Help! My i7-8750H Switches to 2 threads while gaming now!?

[slack3y]

Hey guys I'm panicking here I just made a post earlier about some help tweaking in Throttlestop (https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...ance-msi-ge63-raider-rgb-8re-i7-8750h.278306/) and I think I messed up baaaaad...

I decided to call it quits on another session of tweaking undervolts and after posting my thread I decided to give it a rest. So I launched a World of Warcraft and noticed only two threads were being tracked on the chart in Throttlestop. Instantly panicked and closed WoW incase I mightve been stressing the CPU. When I clicked clear the rest of the tracking came back. So I decided to restart my PC to reset the settings. Now either Throttlestop or HWiNFO64 stated I had an undervolt of -150mV Core and -125mV already. This had me confused I could've swore voltages reset on restart? Or am I just imagining things?... It's been a long day, Sorry. But either way I then proceeded to rename Throttlestop.ini to Throttlestop.bak and I then did another restart. This didn't work either. So I reset everything to default on throttlestop closed it, renamed Throttlestop.ini. This time I decided to Shut Down instead of Restart to allow things to actually reset. Now things are default but I still run into the same issue, Two while gaming, 12 threads in Cinebench R20 and doing pretty much anything other than gaming.

This is all I could really think of posting in terms of information from where I stand currently.


CPU after restart before launching a game...


With WoW open...


After game has closed (other than the first time around I had to press CLR to see the rest of the threads again)...


After Cinebench has run a test.

These are with the default settings, no undervolts and with my Throttlestop.ini renamed to Throttlestop.bak before opening. I still have 1 or 2 copies of the .ini's and I can recall Any setting I've played with, nothing out of the ordinary.

- My laptop is an MSI GE63 Raider RGB 8RE
- Yes, I did hop into advanced BIOS but I did not touch a thing settings-wise and I made sure to Quit Without Saving each time I left BIOS.
- I believe this is a throttlestop setting somewhere I just dont know where.
- The reason I believe this is because I was only tweaking throttlestop settings during that session before this happened (nothing out of the ordinary, all I can think of is bumping the Core Voltage from -125mV to -150mV and I left the Cache at -125mV).
- The only other thing I can think of was that I upgraded from Throttlestop 9.2 to 9.2.9.

I'm trying to provide as much information as I can! I'm in the dark here.
Any suggestions on what else to provide will be greatly appreciated and I will provide ASAP.

 

[unclewebb]

@slack3y - Hold the Shift key down on the keyboard and then select the Windows Restart option. This is the correct way to reset the CPU.

Maybe you have discovered a bug in ThrottleStop 9.2.9. Go back to the previous TS version you were using.

Edit - The bug was found in Razer Cortex.

 

[slack3y]

@slack3y - Hold the Shift key down on the keyboard and then select the Windows Restart option. This is the correct way to reset the CPU.

Maybe you have discovered a bug in ThrottleStop 9.2.9. Go back to the previous TS version you were using.

He comes through yet again, Thank you so much unclewebb!

Worked like a freaking charm!

Here I was stressing for 2 hours thinking I bricked my CPU...

Hold the Shift key down on the keyboard and then select the Windows Restart option. This is the correct way to reset the CPU.

Maybe you have discovered a bug in ThrottleStop 9.2.9. Go back to the previous TS version you were using.

I spoke too soon... all of the threads besides the first 2 remain frozen in terms of readings off the chart with a game open. urgghhh

 

[unclewebb]

@slack3y - It looks like some program is blocking ThrottleStop from accessing all of your cores. Are you running any game boosting software on your computer?

If the game you are playing or some magic software you are running is doing this, there is nothing I can do to fix that. This software might be forcing the rest of the software running on your computer to only have access to the first two threads, (first core) of your CPU. This allows the game to have full access to the rest of the cores. I hate software that interferes with Windows but it is what it is.

Edit - Most people have Speed Shift enabled. Your computer is not enabling this in the BIOS. If you want to use this feature, you will need to enable it in the TPL window.

 

[slack3y]

@slack3y - It looks like some program is blocking ThrottleStop from accessing all of your cores. Are you running any game boosting software on your computer?

If the game you are playing or some magic software you are running is doing this, there is nothing I can do to fix that. This software might be forcing the rest of the software running on your computer to only have access to the first two threads, (first core) of your CPU. This allows the game to have full access to the rest of the cores. I hate software that interferes with Windows but it is what it is.

This is odd Ill look into it. The only thing I could think of that would do that is Razer Cortex but I haven't changed any settings on that in ages and I've been playing around with Throttlestop the past couple week or so. Even with gaming.

One thing to note... Heaven Benchmark runs fine with all the cores reading normally.

This is such a headache lol but part of the process of tinkering I guess.

 

[unclewebb]

I remember making a change to ThrottleStop so it is more obvious when the data is not being updated. The older version might have shown old data rather than a blank screen. When this happens, try opening the Task Manager, go to the Details tab, find ThrottleStop.exe, right click on it and select Set Affinity. This determines what cores ThrottleStop has access to. It should be able read data from each and every thread. Try changing this to see if it makes a difference.

Heaven Benchmark runs fine with all the cores reading normally

I guess that proves that it is not ThrottleStop that is broken. Perhaps the game itself has decided to change the Affinity of some tasks. Back to TS 9.2.9. It should report this accurately. Always interesting to discover what is really going on.

 

[slack3y]

I remember making a change to ThrottleStop so it is more obvious when the data is not being updated. The older version might have shown old data rather than a blank screen. When this happens, try opening the Task Manager, go to the Details tab, find ThrottleStop.exe, right click on it and select Set Affinity. This determines what cores ThrottleStop has access to. It should be able read data from each and every thread. Try changing this to see if it makes a difference.


I guess that proves that it is not ThrottleStop that is broken. Perhaps the game itself has decided to change the Affinity of some tasks. Back to TS 9.2.9. It should report this accurately. Always interesting to discover what is really going on.

Made some progress checked out the affinity like you said with The Witcher 3 open and its changed to 2 threads. Thanks for that. Now I just need to figure out whats triggering the change.

 

[unclewebb]

Made some progress

Check out the affinity of witcher3.exe

Curious if that is being allowed to run on all threads or if it is being limited to the cores that ThrottleStop is not using.

Wondering if it is witcher3.exe doing this or some other "game improving" software that is running on your computer is going around and changing the affinity of the tasks running on your computer. Whoever is responsible, it is a really bad idea to screw with Windows tasks like this.

 

[slack3y]

Check out the affinity of witcher3.exe

Curious if that is being allowed to run on all threads or if it is being limited to the cores that ThrottleStop is not using.

Wondering if it is witcher3.exe doing this or some other "game improving" software that is running on your computer is going around and changing the affinity of the tasks running on your computer. Whoever is responsible, it is a really bad idea to screw with Windows tasks like this.

I took a shot in the dark and uninstalled Razer Cortex and turns out that was the cause! Thank you for your time and patience as always hopefully no more hiccups from here on out! lol

I'm still wondering how it triggered affinitys like that all of the sudden. Mind of its own I suppose...

 

[unclewebb]

uninstalled Razer Cortex

Maybe Razer was not thrilled about some comments I made about their overheating laptops so they gave ThrottleStop a kick in the privates. No idea why any reputable software thinks it is OK to change the affinity of tasks that are not related to it. Poor programming at its best.