Looking for assistance with adjusting the volume on Phenom II 955?
Looking for assistance with adjusting the volume on Phenom II 955?
I was quite surprised to learn that the PC can even boot with such a low RAM voltage. Maybe my initial explanation wasn’t precise enough. Let me clarify once more.
I’m experimenting to discover the minimum settings where the processor performs best. Usually, I rely on Cool and Quiet for stability. The current configuration uses these settings, each labeled as a p-state by K10Stat.
Frequency Voltage Lowest Voltage
3200 1.35 1.225 (tested)
2500 1.25 1.1750
2100 1.15 1.10
800 0.975 0.85 (tested)
I should note that the RAM voltage (1.6V) or the NorthBridge voltage (1.1V) remain unchanged.
The goal is to fine-tune Cool and Quiet for optimal performance at a reduced voltage, so I can maintain the same speed without lowering frequencies. After finding this, I plan to lock these values permanently.
While searching for the lowest possible voltage, I need to turn off Cool and Quiet, as they prevent forcing lower frequencies during stress tests. In normal use (such as reading this post), they stay enabled (system runs at 800 MHz – browsing appears to require minimal CPU).
I appreciate your feedback so far; it really helps.
Don't lose hope. Though the savings might be small, this is just another intellectual challenge similar to pushing performance in the opposite direction. For financial gains, you likely won't find much benefit. Purchasing a 905e or 705e would mean spending money to save only a few cents.
I completely get your approach because I've done similar work for thermal reasons, not just power saving. At the end, power and heat issues are addressed.
My results are:
3000 1.275
2100 1.075
1600 1.000
400 0.6625
I'm using a 720BE with an unlocked fourth core. My benchmarks match or exceed a 940 at the same clock speed.
Thanks
xsever
. I didn't get too much time to work on this, but here is where I am now:
Freq Voltage
3200 1.225
2400 1.075
1600 0.925
800 0.775
How is the system at 400 MHz - what can you do with it? If you can browse and listen to music, that might be good enough for me at that state!
Someone told me that you could assume a roughly linear relationship between voltage and frequency. Based on that, I assume your 1.6 GHz could reduce a little bit. But, I'm just getting started on this stuff, so you may be a better judge than me
🙂
I still have to figure out how to set this on startup - I tried putting K10Stat in a startup task, but it didn't work.
Anyway, on with the optimization!
The system performs impressively at 400 MHz. It handles browsing, music playback, Windows Live Messenger, Everest, and Ultramon (for dual monitors) smoothly. A YouTube video needs the 1600 frequency. When gaming, I adjust the power setting in Windows 7 via a shortcut to High performance, which stabilizes the CPU at 3.0 GHz. The voltages I recorded are the lowest achievable. Testing one notch lower for 1600 caused a crash. Overall, I’m happy with the on-demand performance! For auto-starting, I use Executor, a useful launcher that also runs K10Stat. Please let me know your experience.
QuadraticAmoeba :
I still have to figure out how to set this on startup - I tried putting K10Stat in a startup task, but it didn't work.
You have to specify a few command line options to make it work. Here is mine for example: "C:\Program Files (x86)\K10STAT\K10STAT.exe"
-lp:1 -StayOnTray -ClkCtrl:2 -nw
-lp:1
--> load profile 1
-ClkCtrl:2
--> enable clock control (enable your custom p-state), use control function no 2 (ganged based on highest load core)
-nw
--> no window (minimized on start)
-StayOnTray
--> does what it says
Hope that helps.
Thank you, that was successful!
I also succeeded in reducing the 800 MHz to 0.74V, which is good.
Great job. Could you share how your up% and down% are set?
Thanks.
Nice work. I was curious about your up% and down% configurations.
Hi, I haven’t activated ClkCtrl in K10Stat yet. I’m using the default Cool and Quiet options, but a custom profile is loaded. I checked each voltage/frequency separately with IntelTestBurn and then applied them to the profile.
When I have some free time, I’ll try ClkCtrl – if you have particular settings you’d like tested, just let me know.
Thanks.
I also don't use ClkCtrl. I just have customized clocks and voltages. The processor seems to switch states regularly. Not sure how ClkCtrl affects things.
If you know more about the software, please share—it's hard to understand from the docs.
Thanks.