Help with throttlestop

[oobymach]

Trying to undervolt my laptop but not understanding the highlighted section, long power, short power and the values (10 and 15) and what they can/should be set to. Any help is appreciated.

 

[unclewebb]

ThrottleStop cannot be used to undervolt your laptop. You can use ThrottleStop to undervolt 4th Gen and newer Core i CPUs and the older Core 2 Duo CPUs. Your Gemini Lake CPU is not supported.

Can you press the TRL button and show me a screenshot of that window?

The N4020 has a 6W TDP power rating. Increasing the PL1 and PL2 power limits in ThrottleStop can improve performance if either of these power limits are causing throttling. When your CPU is loaded running the built in TS Bench test, what speed does it run at? Open up Limit Reasons while your CPU is loaded. Is anything lighting up red. Post a screenshot of ThrottleStop and Limit Reasons when loaded.

I would set the turbo time limit to 28 seconds which is the default for many Intel CPUs.

I have never owned or had access to a N4020 so ThrottleStop support is limited. Without voltage control, there is not a lot you can do with these CPUs. They do not use a FIVR integrated voltage regulator like the Core i CPUs use.

 

[oobymach]

I'm actually having success by limiting the multiplier to 20 the voltage drops from 1.2v to 1.005v in cpuz which has resulted in a respectable drop in temps.

cpuz on a cold boot

Requested screenshot with cpuz for reference.

 

[unclewebb]

I'm actually having success

At 2000 MHz, you need approximately 1.0 V and at 2800 MHz you need approximately 1.20 V. In other words, a 20% increase in voltage allows the CPU to run 40% faster. A fast CPU runs more efficiently compared to a slow CPU. A fast CPU gets tasks done quickly which allows the CPU to spend more time in the low power C states. A fast CPU is not a bad thing.

That is the logic behind the Speed Shift feature that the 6th Gen and newer Core i CPUs all use. Intel discovered that it is best to allow the CPU to burst up to full speed, get background tasks done quickly and then immediately have the unused cores re-enter a low power C state, preferably C7. Intel believes that this gives the best overall results. Here is a paper that explains this.

Power Optimization – a Reality Check

https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2009/EECS-2009-140.pdf

 

[oobymach]

True enough it is a loss of efficiency but the catch is that the laptop has no cooling. For apps like Firefox or VLC full speed is fine but at full speed Dead Space 3 on the menu got the cpu up over 90 degrees in just a couple minutes, at 2ghz I got 10 mins of gaming in and it got up to 70 degrees.

Problem is there is nowhere for the heat to go so I'm trying underclocking to get more game time in without melting the laptop in the process as undervolting isn't an option and the bios is locked. The tradeoff is lower framerate but full speed gaming isn't an option.