NHC 2 is out!

[Johan]

I am having the same problem with NHC (Pre-Release 2.06, Personal Edition) as earlier described in this thread: In NHC (in the "Graphics tab") the following three boxes are all greyed out:

Enable ATI Powerplay Control in NHC
Activate Powerplay
Show ATI clock in the Taskbat Icon ToolTip

... completely regardless of how I configure the settings in Windows XP Start --> Control Panel --> Display --> Settings --> Advanced --> Powerplay (tab) and "Activate Powerplay" or not. The above all applies to when I run directly off mains; I haven't tried how NHC behaves if I run off battery.

In the same NHC Graphic Card Control section, I am allowed to enable (and alter) both ATI Clock Control #1 and #2 (although I have not yet understod when #1 resp. #2 are used?).

I am using a T42p, 2373-Q1U w/128 MB ATI Mobility FireGL T2. I have installed the T43p ACPI file referenced to above (and modified it for my T42p), and fan-control in NHC functions fine. I use NHC as being auto-started in Windows (hence I am not running NHC as a service). In the the NHC manual (Graphic Card Control section) I find no explanation why the above boxes are all disabled? What I simply want is this look!

According to "Properties for ATI Mobility Fire GL T2" the driver version used here is 6.14.10.6547, dated 16-11-2006. I don't have the Mobility Modder.

What I want to do is let NHC control Powerplay, in particular when I run off mains... simply to reduce GPU heat dissipation as much as possible. I mainly use the T42p to browse the internet, e-mail and type... so very little GPU power is necessary. All help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance, and best regards,

Johan

PS: I am not sure if this problem might be related to the T43p ACPI-file; this link seems to indicate so? Also, This, this and this link may also shed some light on the problem - for those who can read German...! (which I cannot - sufficiently).

UPDATE: I just discovered this thread pointing to this thread which finally points to this thread where in particular the post by troubadix of Fri Oct 28, 2005 may perhaps shed some light on this issue...? How/if all this relate to NHC ver. 2.06 is however a little unclear (to me!).

[Paul Unger]

Great post, Johan--detailed and clear! I experienced exactly what you described. It was only when I downloaded and installed this http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/ATIPOWPL.zip from troubadix's signature that PowerPlay was enabled in NHC. I'd say identify your current driver (i.e., the one thats 'working' for you right now!), make sure you have a copy of it (in case you want to 'roll back' to it), and go ahead and apply troubadix's driver. If it doesn't do what you want, you can always roll back to what you've got now. I can only say that it has been working (and working well) for me. Good luck!

[Johan]

Thanks a whole lot, Paul, for the kind words and the positive criticism; much appreciated - keep 'em coming!

Well, sometimes I find threads quite hard to follow, if being too brief or assuming some not-provided knowledge from the (no doubt: Many!) non-specialist forum readers. If being more detailed (which is typically ”my way”!), this may have the negative effect that the post increase in size, but the advantage is that I am certain that more people may benefit from it. I have the clear impression that you share this approach…

Thank you also very much for the information about troubadix’ ATIPOWERPLAY-driver. The reason for asking here, even after having found that driver mentioned yesterday in the Oct. 2005-post, is that NHC ver. 2.0 came out about a year ago, while troubadix’ driver is almost two years old – so I figured that the old driver had been kind of been ”superseded” by, or at least incorporated into, the new NHC… but now I know that this is not the case, thanks to you. I will for sure follow your (very valuable!) advice and backup the current driver, before playing with the new ones by troubadix. Is it sufficient to just copy to a safe place all the C:\Windows\system32\ati*.* and C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\ati*.* files plus the C:\Windows\system32\Oemdspif.inf or are there other files also necessary to backup?

I read the other day about your T42 won't shut down; nhc? ati? power manager?-problem, and I wish I could help, but (fortunately!) I have not experienced anything like that. After having installed NHC ver. 2.06, I have undervolted the CPU (only the two multipliers x6 @ 0.732 V and x21 @ 1.116 V), but I have not yet performed other than relatively short stability-tests (using the NHC built-in ones). Anyway, the T42p w/NHC v. 2.06 has been stable – except from one single instance, which I however don’t know if I can blame NHC: One day, when I shut down, the computer in stead rebooted (and I am absolutely sure that I did not select reboot)… some kind of glitch, but only seen a single time under one month of use.

