up to 190W so the CPU could run indefinitely at full speed. Your Core i5-10400F is not nearly as power hungry so there is not as much performance to be gained when going beyond the default spec. I still like setting both power limits sky high. Max power limits ensures no power limit throttling. A big number like 4095W looks cool even if the CPU has no chance of ever reaching this value.


To satisfy your curiosity, I ran some prime95 small FFTs and Cinebench R23. In Cinebench CPU only reached 84.3 watts. That's all and at prime95:




Just 101.3 watts. My cooler, unfortunately, is almost suffering with such heat output. I wouldn't rant to run it long with such thermals. Other workloads aren't as power demanding, so only in prime95 and Cinebench I could see such wattages, that means that I always see almost full or full boost. Beyond synthetics, I still haven't seen any real workload to be as demanding as stress tests.




unclewebb said:


> When the package C state register is not locked, the ThrottleStop Request value lets you decide which package C states your CPU gets to use. Setting this to C1 disables all package C states. Here are some examples.
> 
> View attachment 213789
> 
> ...


I went to BIOS again and turns out that I left auto for package states, now I set it to C10. My CPU only goes to C2. That saves me around 2 watts at idle with Ultimate Performance power plan.




unclewebb said:


> The Intel default TDP for a 10850K is 125W. That is what Intel recommends the PL1 power limit should be set to. If you want maximum performance out of one of these CPUs, you need to set the power limits way higher than that. There are no free lunches though. Some extra watts definitely warms the cores.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


RIP i9. That CPU is nearly melting already. 100C and that's just puny Cinebench, that thing is obscenely hot. With your cooling setup, I wouldn't want to run it at more than 180 watts, that's all your cooler is able to reasonably dissipate. That's with some margin for room temperature variations and for not overwhelming cooler and also for not wrecking your ears with noise. Speed is fun, but i9 realistically needs phase change to run at full throttle. It's one scary chip. And thankfully TS doesn't show VRM temperature, there's likely another scary number. And I wouldn't want to see what happen if you load prime95. You might legit need a fire extinguisher.


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## unclewebb (Aug 22, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> My CPU only goes to C2.


On my Z490 board, I had to install the Intel IDE driver to get package C3 working correctly.
The old Windows driver that was installed by default limits the package C states to C2.







The red spirit said:


> TS doesn't show VRM temperature


This Z490-E board has a well cooled VRM. Even when the CPU is on fire, the VRM is not.

I do not run at over 300W for any significant length of time. Always nice to see that a properly engineered CPU and motherboard can handle this kind of abuse without crashing.

I was helping someone recently with his Biostar Racing Z490A-Silver motherboard. 








						Best Gaming Motherboards Recommend, Computer Components Manufacturers
					

Best gaming motherboards recommend - BIOSTAR. Computer components manufacturers provide INTEL AMD sockets, various INTEL motherboards, etc.



					www.biostar.com.tw
				




Piece of crap is an understatement. It could not run an 8 core 10th Gen CPU at 125W without BD PROCHOT throttling down to 800 MHz.


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## The red spirit (Aug 23, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> On my Z490 board, I had to install the Intel IDE driver to get package C3 working correctly.
> The old Windows driver that was installed by default limits the package C states to C2.
> 
> View attachment 213840


I have always used manufacturer provided drivers, I checked that out anyway and yeah I'm using Intel drivers. As to my board, after manually setting minimum package state to C10, I had an unexpected freeze. The whole system locked up and I had to restart. I remember you mentioned somewhere else that lower C states can be buggy, but it hard locking normal? Or I should be concerned about that?




unclewebb said:


> This Z490-E board has a well cooled VRM. Even when the CPU is on fire, the VRM is not.
> 
> I do not run at over 300W for any significant length of time. Always nice to see that a properly engineered CPU and motherboard can handle this kind of abuse without crashing.
> 
> ...


Ha ha, oh this shit happens. Certainly not fun if it does, but that board looks suspicious from the first sign. Just looking at main VRM heatsinks, it's just nearly a solid aluminum block, there are no fins. VRMs do matter a lot when picking a board, nowadays. You can't just buy anything and it will work. That's unfortunate. From multiple poor purchases that I did, I have learned the hard way that it's never wise to skimp on VRMs. It doesn't even matter if you overclock or not, a solid VRMs are a must. My own Intel board is fine for the current chip, but I doubt that it could properly handle 125 watt TDP chips. My cooler probably wouldn't be handle those either. My board's heatsink is also somewhat a sad joke, but for non K chips it works fine. If I had to buy another motherboard, I wouldn't buy it without watching or reading reviews about VRM thermals. Recent Intel shenanigans made me very aware of bad VRM cooling negative effects. And you would expect that even such board may throttle, but work reliably, but nah, high temperatures kill VRMs fast.


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## unclewebb (Aug 23, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> but it hard locking normal


Hard locks are never normal. If enabling C10 caused a hard lock then obviously you should disable C10. Not sure if your desktop CPU even supports C10. Some of the low power U series laptops are able to use C10 but many manufacturers leave it disabled.

On my board there is a BIOS setting called RC6 render standby. I think that one needs to be enabled so package C3 works. Your BIOS might not have an option for this.


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## The red spirit (Aug 23, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> Hard locks are never normal. If enabling C10 caused a hard lock then obviously you should disable C10. Not sure if your desktop CPU even supports C10. Some of the low power U series laptops are able to use C10 but many manufacturers leave it disabled.
> 
> On my board there is a BIOS setting called RC6 render standby. I think that one needs to be enabled so package C3 works. Your BIOS might not have an option for this.


