i5 speedstep clocking down during games.

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killerc4

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I've had this problem for awhile now and it's been driving me insane.

I have a Dell Precision M6500 i5.

For some reason during games my processor decides to downclock itself causing my framerate to dip from 30fps to single digits. This happens in any game, skyrim, Tera, LoL, Max Payne, anything. Opening Cpu-z or any speed reporting program shows the processor downclock right as the frames dip. In fact I can fix this by running throttlestop and just locking the processor to the max multiplier etc.

The downclock will happen outside of games also but obviously sometimes speedstep is supposed to clock down. It's just easier to notice when its acting up in games.

I've reformatted, reinstalled drivers, updated drivers, bios everything. I thought it might be downclocking because it's overheating so I checked thermals and my cores never go above 70c.

This laptop was issued to me by my grad school and several of my friends have the same exact model with none of my problems. The only difference is they have installed the regular dell bloatware windows and I got a clean iso direct from microsofts site.

I'm really lost and would greatly appreciate any help :(
 
A lot of Dell laptop models have random throttling issues. You are not alone.

CPU or GPU heat can cause this and power consumption can also trigger your CPU to start throttling. Many Dell laptops will throttle as soon as you switch to battery power. One problem is that some power adapters do not make good contact so your laptop can intermittently switch from AC to battery power, your CPU will throttle and then it will switch back to AC without you really noticing what happened.

Run ThrottleStop in monitoring mode and run a log file so you can at least see what is going on. Try checking off GPU monitoring in the Options window so you have a record of your GPU too. When you are finished gaming, exit the game, and then exit ThrottleStop and then Copy and Paste the log file somewhere convenient like www.pastebin.com so I can have a look. It might be something obvious.

Whatever the problem is, if running ThrottleStop allows your CPU to run at its rated speed then there is no harm using it. ThrottleStop can not bypass the Intel throttling mechanism. If your CPU gets too hot, it will throttle just as Intel intended it to. All ThrottleStop does is it gives a user a way to make sure that the bios isn't doing something dumb for no reason with their CPU. It keeps the CPU running at the speed that Intel intended it to run at.

ThrottleStop can not be used to lock a Core i5 CPU at the maximum multiplier regardless of what CPU-Z might be telling you. ThrottleStop lets your CPU idle down when not loaded. The C3% and C6% data is proof of that. It lets cores go into the sleep states when they are not needed to save power and to keep the heat down.

A lot of the Dells use clock modulation throttling to slow a CPU down internally. A log file will show this if it is happening. I think chipset clock modulation throttling is the usual problem.

ThrottleStop 5.00 beta 1
http://www.mediafire.com/?wqo7qmmimh31w92
 
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Thanks so much for the help.

I put up a log at http://pastebin.com/1iJg4YKz

Basically, I booted skyrim, loaded a save and just let it sit there. It start up at 30fps. After about a minute it dropped to 8 fps and stayed there. I let it sit at low fps for awhile then I hit escape to exit the game. The second the menu popped up the framerate shot up to 60fps. And if I exited the menu and went back to the game it would go back to 30fps for about 4-5 seconds then drop to single digits again.
 
killerc4 said:
Thanks so much for the help.

I put up a log at http://pastebin.com/1iJg4YKz

Basically, I booted skyrim, loaded a save and just let it sit there. It start up at 30fps. After about a minute it dropped to 8 fps and stayed there. I let it sit at low fps for awhile then I hit escape to exit the game. The second the menu popped up the framerate shot up to 60fps. And if I exited the menu and went back to the game it would go back to 30fps for about 4-5 seconds then drop to single digits again.
Click to expand...

What does BAT_mW measure? It seems to get pretty high right before the processor downclocks. Also, your graphics chip gets up to around 77. Maybe try a few more trials and see if you can narrow down which is causing this? The power adapters for a laptop are usually 90 watts for Dell -- is that enough power for the Laptop for gaming?
 