Now; absolutely off topic! I have often read your posts, and have been constantly, pleasantly educated while at the same time staring very envious at your location… the (in my mind!) extremely exotic, sonny Solomon Islands! ”What am I doing here in Copenhagen”, I’m thinking; ”I should be having an exciting job out in the Paul’s Pacific!!” What am I going to do to realize the dream of sunny beaches, white sand, the wind in the palms etc… you wouldn’t happen to be in need for an assistant for whatever simple, manual work? [I am an electronics engineer w/Ph.D. in antennas and microwaves, but I guess that such are relatively useless out at the Solomon’s?]. OK, Paul – I have to get to bed here – I am going to dream about the white sand, the coral sea, the dolphins, the coconuts, the Solomons… oooh, man, how I envy you!!

Thanks, again, Paul – and please feel free to send me a thought next time when you sit on your sunny beach - right there under the palms… (hopefully!) just enjoying the Pacific life!

Best regards,

Johan

[technicianx]

Hi everyone

After realising that I was entering the wrong model number (label on my machine states 2658J3M but NHC says 2648J3M, which do I trust?), I fixed an initial issue and at least got ACPI control working.

However it hasn't turned out to be of much use as I keep getting the following errors continuously while it is running:

ACPI.FIELD.ReadByOffset("_SB.PCI0.LPC.EC.ECOR", ref 0, 132, 16, "ByteAcc", "NoLock", "Preserve") . . . OK
ACPI.FIELD.Read("_SB.PCI0.LPC.EC.HFSP", ref 0) . . . ERROR
IBM.TPFancontrol.FAN.refresh( ) . . . ERROR
ACPI.FIELD.Read("_SB.PCI0.LPC.EC.TMP0", ref 0) . . . ERROR
IBM.TPFancontrol.SENSORS.refresh( ) . . . ERROR
ACPI.FIELD.Read("_SB.PCI0.LPC.EC.KBLT", ref 2) . . . ERROR
IBM.TPFancontrol.HARDWARE.refresh( ) . . . ERROR

Can someone please help me with this issue? I would really appreciate it as I have an issue with the fan on this machine where it kicks into full speed and refuses to slow down at random times. The Thinkpad is an R32, P4M 1.8GHz.

[Johan]

After realising that I was entering the wrong model number (label on my machine states 2658J3M but NHC says 2648J3M, which do I trust?), I fixed an initial issue and at least got ACPI control working.

However it hasn't turned out to be of much use as I keep getting the following errors continuously while it is running:

<snip>

Can someone please help me with this issue? I would really appreciate it as I have an issue with the fan on this machine where it kicks into full speed and refuses to slow down at random times. The Thinkpad is an R32, P4M 1.8GHz.

First, I don't anything about R32's, sorry, and I also don't recall having seen any reports of NHC w/ACPI running on R32's under Windows (as I guess you run Windows XP, although you are very little specific in your post?). If you want (better!) help here, I suggest you provide a few more details, such as informing about what OS you use (Win XP Pro, or some earlier version of Windows?), and exactly which ACPI-file you have downloaded (and from where?), and now try to get running?

While looking at the page Notebook Hardware Control ACPI Upload System, under the IBM section, there are quite a few ACPI-files (for a number of different ThinkPad's), incl. a couple of R51's - which one did you download?? If I were you, I'd first start playing with one of the R51-files, and not any of the T- or X-ThinkPad ACPI files.

One hint, which may or may not be of use, is this: Check the Power Management driver you are using now, and consider updating with ThinkPad Power Management driver for Windows Vista, XP, 2000, Me, 98 SE (this driver dated 2007/07/10, and for which it is mentioned: "This package provides ACPI power management support"). Again: I don't know if it will change anything, but it may perhaps be worth a try? Remember to make a (Windows) System Restore point before playing with new drivers.

