How to force HD 4000 laptop to maintain max frequency?

Hey guys,
So I've got a laptop with a i3 Ivy Bridge. This seems like a question that's all over the internet with no answers to, so as usual when I can't find the right answer anywhere I come to [H].

I've got a laptop that I play casual games on (dota 2) equipped with an i3-3227u. Intel HD 4000 graphics that have a max frequency of 1100 mhz.
However say I get into a game the graphics stay clocked at about 1100 mhz for 30 seconds or so, frame rates stay around 70fps, after the first 30 seconds or so the clock drops to 650mhz. That drops my frames from a pretty respectable 70fps to around 40 or 50, sometimes low 30s.

My question is, what can I do about this and how can I fix it? I've been all over the internet looking for answers. I tried throttlestop to no avail and I can't seem to figure this question out. I don't get why intel would make this a feature.

P.S. If this is in the wrong section mods feel free to move it, I wasn't sure where to put this.

Intel makes throttling a feature because OEMs like to sell laptops with poor cooling, or small form-factors. Even HD 4000 can't keep up when you constrain both that and the processor to 17w. Try playing your games inside a refrigerator to compensate

Given the highly variable nature of cooling from one OEM/model to another, we can't possibly hope to help unless you supply the laptop model number. From my limited experience with stopping desktop throttling, it gets to be a LOT harder to stop the throttling if the chip's internal measurements are tripping it.

EDIT: it would also help us if you ran Intel Extreme Tuning utility along with RealTemp to see if temperatures are the cause. You should see the GPU clock fall in Intel Exterme Tuning along with a peak in temperature, and RealTemp should tells us how hot things got. A screenshot of the two detailing the throttling would be helpful.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...p-boards-software-extreme-tuning-utility.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

So the throttling doesn't seem to be related to the temperatures at all. That was my first inclination as I know that's usually how throttling works (long time desktop ocer).
But the clocks on the iGPU seem to be related to load.
So in testing this out I turned all of the settings in a game to low and got the situation I described earlier where the iGPU downclocks itself to 650mhz with about 50 fps.

Here is what I just found out though, if I turn the graphics settings up and put more stress on the iGPU it clocks itself up to what it should be, 1100mhz, and I get about 50 fps.

I'm trying to figure out a way to get the iGPU to clock to 1100mhz on low settings, so I can get some killer fps (hopefully haha) but it seems impossible to get it to stop clocking so bizarrely.

Oh, why didn't you say so? It sounds like you're running into POWER throttling:

Step 1: you get consistent GPU clocks when you run at high settings, and the game engine is likely only requiring lower processor clocks to fully-utilize your GPU. Your GPU is likely right at the TDP limit (roughly 10w), with your CPU sipping the remainder.

Step 2: you want higher framerates so the game attempts to (again) maximize utilization of your GPU, and doing that requires a higher CPU speed to drive the game engine faster. You don't have enough TDP to do both, so it throttles the GPU.

It's quite possible, just see here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5878/...ation-realtime-igpu-clocks-on-ulv-vs-quadcore

The HD 4000 GPU can use up to 15w if you have it available. Obviously the CPU core needs a few watts to do it's thing, and they meet somewhere in the middle. This is the price you pay for buying an Ultraportable CPU.

ThrottleStop 6.00
http://www.thedigitalhq.com/downloads/

You mentioned that you tried ThrottleStop but didn't mention what version or post any screen shots of how you have it set up. The latest version above has some new features that specifically target the UM CPUs like you have.

Can you post a screen shot of the Turbo Power Limits (TPL) window?

In that window is a feature called TDP Level Control. The i5 and i7 UM CPUs let you adjust this, usually between 0 and 2 which can make sure your CPU is at its highest TDP.

There is another feature below this one that lets you adjust the power balance between the Intel CPU and the Intel GPU. Giving more of the power budget to the GPU can improve gaming. These can be adjusted from 0 to 31. Setting the CPU to 0 and the GPU to 31 would give the majority of the power to the GPU. You can adjust these however you like to see if it makes a difference.

I have never seen any testing of these with an i3 UM CPU so post some screen shots so I can have a look.

unclewebb said:

ThrottleStop 6.00
http://www.thedigitalhq.com/downloads/

You mentioned that you tried ThrottleStop but didn't mention what version or post any screen shots of how you have it set up. The latest version above has some new features that specifically target the UM CPUs like you have.

Can you post a screen shot of the Turbo Power Limits (TPL) window?

In that window is a feature called TDP Level Control. The i5 and i7 UM CPUs let you adjust this, usually between 0 and 2 which can make sure your CPU is at its highest TDP.

There is another feature below this one that lets you adjust the power balance between the Intel CPU and the Intel GPU. Giving more of the power budget to the GPU can improve gaming. These can be adjusted from 0 to 31. Setting the CPU to 0 and the GPU to 31 would give the majority of the power to the GPU. You can adjust these however you like to see if it makes a difference.

I have never seen any testing of these with an i3 UM CPU so post some screen shots so I can have a look.

Click to expand...

