# My I7-9750H Never Hits Full Turbo Clock Speed



## Spare15 (Oct 10, 2019)

I recently purchased a Lenovo Y545 with a 9750h. Lenovo already overclocked it to the processor's max turbo ratio at a value of 45x. In games where a full processor load is necessary, the CPU only boosts up to about 4.2 Ghz. It never hits 4.5 Ghz. I did use throttlestop to lower my CPU core voltage and CPU cache voltage to -140.6mV each.  I've tried updating the BIOS, and tried setting speedstep to a value of 0.





All cores are already maxed out at a 45x multiplier.



Here are the settings I currently have on throttlestop.



And finally, my FIVR settings.


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## lmille16 (Oct 10, 2019)

Have you checked your temps while playing the games? If you aren't hitting max Turbo, I'd guess that you are hitting the thermal limits for the processor.


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## FreedomEclipse (Oct 10, 2019)

Do you use a laptop cooler of any sort? Even if you dont have one just use a book or anything to prop up the back of the laptop a little to give the fans some air to breath.

you can always go a step further and re-apply thermal paste to something better.  MX-4, NT-H1, Kryonaut - even AS5 and LM but you have to be careful how you apply those and take the necessary precautions .


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## Spare15 (Oct 10, 2019)

lmille16 said:


> Have you checked your temps while playing the games? If you aren't hitting max Turbo, I'd guess that you are hitting the thermal limits for the processor.





FreedomEclipse said:


> Do you use a laptop cooler of any sort? Even if you dont have one just use a book or anything to prop up the back of the laptop a little to give the fans some air to breath.
> 
> you can always go a step further and re-apply thermal paste to something better.  MX-4, NT-H1, Kryonaut - even AS5 and LM but you have to be careful how you apply those and take the necessary precautions .


Temps aren't a problem,  I usually hit 86c on more intensive games, and mid to high 70's on less intensive ones. Even right now, with my speedstep at 0, and my temps at 50c, its sitting right at 4.2Ghz. I don't think its thermal throttling, I used to have an ASUS GL, that laptop would overheat quite often and throttle down to the 1.2Ghz range.


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## lmille16 (Oct 10, 2019)

Also, from what I'm seeing, if your work load is utilizing all cores then you will not hit 4.5ghz. The max all core turbo for that chip appears to be 4.0ghz. You can try to find a benchmark that will work just a single core and see what that does.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 10, 2019)

Thermals are limiting factor in any laptop along with the power brick size


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## Zach_01 (Oct 10, 2019)

Spare15 said:


> Temps aren't a problem,  I usually hit 86c on more intensive games, and mid to high 70's on less intensive ones. Even right now, with my speedstep at 0, and my temps at 50c, its sitting right at 4.2Ghz. I don't think its thermal throttling, I used to have an ASUS GL, that laptop would overheat quite often and throttle down to the 1.2Ghz range.


75~85C is already high enough. Its not throttle temps but the processor from a certain temp and up always is trying to prevent hitting the throttling trigger by adjusting(reducing) clock/voltage.
At this point if you want more clock you can try to cool the laptop better, if there is any way.


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## king of swag187 (Oct 10, 2019)

Probably power or thermal throttling, consider yourself lucky with 4.2 as most chips are locked to 4 if that.


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## Spare15 (Oct 10, 2019)

Zach_01 said:


> 75~85C is already high enough. Its not throttle temps but the processor from a certain temp and up always is trying to prevent hitting the throttling trigger by adjusting(reducing) clock/voltage.
> At this point if you want more clock you can try to cool the laptop better, if there is any way.


I have some Mx-4 on hand so I might do a repaste. So what your saying is that the CPU is adjusting it's clock in order to stay in boost as long as possible without just instantly hitting it's determined throttle temp? 


lmille16 said:


> Also, from what I'm seeing, if your work load is utilizing all cores then you will not hit 4.5ghz. The max all core turbo for that chip appears to be 4.0ghz. You can try to find a benchmark that will work just a single core and see what that does.


I'll try seeing what one core alone can put out. I also found a tutorial on core parking, I might try it out, I don't think I'd need all 6 running at the same time.


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## unclewebb (Oct 10, 2019)

This is not a K CPU so it does not support all core turbo.  If you are using ThrottleStop, the Turbo Ratio Limits should be set to 45, 44, 43, 42, 41, 40 from top to bottom.  When 6 cores are active, 40 is the maximum multiplier.  Having these all set to 45 will be ignored by the CPU.

In the FIVR section, I recommend installing the necessary driver and using the Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits feature.

Your XTU screenshot shows that the Turbo Boost Power Max is set to 20 Watts.  That is a big mistake.  For maximum performance you need this up over 60 Watts.  The turbo boost short power max should be higher still.  These can both be adjusted in ThrottleStop.  The Disable and Lock feature will help to keep these at their recommended values and will prevent Windows or other software from making any unwanted changes.

Close as many apps as possible and only have ThrottleStop open on the desktop.  Try running a 1 Thread TS Bench test.  You should see a high multiplier during this test.  There are always hundreds of Windows tasks running in the background, waking up additional cores so you will never see the full 45 multiplier for any length of time.  If you have a lean system without a lot of background clutter, you might get pretty close to 45 during this test.



Zach_01 said:


> Its not throttle temps but the processor from a certain temp and up always is trying to prevent hitting the throttling trigger by adjusting(reducing) clock/voltage.


