Dell G7 7590 i7-9750h and RTX 2060. Just recently wiped and set everything up to a new TS and BIOS. Some questions

[MayoTheGreat]

First time poster, and I apologize in advance if some of my questions have been answered in previous posts. I have 2 kids under 4 and its the 4th of July (Happy 4th everyone!) so I don't have time to search all the forums.

I have a 2-3 year old Dell G7 15 7590. It has an i7-9750h and rtx 2060 in it. I just upgraded the Ram to 32gb. I have a replacement heatsink and some new thermal paste on its way as well. This was a pile of garbage since the day I got it. I have finally gotten around to wiping windows, restoring power plans with Revolutions, updating drivers, setting up throttlestop, etc. and there are a few things I had some questions about since I last used this machine daily.

I was on Bios 1.9.0, which was the last Bios where undervolting was allowed on this machine. Strangely enough after a random restart all of the FIVR and TPL windows were greyed out. I followed the old method of restoring the Bios to factory settings, rebooting, going back into bios, turning off UEFI updates, wiping back to factory, rebooting, and then undervolting was available again in throttlestop. I must have forgot to untick UEFI updates after the final reboot, because the next time I restarted the bios updated automatically during reboot to 1.14.0. After this, I made sure to go into bios settings, wipe to default, restart, wipe to default, disable uefi updates, set any personal bios settings I wanted to change, and then rebooted and I still had undervolting capabilities.

I currently have the CPU core at -200.6mv, and the cache at -125.00 and things seem stable. I have PL1 an PL2 at 130 (more on this later) both clamped, MMIO locked, PL4 set to zero, Speed Shift turned on.

My settings seem good, and I can run a TS Bench and Cinebench R23 without tripping any limits. However, PKG Power maxes out at about 67 watts. Is there a way to get this any higher, or is it a limitation of my 60wh battery, or 180 watt power adapter?

Question regarding C states. It seems totally random, but sometimes when looking at the Core C States screen C7% has 0s for all cores, and sometimes it shows it constantly fluctuating like its actually trying to save power. Whenever I tick C States - AC with On radio, and click apply it never keeps it ticked. It does show some values under sleep residency for C9 and C10. I don't think my C states are working properly and not sure where to start troubleshooting. I had wiped the .ini file and updated to throttlestop 9.5 as of yesterday, prior to diving headfirst into this again.

The 3rd thing I'm curious about is whether or not it is possible to downgrade the Dell Bios beyond a certain version? 1.19 is the latest version out and I'm pleased that undervolting is still possible on 1.14, and following the same "Factory Default settings" method I would be happy to try 1.19, but I feel like I saw a thread mentioning once you go passed a certain firmware you can't actually downgrade.

Currently during all testing none of my cores are pushing above 92C and this is in a warm room in the middle of summer.

To summarize, I have 3 main questions:

Why is my PKG Power maxing out at 67 watts during stress tests? I've read some of these chips in some machines can run up to 80/90+ watts. Would this be the Dell EC Controller trying to keep it down around 65w?

Why do I sometimes see 0s in the Core C States window, when other times C7% is full of numbers? I double check Task Manager that there is nothing using the CPU in the background.

Is it possible to downgrade from 1.19 Dell Bios on the Dell G Series Laptops in the event upgrading removes the possibility to undervolt?

 

[dvaguirre]

First time poster here too! I have about the same config, in a G5 15 5590 with repasted i7 9750h with rtx2060, bios 1.19, -250mv core -125vm cache (-200mv core -100mv cache on battery profile), MMIO locked, disable controls on power limit, AC timer resolution 0 (0.50), Speed Step and C1E, and getting ~75w ~95o (~1w 45o idle) with all clocks at ~4GHz, on Windows 10 LTSC 1809.


Why is my PKG Power maxing out at 67 watts during stress tests? try disable controls on power limit

Why do I sometimes see 0s in the Core C States window, when other times C7% is full of numbers? Did you installed "Intel Processor Power Management Utility" or "Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Driver"? try to disable Intel related windows services

Is it possible to downgrade from 1.19 Dell Bios on the Dell G Series Laptops in the event upgrading removes the possibility to undervolt? in 1.19 undervolt is disabled, and you need to unlock.

EDIT: Idk about "restoring power plans with Revolutions". I use bitsum process lasso and core park control on "default" dell power plan.

 

[unclewebb]

When you have a question, posting some pictures of the various ThrottleStop windows so I can see your settings makes things easier for both of us.

However, PKG Power maxes out at about 67 watts.

If you open Limit Reasons, does your CPU show PL1 or PL2 power limit throttling while Cinebench is running? Many Dell laptops do use the EC to limit maximum power consumption. If PL1 and PL2 are set to 130W and MMIO Lock is checked and you are still getting power limit throttling then there is nothing you can do about it.

Speed Shift turned on

What does the FIVR monitoring table show for the Speed Shift EPP value? If EPP is set higher than 84, this can interfere with maximum performance.

The C States AC - Off On feature in ThrottleStop is poorly documented and is the least intuitive feature in the whole program. This feature makes a one time change to whatever Windows power plan you are presently using. The change is made to the power plan itself so deleting the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file will not reset any changes you made while using this feature.

To reset this setting, check the C States - AC box, select the On radio button and press the Apply button. If you were using this feature in different Windows power plans, you will have to go and reset the C states in each Windows power plan.

Most users should not be using this feature. Disabling all of the C states will make a laptop run hotter and it disables the maximum turbo boost speed at the same time. A slower and hotter laptop is not the goal of most users.