I was going to suggest this except I don't think the i3 supports cTDP up. This seems to be a premium feature limited to the Core i5/i7. But I suppose there's no harm in trying

Just going by this list, which may be incorrect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)#Mobile_processors

I didn't even know a 6.00 version came out of throttlestop I was under the impression the latest was 5.00. I also noticed your name on some of the throttlestop message boards so I'm glad you decided to help me out.





There's my TRL and TPL subsections, where do you think I go from here?

EDIT: My TDP Level Control is now grayed out with the lock checkbox checked. It didn't start that way but ended up that way, no idea how.

Yeah, like I was saying you don't have cTDP up (Level 2) available. This means your Core i3 can't exceed 17w at any time. If you had the option, you'd see something like this:

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/5348/mh9d.png

Your best bet is to SELECT Intel Power Balance and max-out the GPU power balance to 31 and hope that helps. unclewebb might have some additional suggestions I'm missing, but I'm uncertain.

Make sure TDP Level Control is set to 0. If you click on the Lock box and push Apply or OK, this gets written directly to that CPU register so no other software will be able to change this, even if you exit ThrottleStop. You will need to reboot to unlock this. You might have to power down as well.

Turn on the Log File option when you are gaming and post a copy of that. You can Copy and Paste the data in that file to www.pastebin.com and then post a link here.

You have a low power CPU so even with ThrottleStop, you might not be able to get the kind of performance out of your laptop as you would like.

I also noticed your name on some of the throttlestop message boards so I'm glad you decided to help me out.

Click to expand...

You probably noticed my name on a lot of ThrottleStop related boards because I am the guy that wrote the program.

So the i7s and i5s, even if u models, have the additional step? Now is that just turbo or is that something that it will maintain?

You probably noticed my name on a lot of ThrottleStop related boards because I am the guy that wrote the program.

Click to expand...

Wow, I don't know how I missed that one. But I'll try your suggestions and cross my fingers.

PS if I crank the graphics up to a point where the gpu needs to clock to max (1100mhz) it'll clock to it and stay there the entire time I'm in the game. But since it only cranks to 1100mhz when using high graphics it doesn't help me get better frame rates since it is more graphically intensive. Really confused as to why Intel would not let the graphics stay clocked at 1100mhz when less graphically intense to get better FPS =S

EDIT: http://pastebin.com/GfZK7ES0
Here's the pastebin with those tweaks mentioned applied to throttlestop. Didn't seem to change how the iGPU clock acts while gaming =/

Get_out_and_Push said:

So the i7s and i5s, even if u models, have the additional step? Now is that just turbo or is that something that it will maintain?

Click to expand...

Probably maintain as long as your laptop has adequate cooling. But I can't say for sure because I don't own one.

The best way to game on a laptop is almost always to not compromise and go for a 35w chip. Even better, you can drop cash for a discrete GPU. This usually means a bit larger laptop, but you know you won't be power-starved.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to play Guild Wars 2 on my Asus Q400a. The game run well on other peoples Q400a's from what I have seen and read on the internet. And to boot it is officially "Playable" according to intel:
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-033387.htm

I have the game on lowest settings and generally get 60FPS. However the are awful dips in FPS into the teens and 20's every 20 seconds or so. So I installed this utility to monitor things:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us....g-utility.html

It turns out that the "Thermal Throttle" value spikes at 100% and lowers the GPU clock drastically. That coincides with my FPS drop. I was getting high 80's low 90's Celsius temperatures on the CPU and GPU! Typical laptop I guess!

So I went to town on cooling mods. I bought a laptop cooling pad, some high performance thermal paste, and even drilled holes in my case around the CPU fan and GPU heatsink to increase the airflow!

It worked like a charm. Sort of. My temps are now high 50's and low 60's at a the games start up and generally hanging around 75 after 10 minutes of play. Here's the kicker though. It's STILL thermal throttling! According to the utility I'm getting 100% thermal throttling at only 51 degrees!

What gives? I'm not sure what to try next. I know this laptop can run the game and others just fine because other people can. The specs are quite decent:

3rd Gen i7 boosts to 2.9GHz
HD4000
8GB 1600MHz RAM
250GB SSD
Win7 64Bit

Any ideas? Im all out.

Obligatory obvious answer list:
- Bios is up to date
- GPU driver is up to date
- Chipset driver is up to date
- CPU fan works

1. Did you try ThrottleStop? I've had cases where my CPU is throttled even though I'm nowhere near temperature limits, all due to cheap VRMs on the motherboard reporting "TDP exceeded". In those cases, if you let ThrottleStop run continuously, it will stop those throttle events.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2288/throttlestop-6-00/

2. Are those the temperatures reported from inside Intel Extreme Tuning, or some other utility? I find that when you install that particular software package, it tends to interfere with other hardware monitoring applications.

Beyond that I can't help you, as I don't don't do the notebook gaming thing.

Also, have you ever blown out the dust form the thing? Cooling a 45w processor could have sucked in a lot of things that might be stopping airflow.

You might also have to try tearing it down and reseating those heatsinks, if the grease has dried up or was not sufficient from the factory.

If you're patient, unclewebb will probably see this thread within a day or two and offer you more help than I can

Throttle stop did the trick! Thanks!