That statement is not true at all.  Do some high temperature testing.  Intel CPUs will happily run right up to the thermal throttling temperature without a hint of throttling.  They will not slow down 1 MHz until they hit the thermal throttling temperature.  Intel CPUs run just fine even when they are as hot as hell.  Here is Prime95 warming up the CPU cores and Furmark warming up the Intel GPU.  Neither one is throttling yet.  



http://imgur.com/xwIZ5h4


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## Zach_01 (Oct 11, 2019)

I am not familiar with throttlestop app.
And for sure I don’t like to see my CPU hitting 80 or 100C during workload.

Feel free to work your hardware as you like...


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## Spare15 (Oct 11, 2019)

Thank you unclewebb, I did some tweaking with the "Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits". I also parked some cores through "Processor Power Management". I am now hitting around the 4.3-4.5 Ghz range.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 14, 2019)

Spare15 said:


> Thank you unclewebb, I did some tweaking with the "Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits". I also parked some cores through "Processor Power Management". I am now hitting around the 4.3-4.5 Ghz range.


Hey mate, i was wondering if you could provide screenshots of the exact changes you did to boost the i7-9750H to 4.5GHz, my one refuses to boost past 4Ghz. Cheers


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## unclewebb (Nov 14, 2019)

For the Core i7-9750H, when all 6 cores are active, the maximum multiplier is 40.  That means the maximum speed is approximately 4000 MHz.  You cannot go beyond this speed when fully loaded.

If you are not seeing above this speed when running a 1 Thread test, go into the bios and make sure you have enabled the C states.  These are necessary so the CPU can access the maximum 45 multiplier when partially loaded.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 14, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> For the Core i7-9750H, when all 6 cores are active, the maximum multiplier is 40.  That means the maximum speed is approximately 4000 MHz.  You cannot go beyond this speed when fully loaded.
> 
> If you are not seeing above this speed when running a 1 Thread test, go into the bios and make sure you have enabled the C states.  These are necessary so the CPU can access the maximum 45 multiplier when partially loaded.


Isnt the C states a power saving feature?


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## unclewebb (Nov 14, 2019)

TechPowerUp is more of a desktop oriented forum so many people recommend disabling the C states without fully understanding them.  On non K CPUs, enabling the C states is necessary if you want to take advantage of the highest multiplier.  The 9750H will not use the 45 multiplier unless you have at least the core C3 C state enabled.  Yes, it is a power saving feature but in this case, it is also a performance feature.  Having a more powerful and cooler running CPU is not a bad thing, especially in a laptop.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 14, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> TechPowerUp is more of a desktop oriented forum so many people recommend disabling the C states without fully understanding them.  On non K CPUs, enabling the C states is necessary if you want to take advantage of the highest multiplier.  The 9750H will not use the 45 multiplier unless you have at least the core C3 C state enabled.  Yes, it is a power saving feature but in this case, it is also a performance feature.  Having a more powerful and cooler running CPU is not a bad thing, especially in a laptop.


On my laptop bios i don't have a setting to enable/disable C3, is there anywhere else i can look?


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## unclewebb (Nov 14, 2019)

ThrottleStop can show you what C states your CPU is using.  I think HWiNFO has this information too.






Post some screenshots of your problem.  What app are you using for monitoring?  Some are not accurate when a CPU is partially loaded.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 14, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> ThrottleStop can show you what C states your CPU is using.  I think HWiNFO has this information too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ill post some screenshots when i get home, i'm using throttlestop like spare15, thats why i'm curious as to how they achieved 4.2ghz-4.5ghz overclock.


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## unclewebb (Nov 14, 2019)

When you get home, try running the TS Bench test and select 1 Thread.  You should see a multiplier much higher than 40 during this test.  If it is locked to 40, that is definitely a problem.  The less Windows background activity going on, the higher the multiplier can go during this test.  Some people have a lot of clutter running on their systems so multiple cores are active processing junk.  Use the ThrottleStop C0% data.  When idle, this should be showing 0.5% or less.  Post more info and I will definitely help get you going in the right direction.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 14, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> When you get home, try running the TS Bench test and select 1 Thread.  You should see a multiplier much higher than 40 during this test.  If it is locked to 40, that is definitely a problem.  The less Windows background activity going on, the higher the multiplier can go during this test.  Some people have a lot of clutter running on their systems so multiple cores are active processing junk.  Use the ThrottleStop C0% data.  When idle, this should be showing 0.5% or less.  Post more info and I will definitely help get you going in the right direction.


Thank you mate for your help, ill definitely do that TS bench when i get home and will post the outcome and current settings i'm using



unclewebb said:


> When you get home, try running the TS Bench test and select 1 Thread.  You should see a multiplier much higher than 40 during this test.  If it is locked to 40, that is definitely a problem.  The less Windows background activity going on, the higher the multiplier can go during this test.  Some people have a lot of clutter running on their systems so multiple cores are active processing junk.  Use the ThrottleStop C0% data.  When idle, this should be showing 0.5% or less.  Post more info and I will definitely help get you going in the right direction.


I did the TS Bench with 1 thread however it still refused to turbo past 4ghz, ive posted the test and my throttle stop settings, im not sure what to do from here.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 16, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> When you get home, try running the TS Bench test and select 1 Thread.  You should see a multiplier much higher than 40 during this test.  If it is locked to 40, that is definitely a problem.  The less Windows background activity going on, the higher the multiplier can go during this test.  Some people have a lot of clutter running on their systems so multiple cores are active processing junk.  Use the ThrottleStop C0% data.  When idle, this should be showing 0.5% or less.  Post more info and I will definitely help get you going in the right direction.


Any chance you're able to help?


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## unclewebb (Nov 17, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> ThrottleStop can show you what C states your CPU is using.


