X220: Uncontrollable CPU Throttling (e.g. Civ 5)

Folks, I'm having a bit of a major issue I can't solve with my x220 (i7/6gb/160gb ssd).
It is connected to the AC, with the battery also plugged in at the same time. 99% charge.
When I play Civ 5 for any length of time, the CPU throttles down to 800mhz (8x multiplier) - which really hits performance drastically as you can imagine. CPU temp never gets above mid-70s using HWinfo32 during playing. Power Manager is configured to maximum performance.
Even when I reset the computer, the CPU doesn't throttle back up to normal speed - I have to actually shut-down and restart from cold for CPU to rethrttle back up.
I'm running bios 1.11. I really don't want to have to disable CPU power mgmt in the bios. This is kind of a deal breaker problem - no??
Any tips or guidance greatly appreciated - thanks.
Petrov.
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My solution (or so I thought) to Power Manager/CPU throttling problems!!!

I have found a solution to all my Power Manager/CPU throttling problems!!! Though there is some good and bad news.
{EDIT: The problem has NOT been fixed, even after latest PowerManager (3.62) and BIOS (1.30) versions. Pretty much ignore anything I say below as the problem is still occurring. You can see my full post here: http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/W-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/W520-Speedstep-not-working-properly-on-battery-...}
Good news: I have NONE of the throttling issues or inconsistent CPU frequency problems I was having before on AC or battery power. Everything, including TurboBoost on battery works! It is completely fixed! (I have no idea how this factors into Lenovo’s statements that TurboBoost is disabled on battery “by design”. There is at least one other post from someone else that also reported TurboBoost was working for them on battery)
Bad news: I don’t really know which one of the many things I tried actually worked. I am sorry I wasn’t more methodical about recording what I did and checking results, but this was my last ditch effort to get this fixed on my own without sending the system in for repair and frankly, I didn’t think it would work. Now that it has worked, I’m hoping my steps can help others.
For anyone interested, here’s what I did… and before anyone says something like “That has nothing to do with managing power/cpu, why would that help?!… etc., please keep in mind I’m just stating exactly what I did. I am aware some of the steps may not be relevant, but who knows… We all know how weird PC’s are sometimes, even the smallest, oddest thing may resolve a problem.So anyway, here goes.
**IMPORTANT** Not sure how many noticed, but there was a new version of Power Manager released a few weeks ago, 3.62. The PM driver seems to have stayed the same. That alone could very well be the sole fix, I’m not sure. You may just want to completely remove PM and PM driver and install the latest version before trying any of the steps below.
1)Made a complete system image via Windows built-in backup feature
2)Disable any 3rd party fan/CPU control utilities (Throttlestop, etc). Make sure they are also not going to run at startup or from a scheduled task
3)Remove Power Manager Driver, then remove Power Manager software
4)Reboot to Windows
5)Remove all traces of the Power Manager drivers/software directories (think it was something like C:\readyapps and C:\drivers.) **For some odd reason after I did this, my wireless stopped working but it resolved itself by the time I was done with these steps, strange
6)Reboot
7)Access BIOS and reset all settings to default
8)Boot into Windows, downgrade to BIOS 1.25 [UEFI: 1.25 - 8BET44WW / ECP: 1.14 8AHT32WW ] via the Windows flash utility. I wanted to downgrade all the way back to 1.06, but the software would throw up some error for any version prior to 1.25 and wouldn’t proceed
9)Reboot to Windows; make sure system booted w/ out issues
10)Reboot again, access BIOS, reset to defaults again
11)Shut down system
12)Disconnect AC power. Remove main battery. Access and disconnect system backup (a.k.a CMOS) battery under keyboard. Discharge residual power in the system (there are various ways to do this, but you could just leave the battery disconnected for a few minutes). Visually inspect the system for anything funky…my system had a slightly but noticeably loose CPU/GPU heat sink/fan assembly power connector.
13)Reconnect backup battery.
14)Reconnect AC power but leave main battery disconnected.
15)Power on. Should get a message indicating “checksum error, system time reset” or something like that.
16)Reboot to Windows. Verified still okay.
17)Downloaded latest BIOS version, 1.26. This time I burned the bootable BIOS flash CD instead of running it through Windows.
18)Restart and boot from disc, flash BIOS to 1.26. Once complete, restart. Verify BIOS set to defaults.
19)Boot back into Windows.
20)Install latest Power Manager driver (1.62 ), reboot if/as prompted. Install Power Manager (3.62), reboot as prompted.
21)Boot into Windows, verified Power Manager was active and working. Verified TurboBoost was working. Restarted system a few times and played around with Power Manager for a bit to see if the different power plans worked and retained the settings, all the while monitoring the Intel TurboBoost utility and PM’s own “power gauges”. Let system Sleep, changed power sources, resumed, etc. Everything was working great.
22)Shutdown, reconnect main battery. Booted into Windows. Again, fiddled with Power Manager for a bit, switching between power plans and AC/battery power. Still worked great.
23)Success!
That’s it. Again, this is not a guaranteed fix guide. These are just simply the steps that I took on my system that resolved the problems many of us are having. Hopefully it will work for others.
T520 4239-CTO | i5 2410M
W520 4270-CTO | 2720QM | 16GB RAM | Quadro 1000M | BIOS 1.30 | PwrMgr 3.62

