MSI Vector 17 HX A14VIG "EDP OTHER"

[eniva]

Hello friend unclewebb.

I also own an msi laptop, to be exact the Vector 17 HX A14VIG.

I would like to compare my settings with yours if possible to see if I'm doing everything right.

At idle I usually get "EDP OTHER" yellow in core, gpu, ring but at maximum load nothing appears (CINEBENCH R23 I got a score of 35,106 points in 10 minute test).

Greetings and thanks for your great work.

 

[ProgUn1corn]

This is normal since MSI locks the current limit in EC, it does not matter what current limit you set in the BIOS so there's constant EDP Other.

But if this doesn't affect your real world usage, then just ignore it. Also laptops are pretty restricted in terms of hardware design, nearly every laptop on the market has EDP Other problems.

 

[unclewebb]

EDP OTHER

I found that setting Power Limit 4 to the max, 1023, works better than setting Power Limit 4 to a value of 0. That is going to be my new recommendation going forward. I get a yellow EDP OTHER box under the RING column when idle. Full load is OK when running Cinebench.

I do not think it is necessary to check the PP0 Power Limit box. I never do.

175W is not enough to run Cinebench at full speed. I had to set IMON Slope in the BIOS to 50 to get around any power limit throttling problems. The only throttling I get now is temperature related.

Do you use MSI Center? I use it for fan control. I am now seeing two TDP sliders in MSI Center. PL1 is max 140W and PL2 is max 175W. These limits are EC power limits so they cannot be controlled by using ThrottleStop. IMON Slope adjustment was the only way I found to get around this limitation.

You can update the microcode to version 0x12B by using this method.

[INTEL]-How To Update Your Microcode for Intel HX 13/14th Gen. CPUs Laptops/Mobile Easily.

Let me start with a small background info... Since we know all Intel's fiasco about what is happening with Raptor Lake/Raptor Lake Refresh which is Intel's codename for the 13th and 14th generations of Intel Core processors, Most OEM/Vendors doesn't want to provide BIOS update that includes...

www.techpowerup.com

Supposedly the latest microcode versions can help prevent the CPU from degrading. I am not sure why the latest BIOS versions from MSI are still using the older 0x116 microcode version.

Your core and cache undervolt settings are very similar to what I use. Somewhere in the -150 mV to -160 mV range is Cinebench stable. I have not done any extensive stability testing yet. Trying to pace myself.

Use ThrottleStop 9.7.2. Some users found a bug that sometimes can lock the CPU to a low speed when MMIO Lock was checked in ThrottleStop 9.7. I rewrote some code in the MMIO Lock section to fix this problem. No complaints so far.

I set all of the P cores to the 52 multiplier. Lowering all of the turbo groups to 52 in the FIVR window helps prevent the voltage from spiking to much higher values.

CINEBENCH R23 I got a score of 35,106 points in 10 minute test

35K is a solid result during the 10 minute test. The Vector series along with pretty much all laptops with 14900HX processors are limited by their cooling. These CPUs can consume huge amounts of power if you remove all of the various power and current limits. Bouncing off the 100°C thermal throttling limit is the new normal when fully loaded. Anyone that moves to the Arctic can start setting records.

My best Cinebench score so far is during a single R23 run. I am waiting for some cooler outdoor air next week to help the cause.

 

[eniva]

175W is not enough to run Cinebench at full speed. I had to set IMON Slope in the BIOS to 50 to get around any power limit throttling problems. The only throttling I get now is temperature related.

By changing IMON Slope to 50 I see that PKG Power goes from 161W at full power to only displaying 86.5W.
Is this normal? Is there any risk of putting more power into the processor and it burning out?

Do you use MSI Center? I use it for fan control. I am now seeing two TDP sliders in MSI Center. PL1 is max 140W and PL2 is max 175W. These limits are EC power limits so they cannot be controlled by using ThrottleStop. IMON Slope adjustment was the only way I found to get around this limitation.

I don't use MSI Center, I did a clean install of Windows because I had too many problems and many of them were caused by MSI Center, something made ThrottleStop angry, since it is not installed I no longer receive errors of pl1 and pl2 in red.
The fan control seems to be working fine without the application

I set all of the P cores to the 52 multiplier. Lowering all of the turbo groups to 52 in the FIVR window helps prevent the voltage from spiking to much higher values.

I used the Valour549 tutorial and the truth is that those p core values work well for me.
What I'm looking for is to lower temperatures to play for long hours without temperature problems or having the fan at maximum operation.

For now, what confuses me the most is the BIOS, there are many options that I still don't know what they do or if they are limiting the ThrottleStop functions, I have to continue investigating.
I will continue doing performance tests and I will post them here to compare with colleagues who have similar equipment to help.

Greetings and thank you very much.

 

[ProgUn1corn]

By changing IMON Slope to 50 I see that PKG Power goes from 161W at full power to only displaying 86.5W.
Is this normal? Is there any risk of putting more power into the processor and it burning out?

Changing this basically means your system reads CPU power in half, it's 50/100 so 1/2. It only changes the readout number, if you don't do other things, then it's just that; but most people do this due to EC power limits under CPU+GPU combined load, or shitty user scenarios that literally every laptop brand has.