Where is a screenshot of the ThrottleStop C State window?  When your computer is idle, non-K CPUs have to be able to go into either core C3, C6 or C7.  As my screenshot above shows, modern Intel CPUs typically have the cores spending close to 99% of their time in core C7.  If your maximum multiplier is being limited to 40 during the TS Bench 1 Thread test, it is usually because the C states are disabled.  It would be very unusual for a laptop manufacturer to deliberately disable the C states and not provide any options in the bios to turn them back on.

If the C States are working properly, try increasing the PP0 Current Limit to 100.  It is presently set to 0 which typically means that it is not being used.

The default Turbo Ratio Limits for the 9750H from top to bottom in ThrottleStop should be 45, 44, 43, 42, 41, 40.  You cannot overclock this CPU using the multiplier so there is no point in setting these any higher than those values.

In the TPL window, the default Turbo Time Limit is typically 28 seconds.  There is no need to max out the slider to 3670016.

When under volting the Intel GPU, you have to under volt the iGPU Unslice equally or else your Intel GPU under volt will be ignored.  If you are using the Nvidia GPU when gaming, under volting the Intel GPU may not even be necessary.  Set both of these to 0 until you get the turbo multiplier figured out.

Some users have had success by under volting the CPU Core more than the CPU Cache.  If you use an offset of -100 mV for the Cache, I have seen screenshots where the Core offset is set to -200 mV.  I have not had a chance to prove whether this actually works or not.  Setting core and cache equal is a good place to start and then you can play around with this later to see if there is any difference.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 17, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> Where is a screenshot of the ThrottleStop C State window?  When your computer is idle, non-K CPUs have to be able to go into either core C3, C6 or C7.  As my screenshot above shows, modern Intel CPUs typically have the cores spending close to 99% of their time in core C7.  If your maximum multiplier is being limited to 40 during the TS Bench 1 Thread test, it is usually because the C states are disabled.  It would be very unusual for a laptop manufacturer to deliberately disable the C states and not provide any options in the bios to turn them back on.
> 
> If the C States are working properly, try increasing the PP0 Current Limit to 100.  It is presently set to 0 which typically means that it is not being used.
> 
> ...


Thankyou for responding mate, so i did what you said but its still staying max 4ghz, ive attached a screenshot of the C states, they are all reading 0, does that mean that they are disabled, if so how can i enable them since there is no option in my bios, maybe in the registry?


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## unclewebb (Nov 17, 2019)

Wahib1997 said:


> C states, they are all reading 0


That is what I have been saying.  If your screenshot was taken when your CPU was idle, it shows that all of your C states are disabled.  No C states means the CPU multiplier cannot go higher than 40.

There is either something wrong with the bios or there might be something wrong with Windows.  There are lots of settings that are controlled by the bios but not all of those settings can be easily accessed by the user.

The first thing to check is the Windows registry.  Open regedit and navigate to this key:

```
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Intelppm
```

Have a look for a key called Start.  What is this set to?  The default value is 3.  If this is set to 4, it will disable your C states and limit your maximum turbo multiplier.  If it is not 3, double click on Start and try setting this to 3, push OK, exit regedit, reboot and see what happens.






What are your idle temps with only ThrottleStop open?  If you get your C states enabled, your core temps might drop 10°C or so.

Make sure you are running the latest bios for your laptop.  If this bug is bios related, it might have already been fixed.  Hopefully you do not have to do a clean install of Windows to get to the bottom of this. 

Edit - Here is an interesting comparison on my 4th Gen laptop.  I used the registry trick to disable all of the C states.  In both examples, I gave Windows lots of time to settle down.  With C states disabled, reported power consumption was way up and core temps were way up too.






With C states enabled, the idle package core temp dropped from 54°C to 40°C.  If you use your laptop on your lap and you ever plan to have a kid, that's gotta help!


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 18, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> That is what I have been saying.  If your screenshot was taken when your CPU was idle, it shows that all of your C states are disabled.  No C states means the CPU multiplier cannot go higher than 40.
> 
> There is either something wrong with the bios or there might be something wrong with Windows.  There are lots of settings that are controlled by the bios but not all of those settings can be easily accessed by the user.
> 
> ...


I checked the registry, that value was already set to 3, and the bios is up to date. Maybe i might have to just clean install Windows again, since i don't know what else to do. Thank you for your help though man you've been so in depth about this, i'm just annoyed i'm not getting the speed i paid for even if its only 500mhz extra.


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## Wahib1997 (Nov 19, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> That is what I have been saying.  If your screenshot was taken when your CPU was idle, it shows that all of your C states are disabled.  No C states means the CPU multiplier cannot go higher than 40.
> 
> There is either something wrong with the bios or there might be something wrong with Windows.  There are lots of settings that are controlled by the bios but not all of those settings can be easily accessed by the user.
> 
> ...


Hey mate, even after doing a clean install and reinstalling all the drivers, including the Intel PPM driver, it still wont go past 4ghz, is there nothing else i can do but just deal with it?


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## unclewebb (Nov 19, 2019)

The manufacturer might have deliberately disabled the C states in the bios to prevent the CPU from going over 4.00 GHz.  That would be really dumb if they did that but manufacturers have been known to do dumb things.  Contact them.  This is not just a performance issue.  Disabling the C states on a laptop will cause it to run much hotter than it needs to run and it will also kill battery run time.  

Ask them why your CPU is not using any of the C states.  They will give you some BS that you should not be using 3rd party tools, etc., etc.  Try running HWiNFO too.  I think it can report C state activity.  If it also reports zero C state activity when idle then it is not the tools.  It is a problem with your laptop.