PS1: I assume you have already read what it says at Notebook Hardware Control IMPORTANT section:

Code: Select all

IMPORTANT!

Note you must have Microsoft's .NET Framework Version 2.0 or newer installed.
 
Notebook Hardware Control requires Windows 2000, XP or Windows Vista 32Bit.

PS2: More details of this users' problems is described in the "associated" thread: R32 fan control.

BR,

Johan

[Tim M]

I'm fairly new to the world of NHC and have found this thread quite helpful. One question: is there any way to undervolt the GPU to reduce temperatures? I get stress test temps approaching 100*C, which I do not like.

[Johan]

I'm fairly new to the world of NHC and have found this thread quite helpful. One question: is there any way to undervolt the GPU to reduce temperatures? I get stress test temps approaching 100*C, which I do not like.

To undervolt the GPU (assuming that you have a ThinkPad with an ATI GPU): I believe that you have this option if using the ATITool – have a look for yourself! However, beware of potential conflicts if simultaneously running Notebook Hardware Control and ATITool.

If you want to undervolt your GPU, I suggest you have a look at the thread Getting even lower voltages? – this seems to indicate that you should not go too low, as this might permanently damage the GPU.

I would be interested to hear of your experience with this investigation – thanks in advance for sharing.

Best regards,

Johan

[Tim M]

^ Thanks, Johan. I've played with ATITools before and about all it did was make my system unstable. I just tried playing with it again to the same effect. I also didn't see a clean way of adjusting the voltages (as with NHC) without having to play with the BIOS.

I'm hoping that this is a capability that might be included in the next release of NHC.

In the meantime, I'm going to replace the thermal compound between my fan and the CPU and GPU. I used some inexpensive silicone-based stuff when doing and upgrade and perhaps a more careful application of Arctic Silver 5 will do the trick (but this is becoming somewhat off-topic).

[fantomex]

I am having the same problem with NHC (Pre-Release 2.06, Personal Edition) as earlier described in this thread: In NHC (in the "Graphics tab") the following three boxes are all greyed out:

Enable ATI Powerplay Control in NHC
Activate Powerplay
Show ATI clock in the Taskbat Icon ToolTip

i had the same issue, only reinstalled the ati drivers (even when having the same version and rebooted. now it's not "greyed out" - however there are some sliders which i in fact don't know what are doing =))

[fantomex]

As my X31 is fixed with a different Mobo and i don't have the floppy disk to change uuid and model name, I first identified the thing manufacturer as IBM (in NHC>Info>Show computer details) and since i have no model name (these are added by the tech's floppy) i deleted all the *.xml and *.cs installed this (mirror of what version i used) and edited ibm.xml this way

IBM.xml

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<IBM>
  <Model name="" location="PRODUCT" class="TPFancontrol" file="IBM.cs" />
</IBM>

[/img]

[Tim M]

I have been doing some follow-up for my GPU heating problems. Unfortunatley, Johan, I was unsuccessful in undervolting the GPU with ATITool (your post of December 18th). It seems that at present the only way to do so is by editing the video card BIOS (risky) or modifying the hardware to lower the supply voltage to the GPU (riskier).

I've instead reexamined my NHC settings to see if my fan was operating well. I'm utilizing the ACPI script configured as in your post of July 30 and have kept default settings (only editing IBM.xml and lenovo.xml to contain my machine type, 2379-DXU). I have noticed, however, that regardless of the (nonzero) "Actual Fan Level" reported in NHC's ACPI control panel, the "Actual Fan-Speed" is always ~2900 rpm, even under heavy CPU/GPU load.

I'm wondering if this might be part of my trouble? Perhaps the fixed fan speed is sufficient to keep things cool (~40 C) under normal use, but when I hammer the GPU (using "Video Card Stability Test") the fan can't cope and the temperature skyrockets to over 100 C (even with Arctic Silver 5, which incidentally made no difference in reported temperatures).

I receive no hardware errors or crashes, so it seems I'm not harming anything (yet), but such high temperatures seem like they'd be above the thermal spec for the GPU. The CPU is undervolted and rarely exceeds 65 C even under heavy load.