For example, if I have a cooler like IETS GT500 that uses a foam to push air into your laptop heavily, then maybe my laptop can do more than the default power limits. Let's just say a laptop can do 60w+140w CPU+GPU combined load, and that's written in EC so in normal ways no matter how you unlock the CPU power, when GPU is using power, your CPU is gonna limited by EC to achieve that 200w total. But with this IMON Slope, now your system reads your CPU power half as it would be, it becomes 30w+140w. Now the system can push the readout to 60w+140w to achieve 200w total limit, but actually your CPU is running at 120w so it will actually become a 120w+140w load. (although this is very unlikely on air-cooled laptop without modification, CPU gets hot very quickly after like 100w due to the die size, so most people probably won't use a value like 50. HIgh power like MSI comes from GPU power.) This won't hurt your either, your CPU will just throttle all the time to protect itself from being overheat, since it's actually running at double the wattage.

Another example, where those laptop brands' shitty user scenario limits fan control. Let's just say your MSI, I'm using MSI Raider as well. The fully unlocked mode has 250w with incredibly loud fans even the temps are under control (like below 70c on GPU), and this is written in EC so you can't change. The balanced mode has moderate fan noise (also written in EC you can't change), but a much lower power target of 200w. In this use case, you can adjust IMON Slope to actually use 250w of power while telling the system you are using 200w, and it will not blast fans to 6000RPM all the time. This is the example you may burn yourself if you go too far, like use Silent Mode but push your power to 300w so the fans will not spin and it's a hot mess. But I wouldn't do this since I'm OK with the fan noise and I don't want to use that shitty center at all to fight with my mighty Throttlestop

Back to the specific case here, MSI doesn't limit your CPU to 150w of power, in fact, if you undervolt more, you can just use like 140w or 130w of power, but it doesn't go beyond that. Mine caps at about 147w if undervolted heavily. It's because the ICCMax is low, like around 170A where it's much lower than it should be. Low ICCMax limits the power output, thus you get a limit of 150w or 140w while constantly hitting EDP Others. Changing your IMON Slope to 50 just make the readout to 80w, but it can't go higher because the current limit is the culprit here.

 

[eniva]

You can update the microcode to version 0x12B by using this method.

Regarding the update, something is not right with that update. After the update, I always had PL2 yellow and then red, no matter what combination I put in, I always ended up with PL2 red just by starting a game. When I went back to the original version with the same parameters, I no longer had the PL2 error.

That update is not right for the laptop or for throttlestop.

Use ThrottleStop 9.7.2. Some users found a bug that sometimes can lock the CPU to a low speed when MMIO Lock was checked in ThrottleStop 9.7. I rewrote some code in the MMIO Lock section to fix this problem. No complaints so far.

I set all of the P cores to the 52 multiplier. Lowering all of the turbo groups to 52 in the FIVR window helps prevent the voltage from spiking to much higher values.

Maybe it's a coincidence, but when using the latest version it crashed on x42, it didn't pay attention to the settings I set, I had to reset the BIOS and it was fixed.

Changing this basically means your system reads CPU power in half, it's 50/100 so 1/2. It only changes the readout number, if you don't do other things, then it's just that; but most people do this due to EC power limits under CPU+GPU combined load, or shitty user scenarios that literally every laptop brand has.

For example, if I have a cooler like IETS GT500 that uses a foam to push air into your laptop heavily, then maybe my laptop can do more than the default power limits. Let's just say a laptop can do 60w+140w CPU+GPU combined load, and that's written in EC so in normal ways no matter how you unlock the CPU power, when GPU is using power, your CPU is gonna limited by EC to achieve that 200w total. But with this IMON Slope, now your system reads your CPU power half as it would be, it becomes 30w+140w. Now the system can push the readout to 60w+140w to achieve 200w total limit, but actually your CPU is running at 120w so it will actually become a 120w+140w load. (although this is very unlikely on air-cooled laptop without modification, CPU gets hot very quickly after like 100w due to the die size, so most people probably won't use a value like 50. HIgh power like MSI comes from GPU power.) This won't hurt your either, your CPU will just throttle all the time to protect itself from being overheat, since it's actually running at double the wattage.

Another example, where those laptop brands' shitty user scenario limits fan control. Let's just say your MSI, I'm using MSI Raider as well. The fully unlocked mode has 250w with incredibly loud fans even the temps are under control (like below 70c on GPU), and this is written in EC so you can't change. The balanced mode has moderate fan noise (also written in EC you can't change), but a much lower power target of 200w. In this use case, you can adjust IMON Slope to actually use 250w of power while telling the system you are using 200w, and it will not blast fans to 6000RPM all the time. This is the example you may burn yourself if you go too far, like use Silent Mode but push your power to 300w so the fans will not spin and it's a hot mess. But I wouldn't do this since I'm OK with the fan noise and I don't want to use that shitty center at all to fight with my mighty Throttlestop

Back to the specific case here, MSI doesn't limit your CPU to 150w of power, in fact, if you undervolt more, you can just use like 140w or 130w of power, but it doesn't go beyond that. Mine caps at about 147w if undervolted heavily. It's because the ICCMax is low, like around 170A where it's much lower than it should be. Low ICCMax limits the power output, thus you get a limit of 150w or 140w while constantly hitting EDP Others. Changing your IMON Slope to 50 just make the readout to 80w, but it can't go higher because the current limit is the culprit here.

Wow, thanks for the explanation, everything is clearer now. In my case I don't need to use it since I'm always below the limit to have good temperatures so there are no conflicts between temperatures and fans.