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## Berfs1 (Dec 5, 2019)

I know I am a bit late, and I apologize if I say some stuff that was already answered before (I didn't read through the whole thread) but I know why you won't be able to hit 4.5 GHz, because once you have installed applications and stuff (like normal people using a computer), your threads will be used more and more often, so you almost always will never hit 4.5 GHz. The Turbo specs for the 9750H are as follows: 45x/44x/43x/42x/41x/40x for 1c/2c/3c/4c/5c/6c respectively. The only real way you can hit 4.5 GHz is by limiting the core count through BIOS. If you want to be able to get higher than the all core turbo multiplier, *for locked CPUs*, you need to enable C states and I believe SpeedStep as well, one or both of the two. That will allow maximum peak frequency *for locked CPUs*, but limits consistent performance. I normally would disable these features but, I use my 9750H laptop for college, so on the go, I do need this CPU idling a lot when I am writing essays in class so that my battery life stays decent (by the way, I get over 7 hours of usable lifetime on this laptop because I have tuned it and amp limited it). The reason you are hitting around 4.2 GHz in games is because not a lot of games use more than 4 cores or 8 threads, so as long you aren't loading your CPU past ~67% (4 cores used/6 cores), you should be able to hit that 42x. Also, a tip, cache frequency matters. A lot. If you want to eek out every last drip of performance of the 9750H, you will need to tune your cache ratio if it throttles, because in 9/10 systems, the cache is throttling since it is a 6 core CPU running past 4 GHz.


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## anubis44 (Dec 5, 2019)

The Lenovo Y540s run hotter than, say, the Acer Helios 300:

https://youtu.be/Ytb2_UzHuP0


Probably, their cooling isn't quite a robust. That's almost certainly why it won't hit 4.5GHz sustained.


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## unclewebb (Dec 5, 2019)

anubis44 said:


> That's almost certainly why it won't hit 4.5GHz sustained.


That is not true.  @Berfs1 explanation is almost perfect.  The 9750H is a limited CPU.  It can only use the 45 multiplier when a single core is active and it can only do this if the core C states are enabled.  A limited CPU has to be able to access either core C3, C6 or C7 to reach the highest multiplier.  An unlocked K series CPU does not have these limitations but a locked 9750H does.  Nothing to do with cooling.



Berfs1 said:


> so as long you aren't loading your CPU past ~67% (4 cores used/6 cores)


As soon as an Intel CPU with hyper threading goes above 50% usage, it should be keeping all of the cores active.  Think about it for a second.  If a task needs to be scheduled for processing, does it make sense that it gets scheduled on the hyper thread of a core that already has something running on it or does it make more sense that it gets scheduled on a core that is completely inactive?  There are a lot of variables in play and some Windows power settings can discourage waking up additional cores but generally, you are going to get better performance with more cores being active.  6 tasks with 1 task running concurrently on each core should result in better performance compared to 6 tasks fully loading 3 cores and their hyper threads with the other 3 cores inactive.  The higher multiplier when only 3 cores are active is usually offset by more throughput with all 6 cores going.  As always, YMMV.


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## Berfs1 (Dec 10, 2019)

unclewebb said:


> That is not true.  @Berfs1 explanation is almost perfect.  The 9750H is a limited CPU.  It can only use the 45 multiplier when a single core is active and it can only do this if the core C states are enabled.  A limited CPU has to be able to access either core C3, C6 or C7 to reach the highest multiplier.  An unlocked K series CPU does not have these limitations but a locked 9750H does.  Nothing to do with cooling.
> 
> 
> As soon as an Intel CPU with hyper threading goes above 50% usage, it should be keeping all of the cores active.  Think about it for a second.  If a task needs to be scheduled for processing, does it make sense that it gets scheduled on the hyper thread of a core that already has something running on it or does it make more sense that it gets scheduled on a core that is completely inactive?  There are a lot of variables in play and some Windows power settings can discourage waking up additional cores but generally, you are going to get better performance with more cores being active.  6 tasks with 1 task running concurrently on each core should result in better performance compared to 6 tasks fully loading 3 cores and their hyper threads with the other 3 cores inactive.  The higher multiplier when only 3 cores are active is usually offset by more throughput with all 6 cores going.  As always, YMMV.


Yea, I actually experimented with HT on and off, in CSGO in particular, it is interesting, because while I do run 6 *threads* with HT on, with HT off it also using 6 threads. In the HT on config, it is using 1 thread from each core, and with HT off, it is also using 1 thread per core, but temps are higher because the CPU is being used to 100% w/o HT, and a little over 50% w/ HT. For most apps I run the CPU w/ HT to lower thermals, but if you load the CPU to 100% with HT on, you get increased thermals (caused by increased power consumption). Let's compare a 4c4t CPU to a 4c8t CPU. When putting each CPU under 100% load, the 4c8t CPU takes more power, and therefore has increased thermals. However, power consumption *per thread* is lower on the 4c8t CPU is lower than the 4c4t CPU, which is why HT CPUs are preferred in laptops, workstations, and dense servers. This is why when overclocking, disabling HT can allow for another 50-100 MHz, in some rare cases, 150-200 MHz. I say in MHz rather than multiplier because some people (for good reason) use BCLK to overclock (even on unlocked CPUs), and this won't be 100 MHz with every multiplier. Because disabling HT lowers total power consumption, the thermals are decreased slightly, which allows for slightly higher overclocking frequencies. Of course, this is not exactly ideal for locked CPUs, as having HT on means, when a 4c4t CPU would be ran at 100%, if the application doesn't gain perf with HT on, you can have a 4c8t CPU with the same turbo ratio table, and you *may* run a higher frequency if the CPU is pegging around 50%, while running lower thermals and power consumption because the CPU is not ran at 100%, it is ran at ~50%. It is a very lengthy explanation, and I wish there was a quicker way to explain, but I hope this gives an explanation as to why HT can make a difference performance and power wise.