All I basically did was download and install...
(Chipset driver) http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/oss924ww.exe
(PM driver) http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/83ku14ww.exe
Now, I did chipset first (didnt ask to reboot) then installed the PM driver (did ask to reboot)
I rebooted.... then I went into bios (1.26) and set everything to default... then restarted saving changes...
Since I prefer not using optimus I changed the display settings in bios right after saving the default settings...
Not sure whether or not you really had to go into bios... but everything seems to be working...
My settings in PM is set to Maximum Power in the Advanced tab, 3rd party monitoring tools is TPFanControl and HWInfo64....
W520 (4270 CTO) | i7-2820QM | 16GB RAM 1333 MHz | Runcore MSATA SSD | 2x Kingston SATA2 SSD | Quadro 2000M | FHD | Windows 7

CPU Throttling Qosmio F60

I have a Qosmio F60. Model number : PQF65L-00W011
Specs : Intel Core i3 m330 2.13GHz
Nvidia GT 330M 1GB DDR3
4GB DDR3 1066 MHz RAM
So, I'm trying to play some games, like Battlefield 3, Killing Floor and Grid Autosport.
On Battlefield 3 I got around 40, sometimes 30 FPS when everything is set to low. On Killing Floor I got like 50-60 FPS. And the last one, which is Grid Autosport I got around 40-50 FPS.
All of this games, after playing like 10-20 minutes, drops to single digits FPS like 1-7 FPS.
I believe this is caused by CPU throttling. Are there anyway to fix this? I'm sorry if you don't understand me as I'm not English.

That doesn't appear to be a US model, and this is the forums for Toshiba USA. You may want to contact Toshiba in your region.
- Peter

E540 CPU Throttling

Hi folks,
Quick one, wonder if anyone has issues with CPU throttling on their ThinkPad. Mine is an e540.
Seems to be throttling the CPU heavily.
Am running BIOS 2.18 and "maximum performance" power plan.
Still when running CPU intensive apps there's no more than ~15% of CPU speed assigned to it, while in the meantime the application hangs!
Any thoughts?
Hope so.
Cheers,
N*

Called Apple support! Hmm They want to sell me AppleCare phone support!!!
I've got no problem with my system, your OS X just does not work while MS Windows does!!!
Don't accused me of being MS Windows fan, I actually don't like Windows at all! I just paid for 2.6GHz and I want 2.6GHz! On MacBook/MacBook Pro: OS X throttles between 800MHz - 2.6GHz freq. However, with Windows I can set this using powercfg command.
It seems:
On OS X: OS X is in control
On Windows: I'm in control

Z68A-GD65-G E7681IMS.N00 bios does not suffer from cpu throttling

Hello
I have been trying to overclock my 2500k with no good results despite having one of the best aftermarket
coolers for my CPU (Noctua NH-D14). The problem was that even with the CPU working within acceptable
temperatures, I was suffering from cpu throttling.
-Ill try to describe the cpu throttling I experienced with N10,N20 and N31 beta bios: I was trying to achieve
4.8Ghz by maintaining the stock FSB and setting the multiplier to x48. I got to boot into windows, but no
matter what I used in C1E, Speedstep, Turbo boost, C-State, C-State Limit, Short or long term wattage or core limit,
the multiplier lowered from 48x to 41x under a prime95 or linx stress test, thus leaving the system a real CPU speed
of 4.1GHz just in the moment that high CPU clock is needed!!!!!!!!.
-I have assembled cheaper Z68 mainboards form other vendors having no problems in overclocking 2500k to 4.4Ghz with much worse
CPU coolers than mine, so I decided to investigate this issue a bit.....
I realized that original N00 bios does not suffer from CPU throttling, getting easily to 4.8Ghz with 1.4v CPU, maintaining the multiplier
ad 48X for the whole AVX linx stress tests, these are the results:
-N00 bios..............................48X stable multiplier......................4.8Ghz. ................linx 119.1360 GFlops
-N10,N20 or N31b bios...........41X-48X variable multiplier.............4.1-4.8Ghz............linx 104.4250 GFlops
hope this info is useful for anyone(specially bios developers), and I havent bored you......