If you really want to see how your laptop runs without any C states then check the C States - AC box, select the Off radio button and press Apply. When your computer is idle, you should notice in the C states data table that all values are 0.0. You have disabled all of the C states so the CPU cores and CPU package are not spending any time in any of the C states.

This feature was included for musicians. Some of them have a real hate for the C states because it can lead to popping and clicking when audio recording. If you are benchmarking SSD drives, turning off all of the C states can also be useful. For most everyone else, I would not recommend touching this obscure feature.

If the C states are enabled, it is normal for some C states to be used a lot and for some C states not to be used at all. This changes randomly depending on what background tasks are running on your computer. My desktop computer has all of the cores spending the majority of their time in core C7 when idle. The package C states are capped at package C3. If I use the C States Off feature, this table will report 0.0 for all values. No C state activity.

I know nothing about Dell bios upgrades or downgrades. You might need to ask that question in a more Dell laptop specific forum.

 

[dvaguirre]

unclewebb pls help me! Is it possible to increase idle voltage without disable C states?​

... happend a few times... I cant back from screen saver... win10 1809 ltsc with TS 9.5... never happened on 21H2 with TS 9.4.6... ​

ps: isnt a default windows install or TS startup... tons of apps, services and tasks disabled... almost nothing at computer start or user logon... TS and MSI afterbuner starting as SYSTEM user, from task scheduler, through serviceUI.exe (x64, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - to session 0 interact with desktop) - due Secure Desktop password prompt.​

 

[unclewebb]

possible to increase idle voltage

ThrottleStop has a feature to do this but it only works on unlocked K series CPUs.
This feature is not available on the 9750H.

-250mv core

When the C states are enabled, if your computer crashes, you need to increase the voltage. You are undervolting too much. For an undervolt to be stable, it has to be stable at full load as well as when a computer is idle.

The ThrottleStop version you are using and the Windows version you are using are not the problem. You are trying to run with the voltage set right to the very edge of stability. Random crashes will happen when you try to do this.

I have never tested starting ThrottleStop as a SYSTEM user. I always use the Task Scheduler to start ThrottleStop when I log in. This works well.

BTW, there is no need to write in bold text.

 

[dvaguirre]

For an undervolt to be stable, it has to be stable at full load as well as when a computer is idle.

The ThrottleStop version you are using and the Windows version you are using are not the problem.

I have never tested starting ThrottleStop as a SYSTEM user.

BTW, there is no need to write in bold text.

"my idle isnt like yours"... average %cpu usage is 1%, with system and dwm average usage under 0.5%

latest windows ltsc kernel (maybe 1809 too) has something with nvidia mobile drivers (nvlddmkm.sys I think) that spikes cpu every ~5s (and you need to config a "always run" process to use performance gpu to "decrease" those spikes). maybe...

Troubleshoot High CPU usage by the "System" process

I have noticed that from some time my system is freezing and its probably caused by the high CPU usage which is caused by the system process. All applications I'm running is the Skype, TeamSpeak and

superuser.com

runing TS as windows SYSTEM account is about the same, but without prompt for password or any confirmation to elevate privilege (UAC)

sorry about the bold text... I really tried remove bold

Edit: ll try to trigg a task on "workstation lock" event (kill TS and run it again with another config less agressive). and trigg another task on "workstation unlock" event (kill TS again e run it with the agressive config)

edit2: can I use TS profiles for it? instead have more than one config file, script to start with one or another profile (Performance, Game, Internet, Battery)?

 

[unclewebb]

kill TS and run it again with another config

In theory this should be possible but I have never tried doing this.

Your other idea about scripts and separate TS profiles might work too but I have never tried doing this either.

I prefer to find one offset voltage that is 100% stable when idle or when fully load or anywhere in between. I know many Intel CPUs can run reliably with less offset voltage when they are fully loaded. Trying to accomplish this with H series CPUs is usually a painful experience. It is likely to cause blue screens and instability without saving all that much in power consumption and heat.

 

[dvaguirre]

tks for your advice... I get your pov, ll try another approach...

just managed to get fully stable < 40o idle (and under 50o using daily use software - chrome, outlook, windows explorer etc) on 1809 (no lag. 21H2: lag lag lag...) with -235mv core and -117mv cache. but its easier to hit >70o (stock turbo ratio) when lock screens and windows start whatever background scheduled task that runs on idle... that fan noise drives me crazy, mostly at night when Im AFK, watching news or something else.

*track tasks that runs on idle, and disable or remove idle trig

ps: any roadmap to add something about park control , power scheme, thermal management (set quiet profile on idle, set ultra performance on load), alert/disable xtu running/installed, or track anything that try/change timer resolution? I fell like its a daily battle prevents that one soft changes others related configs... makes sense have all CPU config related together...

 

[unclewebb]

any roadmap to add something about park control , power scheme, thermal management

ThrottleStop is just a hobby. It does everything that I need it to do.

Is it perfect? No. Could it be a lot better if I started with a clean sheet of paper and I had a few years to kill? Maybe. We will never know. I just play around with the code and occasionally add the odd minor feature when I have nothing better to do.

There are no new features that I would ever use so ThrottleStop is at the end of life stage. There are no future plans for it whatsoever. Intel has removed CPU voltage control from all of their 12th Gen mobile CPUs except for the ultra expensive 12900HK. No use spending too much time working on a CPU voltage control app if the majority of new Intel mobile processors no longer support this feature.

 

[dvaguirre]

owww didn't know that was a non profit free time hobby for your own use haha sorry (far better and more useful that 99% of payed software around)

but I asked about others features exactly because voltage control wont be a thing for everyone in a near future

do you plan sell the code to a big tech like msft? or open source so a big tech can fork it (add some features, skins and make some money haha)?