In response to your first part of this response, an unlocked CPU is also affected by the same turbo limitations, unless you specifically set the turbo ratios to one multiplier (the most common form of overclocking). If you do that, the frequency is going to be either limited by the turbo limit (your frequency limit), temperature limit, or power limit, with the last one being a setting that can have a different CPU per different CPU model, but can usually be adjusted (for example, the 9900K has a TDP limit of 95W when under stock settings but if you choose to overclock the frequency, the turbo limit is 210W, as it is with the stock 4.7 GHz all core turbo ratio, but the turbo limit can also be set to whatever value you want, maybe for a certain thermal target or power target)


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## JohnnyBravo33 (Jan 26, 2020)

Wahib1997 said:


> Hey mate, even after doing a clean install and reinstalling all the drivers, including the Intel PPM driver, it still wont go past 4ghz, is there nothing else i can do but just deal with it?


I've had the same problem, man. Been trying to solve it for a week, lol. Just reset the BIOS to optimal defaults and you're good. C states should be enabled by default on all laptops.



unclewebb said:


> The manufacturer might have deliberately disabled the C states in the bios to prevent the CPU from going over 4.00 GHz.  That would be really dumb if they did that but manufacturers have been known to do dumb things.  Contact them.  This is not just a performance issue.  Disabling the C states on a laptop will cause it to run much hotter than it needs to run and it will also kill battery run time.
> 
> Ask them why your CPU is not using any of the C states.  They will give you some BS that you should not be using 3rd party tools, etc., etc.  Try running HWiNFO too.  I think it can report C state activity.  If it also reports zero C state activity when idle then it is not the tools.  It is a problem with your laptop.


You were absolutely right about everything you said. C states being locked was causing the CPU to lock itself at 40x multiplier. I've went through my Insyde BIOS, couldn't find the C States option, even though people say it should be there. So, you saying C States on was a great option for laptops - I'm thinking it should be enabled by default. I reset my BIOS to default, and voila! Getting 4.5Ghz boost clocks! Guess the C State option was in the BIOS the whole time! Reseller just hid it, unsuccessfully. 

Off topic - please tell me if there is anything I can tweak to further improve my CPU performance. By that I mean C State window, Speed Shift - EPP value, C1E, SpeedStep, Multiplier, Clock Modulation? By the way, battery life is of no concern to me, I keep my laptop plugged in 99.99% of the time.

PS. The C State disable/enable option doesn't become available upon resetting the BIOS to default, it just gets enabled.


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## Berfs1 (Jan 26, 2020)

JohnnyBravo33 said:


> I've had the same problem, man. Been trying to solve it for a week, lol. Just reset the BIOS to optimal defaults and you're good. C states should be enabled by default on all laptops.
> 
> 
> You were absolutely right about everything you said. C states being locked was causing the CPU to lock itself at 40x multiplier. I've went through my Insyde BIOS, couldn't find the C States option, even though people say it should be there. So, you saying C States on was a great option for laptops - I'm thinking it should be enabled by default. I reset my BIOS to default, and voila! Getting 4.5Ghz boost clocks! Guess the C State option was in the BIOS the whole time! Reseller just hid it, unsuccessfully.
> ...


One small problem, you should use the regular HWiNFO, and you will start to see "effective core clock". Also check in CPU Z. The reason both are important is, one reports the actual CPU frequency, and one reports the effective frequency. The lower the effective frequency, the lower the CPU load, and that is why most apps including task manager show lower than 4GHz, because of that effective core clock. The ACTUAL frequency of the CPU should be 4GHz or above though, since this is an i7-9750H.


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## unclewebb (Jan 27, 2020)

JohnnyBravo33 said:


> You were absolutely right about everything


Thank you and thanks for sharing your method to get the C states working correctly on your laptop.  The 45 multiplier is your reward for troubleshooting this problem.  Laptop manufacturers that disable the C states are not doing their customers any favors.

As for your ThrottleStop settings, Clock Modulation is rarely if ever used on recent laptops.  Unless the ThrottleStop log file specifically shows that you have a clock modulation throttling problem, there is no need to check this option.

When Speed Shift is enabled, (SST in green), the Set Multiplier feature in ThrottleStop is no longer used.  Checking Set Multiplier will waste CPU cycles and will not accomplish anything so do not check this option.  Speed Shift is the modern way for an Intel CPU to manage its speed.  SpeedStep is no longer used when Speed Shift is enabled.  I leave SpeedStep checked but it does not matter one way or the other.

Intel recommends that C1E should always be enabled so I usually go along with that.  It does not really matter though.  Why?  Because cores would much rather be in a deeper C state like C7 where the power savings are greater.  C1E was important when it was first introduced by Intel.  These days, 9th Gen cores spend an insignificant percentage of time in C1E.

If a laptop is plugged in 99.99% of the time, I would be setting the Speed Shift EPP value to 0 for maximum performance.  Now that your C states are working properly, slowing down the CPU does not accomplish very much.  When a CPU core has nothing to do, it will automatically go into the low power core C7 state.  In this state, it is disconnected from the voltage rail so this core is at 0 MHz and 0 volts.  Forcing the CPU to run slow is not necessary.  Internally, when the C states are enabled, the inactive cores are already running as slow as they possibly can.

Try exiting HWMonitor and Google Chrome.  An idle CPU with only ThrottleStop running on the desktop should only need to spend 0.5% or less of its idle time in the C0 state.  If you are higher than this, check the Task Manager to see what is running in the background that probably does not need to be running 24/7.