My hard lock is likely not even from C10 state. It's a minimum that it can reach, more likely it was C3 state. From as much as I have gathered so far, I don't think that this chip shouldn't support C10 state, pretty much all desktop chips since like Haswell or maybe even Sandy Bridge, support all C10 states. 

BTW what is RC6 render standby? I have never heard of that and I have no idea what it would do. Anyway, my board clearly doesn't have that.


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## unclewebb (Aug 23, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> RC6 render standby


From the Google archives.

RC6 Render Standby BIOS – what is that
Render Standby – function of activation and deactivation the energy-saving mechanism integrated into the Intel graphics core processors when the computer enters sleep mode. For maximum energy efficiency this option must be enabled


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## The red spirit (Aug 23, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> From the Google archives.
> 
> RC6 Render Standby BIOS – what is that
> Render Standby – function of activation and deactivation the energy-saving mechanism integrated into the Intel graphics core processors when the computer enters sleep mode. For maximum energy efficiency this option must be enabled


F chips are without graphics, so...


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## unclewebb (Aug 23, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> F chips are without graphics


That might explain why your package C states are limited.


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## The red spirit (Aug 23, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> That might explain why your package C states are limited.


Isn't that a bit stupid? Why would I need graphics for C states to work?


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## unclewebb (Aug 23, 2021)

The red spirit said:


> Why would I need graphics for C states to work?


The CPU cores and Intel GPU are well integrated. 

An F series CPU does not mean that the Intel GPU does not exist. It was likely defective so it was permanently disabled. It is still there, even though you cannot use or access it.


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## The red spirit (Aug 23, 2021)

unclewebb said:


> The CPU cores and Intel GPU are well integrated.
> 
> An F series CPU does not mean that the Intel GPU does not exist. It was likely defective so it was permanently disabled. It is still there, even though you cannot use or access it.


Yeah, I know that it is there, but if fusing it off almost means losing C states, then that's quite a bit oversight from Intel. My board by default only supports package C1, but it functions with C2, so it's possible that even C2 shouldn't work.


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## unclewebb (Aug 23, 2021)

The difference in power consumption between package C2 and package C3 as measured at the wall on my 10 core CPU is only 4 watts. On your 6 core CPU, maybe the difference is 2 or 3 watts. 

I have found that setting the Request value to C8, helps reduce power consumption. My desktop CPU does not go into package C8 but this setting encourages the CPU to spend a bigger percentage of time in package C3. It goes from about 26% in package C3 when idle up to 76% in package C3. That alone is good for 2 of the 4 watt difference. 

In the overall scheme, there are bigger things to worry about.


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## mirh (Dec 9, 2022)

unclewebb said:


> If you use this ThrottleStop feature to disable all of your C states, you will need to use ThrottleStop to re-enable the C states.


Wouldn't restoring the power plan default settings also work?
Or even just specifically reset IDLESTATEMAX, IDLEPROMOTE and IDLEDEMOTE?


unclewebb said:


> If you have questions, just ask. There is no updated explanation of anything. I prefer talking in the forums, obviously.


If there was even some brief tooltip on top of the checkboxes, it would be far far better ngl.
It's mindblowing that you have to take very wild guesses from the smallest sentence in a random page of a architectural manual or specification update, to even just figure out which direction demotion and undemotion/promotion work.


unclewebb said:


> If you look in the C States window on the right hand side it says, Package C State *Locked*. That means the BIOS has locked this setting and it has locked it to C1. That is why none of your package C states are working. In ThrottleStop, do not request C10. This is pointless. The CPU is locked to C1 so set the Request value in ThrottleStop to C1.


Not that I have much better precise ideas either, but wouldn't it be possible to improve that part of the UI?
Because to a clueless user, it's really not evident that the string in the box on the right not changing then and there on apply is actually a sign of the setting not working at all (let alone that there exist likely workarounds to that, but this would be part of my previous point I guess).
The very name of the section is potentially misleading (at least to a non-native speaker) since "Package C State Locked" can be very easily re-interpreted in the unassuming sense of "Locking Package C State".


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## unclewebb (Dec 9, 2022)

mirh said:


> Wouldn't restoring the power plan default settings also work?


You are correct. Pressing the Restore plan defaults button in Power Options should restore any power plan changes. 





I had plans to make the C States - AC feature in ThrottleStop more intuitive but with virtually zero feedback about anything in the C States window, I came to the conclusion that this feature is really not that important so I left it as is. 



mirh said:


> It's mind blowing


Trying to read through Intel's demotion / undemotion documentation is also mind blowing. Recent Intel CPUs can enter and exit various C states so quickly that having the demotion and undemotion options on or off seems to make very little difference to anything. That is probably why it is rare to see anyone talking about these ThrottleStop features in a forum. They are not that important.

When trying to minimize power consumption, I checked all of the Undemotion options and I left the Demotion options clear.  







mirh said:


> wouldn't it be possible to improve


ThrottleStop is just a hobby. There is always lots of room for improvement. Writing documentation and UI design are not high up on my skills list so I tend to ignore these important things. My only plans for ThrottleStop at the moment are to update it so it better supports Intel's 12th and 13th Gen CPUs.   

If you ever want to write some thorough documentation for the C States window, I will include in the ThrottleStop download a link to your website.


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