Solved! Something's underclocking my CPU

mizteck

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Mar 26, 2011
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Hello,

Can someone please help me out here, I'm at my wits end! Noticed something weird about my NP5135 with i7 640m today and it's bugging the crap out of me.

The multiplier stays at x14 ~ 1.9ghz max when it should be x21 ~ 2.8ghz. I think it is software related but I have no idea what is actually causing the problem.

I have not done any over/under clocking on this laptop.

The reason I think it's software related is that the multiplier correctly goes up to x21 ~ 2.8ghz as soon as I enter desktop on boot up, but quickly gets limited to x14 ~1.9ghz when windows finishes loading everything. I have tried to terminate processes one by one while running prime95 to see which one is limiting it but had no success.

Here's some screenshots of processes running. If more info is needed please give me a shout.

Specs:

i7 640m
4gig Ram
Windows 7 Home SP1
Geforce GT 425m

processe.jpg
 
Solution
What's the logithec KHAL process, and what does MacDrive do? Since the CPU seems to run normally at reboot, and then gets underclocked, it seems likely that there is a process that is scheduled to start with Windows that throttles the CPU at soon as it gets launched. User-defined power management settings would normally kick in at soon as a session is opened.

If you have a copy of XP lying around, or if you can download a Linux distro, a solution could be to try and dual-boot one of these OSes on the same hardware, and see if the CPU runs normally then. If it does, some software's messing with your i7.

mizteck

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Thanks for the reply. I know about the speedstepping, but the issue here is that even running prime95 on 100% max load the cpu only ramp up to x14 ~1.9ghz, when it should be running at 2.8ghz - 3.3 (on turbo) under full load.
 

mizteck

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i'm on the high performance profile already with 100% processor power under max.

I don't think its a hardware issue because as I said there's a tiny window of time when I first enter desktop on boot that I can see the clockspeed working fine.

It's once windows finishes loading everything that this "limit" kicks in and maxes out the clockspeed at x14 on full load.
 

HansVonOhain

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It is the limitation of the Turbo. If you stress all cores to the max, the multiplier will go up only 1x. That 2.7ghz turbo is when only 1 core is stressed while other cores are waiting for commands.
 

sabot00

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Actually that's wrong, taken from Intel's spec sheet 2.8Ghz is the normal max, under turbo the i7-640m can actually go up to 3.46Ghz
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=49666

Go into Device Manager, and uninstall Microsoft ACPI-Complaint System under System.
 

mizteck

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Problem with Safe Mode is that CPU-Z will not detect the CPU, therefore I can't see the max clockspeed while running Prime95.

I uninstalled Mirosoft ACPI-Complaint System but that only uninstalled NVidia drivers and some controllers, which were instantly re-installed by windows 7 on reboot. Problem still exists
 

mizteck

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I'm in safemode right now and the resource monitor's frequency stats is obviously off because it shows 100% ALL THE TIME, even while idling with 0% CPU usage.

Any other ideas?
 

Bacterius

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Not sure but I believe the i7 can boost cores by sacrificing others - that is, it can make two cores act like a single, faster one. This is useful when software doesn't make use of more cores, but in the case of Prime95 this particular piece of software lends itself very well to multithreading, which makes it use all of your processor's cores, and as a result neither core can benefit from speed boost. Thus your overall speed per core doesn't exceed 1.9GHz. There's a simple test for this - try and set the affinity for Prime95 to only the first core - if the CPU goes up to 2.8+GHz, there's your answer.
 

Bacterius

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What's the logithec KHAL process, and what does MacDrive do? Since the CPU seems to run normally at reboot, and then gets underclocked, it seems likely that there is a process that is scheduled to start with Windows that throttles the CPU at soon as it gets launched. User-defined power management settings would normally kick in at soon as a session is opened.

If you have a copy of XP lying around, or if you can download a Linux distro, a solution could be to try and dual-boot one of these OSes on the same hardware, and see if the CPU runs normally then. If it does, some software's messing with your i7.
 
Solution

mizteck

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That's what I suspect as well. Logitech KHAL is the software that runs my mx518. MacDrive is a program that reads external harddrives that are formatted for MacOS.

I have removed MacDrive since the first post, didn't solve the problem. I think this is going to end up being a trial and error and even maybe result in a re-installation of win7 but it's near exam time I really don't have time for it.

I even restored my system to pre-SP1 installation and confirmed that SP1 upgrade did not result in this issue.