Berfs1 said:


> The ACTUAL frequency of the CPU should be 4GHz or above though, since this is an i7-9750H.


In his screenshot above, @JohnnyBravo33 has Speed Shift enabled so the actual frequency of his CPU is dropping down below 4 GHz.  If he adjusts the Energy Performance Preference (EPP) variable to 0, that will force the CPU to maintain the maximum multiplier even when lightly loaded.  His EPP setting of 32 is allowing the CPU to slow down a little when lightly loaded.

ThrottleStop correctly reports what his CPU is doing.  The ThrottleStop data helped him to solve his turbo boost problem.


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## Berfs1 (Jan 27, 2020)

unclewebb said:


> Thank you and thanks for sharing your method to get the C states working correctly on your laptop.  The 45 multiplier is your reward for troubleshooting this problem.  Laptop manufacturers that disable the C states are not doing their customers any favors.
> 
> As for your ThrottleStop settings, Clock Modulation is rarely if ever used on recent laptops.  Unless the ThrottleStop log file specifically shows that you have a clock modulation throttling problem, there is no need to check this option.
> 
> ...


I am not disagreeing with that, all I am saying is that, there is a difference with actual frequency and effective frequency. When Intel advertises their "max turbo speed of x GHz", lets say 4.5 GHz in this case, the only time you can actually hit 4.5 GHz when a thread is under load is when only 1 core is enabled. Intel advertises turbo frequency (same story for AMD too), however in order to actually get the most single threaded performance, you have to have one core enabled, NOT one core loaded. You can run your chip at say, 4.8 GHz, but 4.8 GHz is nothing if the effective clock speed is like 1200 MHz, which is common when throttling or idle. For example, my 3770K idles at 4.6-4.7 GHz (47/47/46/46 manual turbo ratios), however it is able to keep cool and idle because the effective clock speed is ~1600 MHz for the chip (most likely due to it being Ivy Bridge and not a newer architecture that can handle 1200 or 1000 MHz effective like the 9750H). If this chip was running 4.7 GHz all time, even with only 2 cores enabled, it would crash. I only enabled the 47x for 1/2 cores so that under idle, it'll get a temporary boost (specifically the same idea as Intel Turbo Boost) but it is NOT stable if you put that under load for very long. The only reason 4.7 is stable for 1/2 core is because the effective clock speed is not 4.7, it is much lower than that, and that is why it can handle the physical frequency of 4.7 GHz. It is very rare to find a processor that can handle an effective frequency the same as the max turbo speed under stock voltage.

Pretty long explanation of effective clock speed, but how does that tie in to the OP's 9750H situation? I will advise them to check the performance through a benchmark, because if the effective clock frequency is still under 4 GHz, the extra clock speed that TS "fixed" (it did to an extent), may not actually translate to any performance benefit whatsoever. However, you will be able to tell if it is performing higher if the power consumption/temps go up (at the same voltage), because then you will know the CPU is processing faster than before (not just frequency). I know it is really confusing, but in regards to turbo boost, max frequency means nothing if the effective clock speed is not equal to that frequency, and therefore, does not translate into higher single threaded performance unless it is able to hold that single core turbo with the same effective clock speed.

One example that may make sense: Let's run an i5-8600K at 4.5 GHz, and then run it at 4.8 GHz. Both are static clock speeds across all cores. Single threaded score is the same. Exact same, not even a single percent higher. Why? Because the 4.8 GHz run did not have an effective frequency of 4.8 GHz, it would have the same effective frequency as the 4.5 GHz run, possibly 4.5 GHz. That specific number doesn't matter, what matters is that the effective clock speeds were the same, despite the actual clock speeds being different.


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## JohnnyBravo33 (Jan 27, 2020)

unclewebb said:


> Thank you and thanks for sharing your method to get the C states working correctly on your laptop.  The 45 multiplier is your reward for troubleshooting this problem.  Laptop manufacturers that disable the C states are not doing their customers any favors.
> 
> Try exiting HWMonitor and Google Chrome. An idle CPU with only ThrottleStop running on the desktop should only need to spend 0.5% or less of its idle time in the C0 state. If you are higher than this, check the Task Manager to see what is running in the background that probably does not need to be running 24/7.


I've set up my ThrottleStop the way you've told me to. Thank you very much for the insights and help @unclewebb ! 
Btw, I have terminated all I could as far as background processes go during the test (screenshots down).



Berfs1 said:


> One small problem, you should use the regular HWiNFO, and you will start to see "effective core clock". Also check in CPU Z. The reason both are important is, one reports the actual CPU frequency, and one reports the effective frequency. The lower the effective frequency, the lower the CPU load, and that is why most apps including task manager show lower than 4GHz, because of that effective core clock. The ACTUAL frequency of the CPU should be 4GHz or above though, since this is an i7-9750H.


I'm unsure as to what are you talking about exactly @Berfs1 (simply 'cause I'm a real newb to all this), so I'll just post my Cinebench scores, CPU usage % and frequencies in HWiNFO and CPU Z.
I can report definitely that there's a notable single core performance boost (7.69%).

Cinebench R15 score new vs old - 



http://imgur.com/5SZGbnF

CPU usage percentage and frequencies during the test - 



http://imgur.com/jN8cPFn

CPU usage percentage and frequencies during the test - 







(recorded with an external device to not affect CPU usage)

Thank you from the bottom of my heart @unclewebb


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## Wahib1997 (Jan 29, 2020)

JohnnyBravo33 said:


> I've had the same problem, man. Been trying to solve it for a week, lol. Just reset the BIOS to optimal defaults and you're good. C states should be enabled by default on all laptops.
> 
> 
> You were absolutely right about everything you said. C states being locked was causing the CPU to lock itself at 40x multiplier. I've went through my Insyde BIOS, couldn't find the C States option, even though people say it should be there. So, you saying C States on was a great option for laptops - I'm thinking it should be enabled by default. I reset my BIOS to default, and voila! Getting 4.5Ghz boost clocks! Guess the C State option was in the BIOS the whole time! Reseller just hid it, unsuccessfully.
> ...