Actually, I don't need to apply any kind of load to see the throttling in any of the latest bios, I just boot into windows and open CPUZ.
With the multi set at 48 in the bios, it jumps from about 44-48. A different (lower) multi produces the same fluctuation of the multi.
Using an older bios with the G43 board completely eliminated the issue, it stays at a constant 48, or whatever other multi I choose to set in the bios.
For my Z68-GD65, the oldest bios listed on the MSI download page, which is listed as v.23.0 (7681vN0) dated 07-06-2011, is the only bios that I can use to keep a steady multiplier, and thus clock speed.
But, as I mentioned, I have EIST, Speedstep, etc. all disabled, so I will always have one clock speed, whether at idle or load.
Thus it shows immediately when just at the desktop.
I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to make a big deal about this, just having a friendly discussion about it.
I have a good workaround for now, and as I mentioned, I'm very pleased with these MSI boards. I gave the G43 to a good friend, so I can just enjoy the Z68-GD65 now.
@Bernhard: That's an interesting theory that with EIST and C-States disabled, the Primary Plane power limit and long and short duration power settings don't apply correctly, etc.
I have no clue what it means, but it all sounds very good :-D
Only thing is, why does it not happen at all with an older bios in two different boards?
Perhaps you could simply try temporarily disabling all EIST, C1E, and C-State just to see if the multi fluctuates for you when you check with CPUZ?
By the way, I'm enjoying your posts on these boards, particularly the Z68 GD65 now. You're providing a lot of very helpful information, which certainly helps me to learn to work with this excellent motherboard.
For 4.8GHz (4809MHz in CPUZ with the 100.2 bus speed) I have the vcore at 1.420v., PLL is at 1.65v.
Quite stable there, I'm not anal with P95, but an hour or two of Prime Blend with no errors is good enough for me.
@leftyman: 1.355v. for 4.8GHz?
You've got a really good cpu there!

CPU Throttling New GT70 2PC GTX 870

Hello friends. I noticed something odd on my new laptop. I have encountered a few of the issues that others have mentioned with regards to wireless and believe I have mostly resolved that but have since started to notice performance issues that corresponds with events in the windows logs stating that the CPU is getting throttled. This occurs both during non intensive use at sometimes random times other times while it is in heavy use.
I assume its due to overheating which would be rather unfortunate since this is a brand new machine.
According to MSI Live update the bios version is E1763IMS.50T
The mainboard is MS-1763
I have not updated anything but the drivers.
I am considering updating the EC and BIOS but wanted to confirm there actually are updated versions prior to heading down that path. I am not sure if there may be voltage or other performance updates etc that would help in a newer version of the bios. The naming convention is a bit confusing and when I use the MSI Live update tool is claims there is not a new version of bios available.
Thanks for any suggestions.

After some testing I have noticed a pattern that directly coincides with the events logged in event viewer that aligns with what seems to be throttling of the CPU and GPU as reported using coretemp and GPUZ.
I have saved one such incident in a PDF which I can post. I tried looking for ways to insert an attachment to the forums and was not able to.
The event log error is "The speed of processor 0 in group 0 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced state for 28 seconds since the last report."
I have correlated the time of these events with the temps for processor core 2 hitting 71 and reducing core speed (below 2300) and power for all cores (19). I have also been able to correlate with the GPU reducing clock speed from 966 to 270,and gpu memory from 1248 to 162 with temps at around 70.
So it seems that while the temps are really not that bad there is still some kind of throttling taking place within the BIOS that is causing lags while running applications. This pattern above is recurring 2-3 minutes apart.
If I can figure out how to post a file I can post the PDF I created.
Thanks for any additional feedback.

G505s random cpu throttling!

This is really frustrating, my cpu can't decide what frequency it should be at when I'm running fullscreen applications. It keeps jumping between 900, 1400, and 2500 mhz. No this isn't the charging issue and my bios is 2.05. The other issue I have is that I can't use turbo mode because when the cpu hits 75c, it downclocks to 2000mhz. I'm better off running at 2500mhz, but I can't even do that! This isn't an issue in windowed mode though so it must be some wonky software issue. I'm using windows 8, not 8.1, I've deleted most of the shovel ware and I haven't instaled anything I think would cause this. It didn't always do this. This problem started on day two. I know the laptop's fine, I really like it, but I just can't stand this crap. Anyway, please help me out of you know anything about this issue. Even if you don't know, just tell me how your g505s runs and how hot it gets so I can know if there's something actually wrong with mine.
Okay I guess it's happening in windows too. It's different for every game. It'll stay at 2.5ghz just fine in a stress test, but a game that hardly uses 50% of the cpu? It just freaks out.
I think there is also a heat issue here. Even after downclocking to 2000mhz, the cpu still hits 74c in bf4, which by the way is being bottlenecked very hard by the slow cpu. Minimum settings 20-30fps. This is very frustrating. I'm about to give up for a bit and blow off some steam playing bf4 on my desktop, high settings 1080p at 60 fps.

