TS documentation?

[lianzi2000]

I like TS a lot, but it seems lack of proper documentation. How the latest feature "V/F points" should be used? I expect the "mV" column should have some default values, but instead they are all zeros. Does it mean my CPU (i9 14900HX) does not support V/F point editting?

 

[unclewebb]

I assume that most computers at default settings will have set all of the V/F Points to zero.

Enter a positive value in mV if you want to add voltage at the specified MHz. Use a negative value to decrease voltage.

I did not have access to a 14900HX when I wrote the code for this feature. Intel does not publicly document V/F voltage control.

No one knows what values will work best for your CPU. It is all trial and error.

You can choose to do regular undervolting. No one needs to use this new undocumented feature.

Does it mean my CPU (i9 14900HX) does not support V/F point editting?

It appears that your 14900HX supports this feature. If this feature was locked, the V/F Point window would show Locked. If Undervolt Protection was enabled by the BIOS, the V/F Point window would show Undervolt Protection.

The easiest way to determine if this feature works is enter a small positive value into the empty box at the top left. That would be the 800 MHz Profile 1 box. An empty box is equivalent to zero. I prefer to look at empty boxes as opposed to a bunch of boxes that all have 0 in them.

If ThrottleStop is presently set to use Profile 1 and you press the Apply button, you should see this same value show up in the V/F monitoring area on the left side. My 10th Gen 10850K only supports 8 separate Core V/F Points.

Pressing the V/F Info button will explain V/F tuning a little more than I can. Publicly available information about V/F tuning will forever be hard to find. Maybe if this new feature catches on, there might be some more discussion in the forums but I doubt it. This is a very niche kind of feature.

 

[lianzi2000]

It indeed works! by making the curve a bit steeper, I was able to push the performance a bit higher with barely any thermothrottle. Thanks bro for the powerful piece of s/w! I am satisfied with the results, consider my box is probably a bad silicon..

 

[unclewebb]

bad silicon

I think that excuse is over used. Knowing how to set up ThrottleStop can get the most out of bad silicon.

 

[lianzi2000]

I think that excuse is over used. Knowing how to set up ThrottleStop can get the most out of bad silicon.

Well, I managed to push the Multicore score in cinebench 2024 to 1870 or so, that is all I can do. Weirdly, the single core score is surprisingly low under the same profile, only 102. It used to reach 124 which I think is normal, but I forgot under what settings.

 

[turtlemark]

My platform is 14900K+MSI Z790i Edge, and the new VF points feature works as expected. Thanks!
I'm using MSI and ASRock motherboards, but the UI for Global Offset and the UI for VF Tuning overrides each other in BIOS. In MSI BIOS, setting VF points offsets first, then setting global offset and leaving the global offset UI there, will active both global offset and VF points offsets, while a reversed setting process will ignore global offset and only active VF points offsets. In ASRock BIOS, only one of global offset, per-core offset and VF points offset can be selected and no way to get a combination.
With ThrottleStop, I can easily set global offset and VF points offsets simultaneously. Since higher ratio leaves smaller undervolt value, the combination of a negative global offset and some high frequency point positive offsets helps a lot!

 

[lianzi2000]

These V/F point offsets, once set, are they stored in some hardware registers, in other words, are they still effective even when TS is not running?

 

[unclewebb]

My platform is 14900K+MSI Z790i Edge, and the new VF points feature works as expected. Thanks!

Thank you for the feedback. Intel is a master at hiding their documentation so even the BIOS writers may not know exactly how the V/F offsets work. Some hands on testing is always best. ThrottleStop has always been a tool mostly for laptops. Good to hear that some desktop users might be interested in this new feature. I found it interesting that my Asus Z490 desktop motherboard BIOS only allows access to the core V/F voltage settings. ThrottleStop now provides access to both the core and the cache V/F values individually and they both seem to work.

These V/F point offsets, once set, are they stored in some hardware registers, in other words, are they still effective even when TS is not running?

Anything voltage related is stored within a register within the CPU. When you exit ThrottleStop, all of the V/F values will be left exactly as you set them. They will only change if some other software on your computer changes them or if you reboot. Most computers will reset the voltage registers during a sleep resume cycle but nothing is guaranteed. If the Windows Fast Startup feature is enabled in Power Options, the voltage register might not get reset.

It is always best to test so you can find out what your motherboard does. I would exit ThrottleStop, do a sleep resume, and then before running ThrottleStop again, delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file. This allows ThrottleStop to read the voltage values that the CPU is currently set to. Does anything show up in the V/F table after you do this?

 

[lianzi2000]

Thank you for the feedback. Intel is a master at hiding their documentation so even the BIOS writers may not know exactly how the V/F offsets work. Some hands on testing is always best. ThrottleStop has always been a tool mostly for laptops. Good to hear that some desktop users might be interested in this new feature. I found it interesting that my Asus Z490 desktop motherboard BIOS only allows access to the core V/F voltage settings. ThrottleStop now provides access to both the core and the cache V/F values individually and they both seem to work.


Anything voltage related is stored within a register within the CPU. When you exit ThrottleStop, all of the V/F values will be left exactly as you set them. They will only change if some other software on your computer changes them or if you reboot. Most computers will reset the voltage registers during a sleep resume cycle but nothing is guaranteed. If the Windows Fast Startup feature is enabled in Power Options, the voltage register might not get reset.

It is always best to test so you can find out what your motherboard does. I would exit ThrottleStop, do a sleep resume, and then before running ThrottleStop again, delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file. This allows ThrottleStop to read the voltage values that the CPU is currently set to. Does anything show up in the V/F table after you do this?

Thanks for make it clear. Obviously I set these values too aggressive now I am having trouble boot up windows as it crashes at the logon screen. I thought after a reboot they should not be there anymore.

 

[unclewebb]

After a blue screen the voltage register should reset.

Did you add ThrottleStop to the Task Scheduler so it auto starts with Windows? You should not do this when playing with the voltage settings. Try booting up into safe mode and delete the ThrottleStop.INI file if you are still having problems.

 

[lianzi2000]

After a blue screen the voltage register should reset.

Did you add ThrottleStop to the Task Scheduler so it auto starts with Windows? You should not do this when playing with the voltage settings. Try booting up into safe mode and delete the ThrottleStop.INI file if you are still having problems.

I did but with a safety trick: I check both the AC profile and Battery profile to a dummy one (say #3) that forces everything in original value, so when restart it always land on the dummy profile and I have chance to adjust other profiles. But the V/F values does seem to stick to a reboot if not a BSOD. When BSOD happens the values are cleared.

Anyway it seems the windows kernel loading is much more demanding than all the stability tests. I ran prime 95 on my previous settings for 12 hours with no error found, yet can't load windows on it. It is also annoying that when inside a fully booted windows a setting may work perfectly ok but once I put it on autoloading then it crashes.

Just for information, I put a set of small numbers of V/F point table in one profile and applied. Then I exist TS and delete the ini file and restart windows (without TS auto loading). After windows booted I run TS (without the ini file), the V/F table shows the previous set of values in all 4 profiles. So these values do persistent upon a normal restart and TS smartly loads them as initial values for all 4 profiles.