The harder the tasks you do on your PC, the hotter your CPU (processor) will be. This becomes especially noticeable during heavy gaming or video editing, but nonetheless, your CPU can easily overheat if it's poorly ventilated or the thermal paste on the CPU has worn out. Fortunately, there is a magic tool that can lower high temperatures and reduce power consumption with a process called undervolting.
What is undervolting?
Before you go any further, you should know what goes wrong as it's a pretty serious process. While the low voltage doesn't damage your CPU, overuse can make your system unstable (although it is easy to reverse). On the other hand, overvoltage can damage your CPU if overused, but used with care, can allow you to overclock your CPU to higher speeds. (We won't cover that today.)
To put it simply, undervolting, reduces the amount of power / voltage being directed to your CPU. The more electricity is sent, the hotter it is. The less electricity, the cooler it is. Simple. Another benefit of laptop users is that it extends battery life.
Best of all, the fact that your CPU is underperforming doesn't have a significant effect on performance, even during intense activities like gaming. It is really as good as it sounds!
Throttlestop feature
Throttlestop is a tool with many purposes. Its primary name refers to its use in overriding the throttling systems in your CPU to increase performance, but we do the opposite here.
1. First, Download and install Throttlestop, then open it.
2. Let's see the checkboxes on the main Throttlestop screen.
We'll only be looking at those with modern CPU-related ones, as some of them relate to features for much older PCs. Here are the features you should be looking for:
Disable Turbo:: this setting will ensure that no cores on your CPU run faster than their base clock speed. If you have a base clock speed of 2.6GHz with Acceleration up to 3GHz, checking this box will ensure that it stays in the 2.6GHz zone instead of accelerating.
BD Prochot: a safety feature that seriously regulates your CPU when things overheat inside your laptop. In general, the adjustment will take effect when your CPU reaches 100C, but with this box ticked, the CPU will work even if your GPU gets too hot. It's a handy safety measure to have in extremely rare cases.
Speed Shift: On more recent CPUs (2016 and onward), Intel has released this feature, which helps the CPU react faster to changes in clock speed set by the software. If this option appears in Throttlestop for you, then you should turn it on.
SpeedStep: if your CPU is older than Intel Skylake generation (2015), then Speedstep does the same job as Speed Shift. By all means, please enable this feature if you have an older CPU.
C1E: enabling this feature will help save energy when you are running low on battery, as Throttlestop will automatically turn off your cores based on their stress level. You do not need to turn this on when plugged in to the power source.
Undervolt your CPU with Throttlestop
Next are the four selected circles in the top left. These allow you to switch between different profiles, each with its own possible undervolt settings. We'll turn this item to “Game” because we're creating a profile for playing the game, but you can leave it at “Performance” if you want.
So, with the profile you want to set selected, click the FIVR button in Throttlestop. In the new window, check the box Unlock Adjustable Voltage
Next, we decrease the Offset Voltage slider, which is the low voltage section. We recommend that you lower this value to -100mV to get started.
When you're done, click CPU Cache in the FIVR Control section and set it to the same voltage. It is important that CPU Core and CPU Cache always have the same voltage difference.
Once you've done this, click Apply and continue to monitor your system stability and CPU temperature. (You can monitor the CPU temperature from the main Throttlestop window.)
If your system is still stable (no blue screen error), then you can further reduce CPU Cache and CPU Core voltage in -10mV increments to further reduce your CPU temperature. If you get to a point where your system crashes, reboot your PC, open Throttlestop, and return the Offset Voltage by the time your system is stable.
Different CPUs can handle different levels of low voltage, so you'll need to experiment a little to find the limit for your CPU. My Intel i7-6700HQ CPU dropped to -150mV with no problem, but your CPU may be different.
When you are finished adjusting, click OK in FIVR Dashboard, then click Turn On in the main Throttlestop window.
If you want to avoid having to manually open the Throttlestop every time you want undervolt, you can set it to open at Windows startup. Refer to our guide on how to use the Windows Task Scheduler for more information Or How to add a program to startup automatically in windows 10
Using this method, I reduced the CPU gaming temperature from almost 90 ° C to a much less alarming 70ºC to 75 ° C. This only greatly affects your CPU temperature from within Windows
However, if you still have problems, you may think about opening your PC and gluing the thermal paste on the CPU or blowing out the dust.
No comments:
Post a Comment