Hi Ryan82994,
Welcome to the forums,
Well you should not worry about the throttling btw just to make things clear what CPU do you have under your G505s hood ?
and yea you should not worry about the throttling, I got an i5 which powers my G770 and it keeps jumping from 798-2.30Ghz
I believe in full screen applications your CPU frequency increases depending on the system load you can google up intel speed step technology below is an example of my G770's CPu frequencies
hope this helps
regards
Lets make 2015 the year of the #DO
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X220 I5 cpu spikes idle

Hi,
I have a problem with my x220.
It's a core I5 with 8Gb ram and 250 Gb intel 510 SSD.
When windows 7 is booted, and the x220 is started completely, i notice that we have constant cpu spikes. Mainly core 2 and 4 are spiking. They are spiking once per second at about 40-60%
But when i open a program, or a window, the spikes are gone!
Allso when i open taskmanager the spikes are gone. I've tried several taskmanagers but as soon as they start the spikes are gone.
Installer anitmalware scanners, and antvir scanner they all found nothing.
Then i made a new install via the recovery media. And saw that he cpu was spiking! So new install out of the box does the same thing!
Anyone seen this same behavior?

1024 is too high. Enable the CPU meter in MainStage, it has a graph view that allows you to see which plugin needs the CPU.

[SOLVED] cpu throttling

CPU0: Temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 742416)
CPU1: Temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 742416)
It's on an old P4 3.2 GHz. I don't care if the machine blows up, to be honest with you. And this over and over again quickly makes my everything.log and messages.log very huge. Gigabytes. Any way to suppress this error/warning/message? Also, any way to turn off the clock throttling?
Thanks.
Arch is the shit, btw.
Last edited by umpalumpa1985 (2009-10-24 23:42:26)

Hey, okay i had this issue too but it was nothing to do with the cpu i don't think. I had it for ages but nothing happened until my machine went crazy and started locking up and a bunch of other issues. I took my computer apart cleaned the fan intake for the cpu and noticed that my graphics card was baking.
I never turned on the power scaling options for my nvidia graphics card after using the official drivers it was baking everything in my case for ages. Turned them on and I haven't had any messages since and everything works waaaaay better because i turned on some other optimisation stuff for the card as well. If you have a big graphics card, check the options make sure power scaling for heat is on should be fine.

Re: New MSI GT72 Dominator-G CPU throttle

Quote from: mycenae on 01-July-15, 10:12:25Check your system temperature and total power consumption. CPU/GPU throttle usually depends on these terms.
Do you think there is a chance the GT72 could need more ...

Quote from: maruseawolf on Yesterday at 01:55:32Apparently, the Realtek audio manager has been replaced with the Nahimic utility.
I installed Nahimic but I can't get it to do anything.
Has anyone had any luck using th...

MOVED: Z68A-GD80 (B3) CPU Throttling issue

This topic has been moved to Overclockers & Undervolting & Modding Corner.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=156345.0

I have a z68a-GD65-G3 - and I also have this issue. On a 2700K, I'm at 1.40vcore and a multi of 50 - gives me 5Ghz (sadly, CPU-Z reports 4988.7 due to the 99.8Mhz bus speed bug, anyone know how to fix that?)
So I was stable at 50multi x100 at 1.4vcore on the Bios the board shipped with, however, I noticed that when I ran the intel burn test it would throttle back to between 4.1Ghz and 4.6Ghz - this is really annoying, as I have disabled ALL of the bios options that have anything to do with speed management/throttling. But just to be sure, could someone please list all the bios items that need to be disabled to make sure the cpu isn't throttled?
In an effort to fix this, I decided to flash the bios to the newest one on MSI's site, 7681 N60, however, this did *not* fix the throttling issue. And now, I get lockups when I run intel burn test where before it was stable :( So I guess I'm going to revert to the BIOS the board shipped with, because at least then it was stable at 5Ghz, but...
***MSI Rep's - the throttling issue here isn't acceptable. This needs to be addressed. I want my CPU to be at Multiplier setting I set it at.***