[Johan]

Tim,

I have just read your highly interesting investigations about lowering the GPU power-consumption/heat-dissipation - thanks a whole lot for sharing! Please keep up the good work!

Unfortunately, I am not right now in a position to help you as my beloved T42p is dead for the time being (and what is worse is that IBM/Denmark refuse to repair it, although it is surely covered by warranty; the whole sad story about this is described in the thread IBM/Denmark deny to honor warranty confirmed by IBM-Support).

However, one thing that comes to mind when reading about your troubles: What "Mode" have you set Fan Control to in in NHC; I mean the first selectable "Mode" which is displayed in Enable fine-grained fan control with NHC on Thinkpads; do you use "Manual" (1) or "NHC" (2) or "ACPI" (3)?? You could perhaps try (it's easy!) to switch the Notebook Fan Control "Mode"? Because I don't have my T42p here, I can't check what I do, but according to the thread T42 and ACPI in not working properly (see my post of Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:59 am), I am using "Mode" set to "NHC" (Mode = 2)... this seems to work for me and others - and as you see, I even won a beer from sharing that suggestion...! Try it, Tim, and let me hear if that changes something?

PS: If you find out how to lower the GPU temperature (undervolting or whatever), there is surely a beer waiting for you here!

Best regards,

Johan

[Johan]

i had the same issue, only reinstalled the ati drivers (even when having the same version and rebooted. now it's not "greyed out" - however there are some sliders which i in fact don't know what are doing =))

Thanks for this information; which I also just read now, quite a while after it was posted (read while I am badly missing my T42p so I could try this suggestion!). Highly interesting - can't almost wait to test this! Thanks, again! Where, by the way, did you download the ATI drivers from... perhaps here --> Drivers and software - ThinkPad T42, T42p, ATI Radeon/FireGL video drivers?

Best regards,

Johan

[Tim M]

I have just read your highly interesting investigations about lowering the GPU power-consumption/heat-dissipation - thanks a whole lot for sharing! Please keep up the good work!

Thanks!

Unfortunately, I am not right now in a position to help you as my beloved T42p is dead for the time being (and what is worse is that IBM/Denmark refuse to repair it...

What "Mode" have you set Fan Control to in in NHC...

I have it set to "2:NHC" (and am using v. 0.82 of the script). In the next sub-menu ("Fan Settings"), I've experimented with "Fan Max Level" set to both "64=Max without EC control" and "128=BIOS ACPI control" with no appreciable difference in idle or load temperatures. I doubt that my fan is faulty, as it would be strange for it to work but only at a specific rotational speed.

PS: If you find out how to lower the GPU temperature (undervolting or whatever), there is surely a beer waiting for you here!

This is a powerful motivator. My suspicion is that a software undervolting scheme should be possible and that would be a great feature to add to the next release of NHC.

Thanks,

Tim

[Johan]

Tim,

Thanks for your fast feedback about the NHC troubles; I very much enjoy your efforts and, yes, I keep the beer in the ''fridge for you..

Well, what I just came to think of is this: Would you like me to zip and mail all my NHC-stuff from my T42p 2373-Q1U (the program and all settings, XML and CSS files etc); I mean you could then simply temporarily rename your present NHC-directory, and try see if mine works better on your ThinkPad? If you want this, please let me have an e-mail address (you may send it via a PM). The whole NHC (zipped) incl. exe's is about 7 MB - that's not too bad for mailing, I think.

Best regards,

Johan

[Tim M]

Thank you, Johan. That is most generous. I will give your script and settings a try in the next few days and report back.

[Johan]

Thank you, Johan. That is most generous. I will give your script and settings a try in the next few days and report back.

Just a small hint; have a look in the thread T41p GPU Underclocking when AC - could be of interest to investigate the suggestions given there.

Best regards, and good luck with the testing,

Johan

[Tim M]

^ Thanks.

I'm a bit behind in getting around to playing with the NHC fan control settings (work was insane this week). I'll post again when I've had enough time to investigate.