I'm not really sure what the batt_Mw measures but my hardware / powerbrick is the same as my other friends who have the exact same laptop. They have no problem running any games. :confused: I would think a gpu at 77c is acceptable. Ill try running it with a laptop cooler underneath and see what happens.
 
I see two things going on in your log

1) BAT_Mw I'm guessing this is a measurement how much power is being drawn from the battery. If I'm right, you either have a problematic connection to your charger, or the charger is undersized for your laptop (or the laptop itself limits the amount of power it can draw from the charger)


2) CKMOD (clock modulation) starts stepping down from 100.0 to 12.5 within two seconds of your GPU temp reaching 77c. It stays at 12.5 until it's back down to 72c where it steps back up to 100.0. This is where your throttling happens. Jumping to the menu screen doesn require much computation power from the GPU, so you get max frame rate, but it's still throttled so going back to the game you'll see the framerate drop again.
 
The BAT_mW column keeps track of whether your laptop is charging or discharging the battery. A zero means it is doing neither and a positive number means that it is charging the battery. The amount of charging during your log file is not the problem here.

As ryan_975 noticed, the CKMOD dropping down to 12.5% is the problem. This stands for clock modulation throttling. Your temperatures are fine so there is no reason for your laptop to be doing this. 12.5% means your CPU is performing at less than 12.5% of its rated speed. Clock modulation throttling slows CPUs down internally and Dell laptops over the years have had problems up to their ears with this.

Here is a long story that explains the throttling nightmare and what Dell does to the Latitude E6500. This is the start of the throttling laptop issue as far as I can tell and they are still doing it today on gaming laptops like the Alienware M14x. They still haven't learned that laptops need both adequate power and cooling when gaming.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?1gnwmozzy0w

Most people conclude that if it is throttling that it must be throttling for a reason but no, sometimes Dell laptops throttle excessively for no reason at all.

If you set ThrottleStop clock modulation to 100.0% and put a check mark in that box, that will help prevent your laptop from throttling like this. Remember to turn ThrottleStop on and take it out of monitoring mode. I also like to put a check mark in the Set Multiplier box and I increase that to the maximum. Read the ThrottleStop docs and make sure your power plan is set up correctly.

This should help make your laptop usable again. Why some laptops throttle and some don't is anyone's guess. Slight differences in power consumption or heat can make the difference. If you are not sure if you have ThrottleStop setup correctly then post a screen shot of it and post another log file while gaming with ThrottleStop working to correct this problem. Most users find that ThrottleStop makes a significant difference and your M6500 is not the first M6500 that I have heard about with throttling problems.

Make sure BD PROCHOT is not checked as well. That stands for bi-directional processor hot. This signal path allows your GPU to send a signal to your CPU telling it that it is overheating. Blocking this signal can help block the throttling. I am not sure if this Dell laptop model uses this method. Many of the Asus gaming laptops do. Your GPU is not that hot and neither is your CPU so no worries.
 
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Thanks for all the help, I've been using throttlestop for awhile now to get it running normally so I guess I'll just continue doing that. I've tried tweaking the bios settings in every way it allows and updated to the latest bios without any luck :(. There's an option to turn off speedstep in the bios but turning it off runs the pc at the lowest possible stepping (it even says it will do that in the bios description).

Oh well, thanks so much for your time I'm just glad it wasn't something dumb I was doing haha.
 
juicedown said:
Definitely one of your CPU settings in the BIOS.
Click to expand...

This is a common Dell problem and it has nothing to do with any setting in the bios. Read the pdf file I posted in the link above if you want to learn what Dell laptop throttling is all about and how absurd it can be at times.

killerc4: Definitely not a good idea to turn SpeedStep - EIST off in the bios when you have a laptop. ThrottleStop has helped many users forget about throttling and poorly designed laptops. Even very expensive, top of the line, laptops are not free from random throttling issues.
 
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