GE70 2OC - FPS drops, CPU throttling

Im new to this forum so welcome everybody. Hope this is a right place to post and I hope you guys will be able to help me.
I have a brand new MSI laptop, GE70 2OC model, with i7-4700MQ and Nvidia GT 750M.
I am experiencing some overheating issues during gaming. When laptop is idle or I'm simply browsing the web the temperatures of CPU and GPU seem OK, in between 30-40 degrees (Celsius). The problem starts with gaming. Of course I'm using Gaming mode (as of power management) and Cooler Boost technology (without it I would be doomed it seems).
After 15-20 minutes of gaming the lapop heats up pretty badly. The CPU temperatures exceed 90 degrees and the GPU reaches 80-85 degrees. Then come the FPS drops, every few seconds the game becomes unplayable for 1-2 seconds then its ok for few seconds and so on.
I started diagnosing the problem and it seems that the drops are caused by the CPU reducing the frequency to 800Mhz due to thermal issues. Besides me being unable to play any more demanding game Im also worried about the life of laptop components...
The only way I was able to stop this is to use ThrottleStop application and reducing the multiplier to obtain lower frequency. It stops throttling at 3.0Ghz but the temperatures remain as mentioned before. Still I think I should be able to use full power of a brand new machine not to mention such high temperatures IMHO affect the hardware during longer period of time.
Now, is there anything I can do to fix this? If you guys need anymore information, please do not hesitate.
Looking forward to your answer.
P.S the temperatures where checked during gaming (in windowed mode) with CPU-Z, GPU-Z, CoreTemp and the built-in hardware monitor in ThrottleStop. They vary a little bit but these are neglectable differences. I also raised the back of the laptop to provide better ventilation, it may have same effect but it's insignificant.

Most likely the heatsinks aren't seated properly or the heatsink compound wasn't applied correctly.
This is fairly common, and I had the same problem with my GT70 0NE when I purchased it.
It's fairly easy to remove open the bottom of the laptop up, remove the heatsinks and clean and re-apply the thermal compound, and then re-seat the heatsinks. Takes maybe 30 minutes if you're slow and careful like me.
If you don't feel good about doing it, then I suggest doing an RMA.
>>How to contact MSI.<<
ALSO, as long as you don't screw anything up inside the laptop, the warranty will still be good. Don't worry about the sticker on the bottom. It's mainly there to keep people from opening it up, but you have to be able to in order to add more memory or another HDD/SSD.

CPU throttling with new PSU

Hello
I have a W510 with the 135W PSU. Or to be more precise: 6.75A @ 20V.
I work at two places, so I bought a generic 150W PSU with an adapter to fit the Thinkpad. The PSU is labeled 7.5A @ 20V, so it should have no problems running the laptop.
Still, upon boot I get the "This PSU is too weak for something something charging battery something" and my i7 is throttled to 1.2 GHz rather than the 3.06 it usually musters.
If I boot from battery and attach the PSU connector after Windows is up, it runs at full speed. And charges the battery just fine. So obviously, there is nothing wrong with the juice from the PSU.
Thus, I suspect that BIOS does something dumb. Can I override this somehow?
Friendly,
Some Dude
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Oh, I did not realize that I could see that in Power Manager. Fascinating!
It says 90 W.
I found another thread where the central pin thing was mentioned. I am about to order a new connector tip to chop up and modify, as that is quite a bit cheaper than buying a new PSU.
Thanks to you both for the information!

CPU throttling and Kernel .29

Hi,
i wonder what you think about this: http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/2009/01/18 … 4clockmod/.
It seems that the next kernel won't give the user the chance to change the cpu-frequency. It's ok to me when it's really saving power - so just switch to performance mode and everything will be better?
I can't believe that no one has found that out before, it sounds to me like "hey i've read the specs and we're doing something terribly wrong - for years". And can't the cpu frequency be switched in windows by the same way?

I'm not that surprised to learn that P4s never actually had that feature since they seem to have been developped without any regards to power consumption. What bugs me though is that the Celeron in my Eee also uses p4-clockmod. It's pretty shocking to learn it can't even do proper frequency scaling (man, I should have bougt a 901...).

CPU Throttling

I think that is what it is called.
My CPU is always running at 2.0 now. Even when I am doing nothing other then moving the mouse to keep the screen bright.
I have energy settings on best battery life.
Any ideas out there?

Let me explain this better. . . .
First, I am using core duo temp. It says that I am
current at 2.0Ghz all the time.
That's the problem. You need Hardware Monitor to get an accurate reading. Very seldom does mine get to 2GHz. My MacBook mostly runs 1000-1300GHz.
-Bmer
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X220: Uncontrollable CPU Throttling (e.g. Civ 5)

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