Yeah mate you were right i ended up just resetting the bios to optimized defaults and viola it works fine now LOL. Also thankyou unclewebb for all your help, please keep up your amazing service to everyone who has daily IT issues!


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## JohnnyBravo33 (Jan 29, 2020)

Wahib1997 said:


> Yeah mate you were right i ended up just resetting the bios to optimized defaults and viola it works fine now LOL. Also thankyou unclewebb for all your help, please keep up your amazing service to everyone who has daily IT issues!


Glad I could help, man!


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## dvrko (Apr 2, 2020)

JohnnyBravo33 said:


> Glad I could help, man!



hello there hopefully I'm not late on this thread but I'm not kind of expert about the c states and I was wondering if it's alright that mines are like the ones of the op  basically I'm just wondering if it's normal not to have package c6 running as you can see even idle my temps are kinda high so rather than the power user I'm more of the lower the temps! user so I was just wondering if it has anything to do with it and if someone can help me to lower these temps during idle cause during high load with a profile made by me they wont go past 80


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## Berfs1 (Apr 2, 2020)

dvrko said:


> hello there hopefully I'm not late on this thread but I'm not kind of expert about the c states and I was wondering if it's alright that mines are like the ones of the op  basically I'm just wondering if it's normal not to have package c6 running as you can see even idle my temps are kinda high so rather than the power user I'm more of the lower the temps! user so I was just wondering if it has anything to do with it and if someone can help me to lower these temps during idle cause during high load with a profile made by me they wont go past 80


When my laptop is plugged in, I have everything maxed out except for cache, and that is 39x-42x, but that on on idle goes around 58C. If I need my temps lowered, I just run the battery profile when plugged in and/or unplug the laptop, and it automatically drops clocks. My cache for battery profile is 8x-26x, I believe that is why my temps are pretty low under idle (because its a power saving profile), and also current limits help big time. I have a 23.5A limit on core on my battery profile, that one really helps limit the max power the processor takes. 23.5A is about the sweetspot before the CPU hits 63C at which the fans kick in. When you limit the current, you basically limit the max power the processor takes, so while the equation is Voltage (V) * Amperage (A) = Wattage (W), undervolting helps, but lowering the current limit also helps. A tradeoff is your frequency will automatically be lowered as you lower the current limit. That tradeoff does not happen automatically when you lower voltage, that is a tradeoff you manually have to do because the more power a processor takes (up to a certain limit), it will be able to operate faster. The flip side is, if you slow down the CPU, you can reduce the power the processor takes, and that in turn lowers the heat generated from the processor (lowering temperatures).


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## dvrko (Apr 2, 2020)

Berfs1 said:


> When my laptop is plugged in, I have everything maxed out except for cache, and that is 39x-42x, but that on on idle goes around 58C. If I need my temps lowered, I just run the battery profile when plugged in and/or unplug the laptop, and it automatically drops clocks. My cache for battery profile is 8x-26x, I believe that is why my temps are pretty low under idle (because its a power saving profile), and also current limits help big time. I have a 23.5A limit on core on my battery profile, that one really helps limit the max power the processor takes. 23.5A is about the sweetspot before the CPU hits 63C at which the fans kick in. When you limit the current, you basically limit the max power the processor takes, so while the equation is Voltage (V) * Amperage (A) = Wattage (W), undervolting helps, but lowering the current limit also helps. A tradeoff is your frequency will automatically be lowered as you lower the current limit. That tradeoff does not happen automatically when you lower voltage, that is a tradeoff you manually have to do because the more power a processor takes (up to a certain limit), it will be able to operate faster. The flip side is, if you slow down the CPU, you can reduce the power the processor takes, and that in turn lowers the heat generated from the processor (lowering temperatures).


fact is with my battery profile which has the settings I provided(I believe they're pretty similar to yours) the temps won't stay low, the thing is i can't do normal task like watching yt videos without having my fans spinning and if I turn them off my pc start going on around 65c which is not that good considering I'm doing something not cpu heavy which requires the clock to stay lower than 2.5ghz so at this point it's either the cpu that is badly pasted or idk keep in mind the temps shown in the screen below are taken with my fans going at ab 4700 rpm


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## Berfs1 (Apr 6, 2020)

dvrko said:


> fact is with my battery profile which has the settings I provided(I believe they're pretty similar to yours) the temps won't stay low, the thing is i can't do normal task like watching yt videos without having my fans spinning and if I turn them off my pc start going on around 65c which is not that good considering I'm doing something not cpu heavy which requires the clock to stay lower than 2.5ghz so at this point it's either the cpu that is badly pasted or idk keep in mind the temps shown in the screen below are taken with my fans going at ab 4700 rpm


I see the problem. Where you have 128A current limit, I have 23.5A. A fact not a lot of people care about, lowering the current limit actually doesn't make the system unstable, rather is a manual control over how much power the CPU takes. Almost everyone cares about voltage (which is fine) as that is what is related to overclocking, however with undervolting, you wan't to make sure you use current limits. 128A means the processor will pull 128A max at, lets say 0.8V. That means the max power it is allowed to draw is 102.4 W. That is the MAX power the processor will take before it underclocks itself or undervolts further. I have 23.5A at, lets say 0.8V. At the most I would be taking 18.8W. Now actually, my processor takes around 15W on a stress test and a little more when rendering ray tracing for Autodesk Inventor Professional, but unless I am doing the ray tracing, the fans do not spin because the processor power consumption is very low. When idling and on battery, it takes around 2W in balanced power plan. Battery life usually is around 6-8hrs on my laptop. Ok I have gone wayyyyy off topic

Back to your system; you need to lower your current limit (IccMax) significantly, to 10-30A (depending on how aggressive you want the power savings to be). Do the same for cache, but you won't need more than around 20A. That should fix your temperatures as long as it actually limits the current; if your system ignores it, well, that's something else.