[Bob34]

I'm a total n00b to NHC, but any opinions of this versus ThinkVantage's Power Manager?

Is there any glaring shortcomings? I want to get rid of Power Manager, it seems like such a hog, and NHC Pro seems like a nice replacement.

[Tim M]

Well, what I just came to think of is this: Would you like me to zip and mail all my NHC-stuff from my T42p 2373-Q1U (the program and all settings, XML and CSS files etc); I mean you could then simply temporarily rename your present NHC-directory, and try see if mine works better on your ThinkPad? If you want this, please let me have an e-mail address (you may send it via a PM). The whole NHC (zipped) incl. exe's is about 7 MB - that's not too bad for mailing, I think.

Well, I've finally had time to sit down and systematically play with NHC to see if I could address my GPU heating problems. Work has been busy the last few weeks, and I have been mildly distracted by this tall blonde Dutch student who will be working in our lab for the next half-year.

I first tried switching the IBM.css, IBM.xml, and IBM.dll files in the "ACPI" folder of my NHC directory with those of Johan, testing all combinations of my versions with his. I observed no difference in reported fan speeds (always maxing out at ~2900 rpm). GPU temperatures were assessed briefly with no improvement noted.

I then decided to switch my settings.xml file in NHC's main directory with that of Johan. I immediately noticed the GPU not heating as rapidly when subjected to the Video Card Stability Test program, so I investigated further. The only differences between the two files were more conservative CPU undervolting in Johan's version along with the "Enable Custom Dynamic Switching" option being checked under the CPU speed tab. I modified these settings to contain the more aggressive undervolting that I use but left the "Enable Custom Dynamic Switching" option checked.

With these settings, the situation seems improved, as Video Card Stability Test has not yet pushed temperatures over 100 C, which had been very easy to do before. The temperatures are slowly creeping into the upper 90s after ~15 minutes as I write this, so perhaps only the time constant for the rise has been increased. Interestingly, the reported fan speed isn't much different, maxing out at ~2990 rpm.

So, in short, I'm not sure what's going on, but Johan's settings.xml file seems to have improved the situation. Perhaps my old settings.xml file got corrupted somehow.

I would still like to see GPU undervolting added to a future release of NHC as I think it would be a useful feature.

EDIT
I'm clearly daft; perhaps that Dutch student is getting to me. The reason the temps were lower was because Johan's settings had ATI Clock Control enabled with a setting of 175 MHz core / 157 MHz memory. If I disabled the clock control so that the default 320/210 was available (but left PowerPlay enabled), Video Card Stability Test would heat the GPU until I got warning beeps from the machine. A minor underclock to 300/200 slightly improves the problem, but the warning beeps are not something I was getting before (though I also hadn't torture tested the GPU to this extent before). So, there is no improvement using different NHC scripts; the issue is with heat dissipation, perhaps from my removing and replacing the GPU's heat spreader during a CPU upgrade and AS-5 application process (there was no other way to get the fan off). Again, an easy way to undervolt the GPU (i.e. without having to write to the video card's BIOS) would be a big help.

FYI, the machine has a MR 9600 64 MB with the latest release of Omega Drivers (v. 4.8.442).

[skanky]

just came across this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946932

is anyone able to figure out a way so that NHC will start on login as a service without the UAC prompt popping up? i dont want to disable UAC totally as i have vista set to automatically elevate prompts

[Radioguy]

just came across this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946932

is anyone able to figure out a way so that NHC will start on login as a service without the UAC prompt popping up? i dont want to disable UAC totally as i have vista set to automatically elevate prompts

That's in the pro version ($) only. (I think)

Has anyone installed and configured NHC for a T61 on Vista 32-bit? If so, can you give me a step by step? I had previously installed it and I think everything was greyed out because I didn't have the right ACPI file (?) for a T61.

Thanks.

[Johan]

I just wanted to share what I first discovered tonight (and what I obviously find very interesting); there seems to be a new, updated version of "Notebook Hardware Control" coming up... more or less shortly, according to the thread NHC Entwicklungsstand Dezember 2008 [Ger/Eng].