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## Manuelicata (Apr 13, 2020)

Hi guys, *thank you for this thread*. I have read all the messages and they are really interesting, I have learned many new things.

I recently bought a Y540 with i7-9750H and 2060. While waiting for the liquid metal, I decided to follow your instructions.

I am in this situation:
- 0.145V Core & Cache
- 0.065V iGPU & Unslice
SpeedSteep on -> SpeedShift on
Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limit

C State as an attachment

Cinebench R20 Multi 3050
Cinebench R20 Single 440

Can I still improve anything else? Does ThrottleStop need to start you with Windows?

I would also like to create a profile to save battery life when I'm traveling (not for playing). Thanks for the replies


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## unclewebb (Apr 13, 2020)

Manuelicata said:


> Does ThrottleStop need to start you with Windows?


Yes.  If you do not start ThrottleStop, it will not make any changes to your CPU.  ThrottleStop does not write anything to your registry.  Any changes it makes should automatically be reset each time your boot up.  After you have thoroughly tested your settings, you can use the Task Scheduler to add ThrottleStop to your Windows start-up sequence.






						TechnologyGuide
					

Thank you for visiting the TechnologyGuide network. Unfortunately, these forums are no longer active. We extend a heartfelt thank you to the entire community for their steadfast support—it is really you, our readers, that drove




					forum.notebookreview.com
				




The best setup when running on battery power depends on what you are doing with your laptop.  You could do something simple like create a battery profile that disables Intel Turbo Boost or go into the FIVR window and reduce the turbo ratios to whatever you like.  That might help but might not make much of a difference.  

Keeping useless Windows background tasks to a minimum is a good way to increase battery run time.  You appear to already be doing this.  Your cores are spending most of their idle time in the low power core C7 state.  Package C7 is also working correctly which is better than most laptops.  You will have to do some testing to find out what works best for you and your laptop.

After you get your liquid metal installed, you might want to check out the new ThrottleStop feature that lets you increase your thermal throttling (PROCHOT) temperature back up to the Intel recommended 100°C.  









						Product Specifications
					

quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.




					ark.intel.com
				




Lowering the PROCHOT temperature is a cheesy way that manufacturers have been using to cut corners.  This helps them hide the fact that their heatsink and fan are inadequate.


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## ereko (Jul 2, 2020)

Manuelicata said:


> Hi guys, *thank you for this thread*. I have read all the messages and they are really interesting, I have learned many new things.
> 
> I recently bought a Y540 with i7-9750H and 2060. While waiting for the liquid metal, I decided to follow your instructions.
> 
> ...


I have the same laptop and my scores are 3164 multi & 465 one. But what do you want from you laptop and what games you play? Do you use afterburner?


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## Bongh (Oct 5, 2020)

Hi folks,
I have a g5 5590 with i7-9750h and RTX 2060 and there is something i miss understand.
When i just bought the laptop i did severals stresstest and benchmarks and my CPU rised and stayed at 4.4 Ghz under full load with the all 6cores working.
The all system was hot as hell and i undercloack and undervolt the cpu with trottlestop when i was gaming.
But now I have the same results mentionned above : 3.93 Ghz max frequency (even with 1thread  stress test, C state enabled)
I only manage to reach 4.4 Ghz by booting windows on a single core.

So... I do understand the multipliyer limit to 4GHz when 6cores are activated but why did it initialy worked and it does not anymore ?


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## Zach_01 (Oct 5, 2020)

Temp and power limits are usually the "suspects" for such behaviour. Any changes on ambient temp?
Do you have any tool for monitoring? I suggest the HWiNFO64 (sensors window) and leave it run all times at systray/background so you can see it any time.
You can see, current. min, max, and avg values of all sensors for as long as it runs, or reset the values to start again from that point on.


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## unclewebb (Oct 5, 2020)

1 core active - 45 multiplier
2 cores active - 44 multiplier
3 cores active - 43 multiplier  
4 cores active - 42 multiplier
5 cores active - 41 multiplier
6 cores active - 40 multiplier








						Core i7-9750H  - Intel - WikiChip
					

Core i7-9750H is a 64-bit hexa-core high-end performance x86 mobile microprocessor introduced by Intel in early 2019. This processor, which is based on the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, is manufactured on Intel's 3rd generation enhanced 14nm++ process. The i7-9750H operates at 2.6 GHz with a...




					en.wikichip.org
				





Bongh said:


> my CPU rised and stayed at 4.4 GHz under full load with the all 6cores working.


The maximum multiplier when 6 cores are active is only 40. It is physically impossible for the 9750H to run at 4.4 GHz when all 6 cores are active. The maximum multiplier is locked.

The maximum speed for this CPU when 6 cores are active is usually 3990 MHz (40.0 X 99.767 MHz)


Bongh said:


> 3.93 GHz max frequency


What monitoring software are you using? The Task Manager is not 100% accurate. When your CPU is running at 3.99 GHz, the Task Manager might show 3.93 GHz. ThrottleStop does not have this problem.


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