Also, notice the misc. NHC sub-forums at Notebook Hardware Control with a large library of ACPI-files ACPI Modules (German language) and ACPI Modules (English language) etc. etc. - a very useful resource!

PS: I found this site while trying to find out if NHC will run on a HP EliteBook 8730w having a Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU. If anybody would happen to know this, feel free to post a reply here! This CPU has "Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology" but according to MobileMeter it constantly runs at full speed (2.4 GHz), and to my great surprise I can't find any neither Windows XP Pro tools nor any HP Power Management tools which will allow me to command the CPU into "adaptive mode", so that it will reduce clock-speed while idling. I talked to HP support who don't have a clue about this... it appeared that they didn't know anything about SpeedStep?! Spooky - so now I therefore try to find out if NHC will work OK on a P8600. I guess that SpeedSwtichXP may "probably" work (since I'm using Win XP Pro SP2 on this HP8730w), but NHC has far more flexibility (and many more features!), so I'd certainly prefer NHC, if it does support the P8600 CPU in the HP8730w.

Johan

[basketb]

Maybe it's something in the bios that you can change in your HP? (don't Thinkpads also have a BIOS option for this - it's been awhile since I last looked into the bios of my Thinkpad(s).)

[Paul Unger]

PS: I found this site while trying to find out if NHC will run on a HP EliteBook 8730w having a Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU.

Johan

I don't know about NHC (and I suspect 'not'), but I'm pretty sure RMClock works for the C2D family. Good luck. Full-time full-speed CPUs suck.
Paul

[mpcook]

Does anyone know how to get data logging to work with NHC? I have tried this on most the TP's post X30 in my sig, it works on none of them. When I bought the Pro version, I emailed the developer, and he replied saying it was a known issue that it did not work on a few machines, but he was surprised it did not work on so many different Thinkpads.

Meanwhile, it would be a very handy thing to have working, and if anyone has figured this out, let us know!

Thanks,
Mike

[Johan]

Works with no problems for me - using the free version of NHC (2.0 pre-release 6) on a T42p under Win XP Pro SP2. Just open the main NHC panel, choose the "Status" tab, click the lower, rightmost icon (the one looking like a pair of toothwheels), which will open the "monitoring options" window; there check the lowermost option "Enable data logging on the Hard Disk", click the icon right of the text, select a place to store the logfiles (I am not sure that this works; I selected Desktop, but the log files ended up in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Notebook Hardware Control\log), close the "monitoring options" window, and click the green Start Monitoring (arrow)... that's it! After a while, stop and disable the logging, and you'll e.g. find the following Excel-files created:

15-03-2009_cpu_clock.csv
15-03-2009_cpu_temperature.csv

Johan

[mpcook]

Thanks Johan, that is exactly what I have done a number of times, but no log file.

Mike

[zhenya]

What is the current status of NHC under Vista 32? I'm currently having a problem where NHC can't seem to adjust the CPU speed - if I try to change the Power settings from the system tray I get an 'Error Changing CPU Speed' error. I seem to be able to change it from Battery Optimized to Balanced to Performance within the program, (and the CPU speed changes) but the cpu speed doesn't vary based on load. I have not made any changes in the BIOS on this machine, and NHC worked perfectly in XP.

Edit: Reading through the forums linked above I was able to answer my own question I think. Looks like this is a problem of Vista SP1 and that a new version that is fully Vista compatible is in the works.

This leads me to another question - are there any other programs out there that combine Fan control and the ability to undervolt as NHC does, and are Vista compatible? I'm using TPFan control now in lieu of NHC to control the fans, but without the undervolting, my cpu temp is pretty high.

[Johan]

@ zhenya:

I don't know of any other programs that combine fan control and undervolting the CPU than NHC. If you are however willing to use the ThinkPad fan-control program (originally developed by forum-member Shimodax's and subsequently in particular maintained by troubadix) with NHC, then you might want to get the most recent version of NHC, which was released just a couple of weeks ago (March 2, 2009); see --> Notebook Hardware Control - Beta Version 2.0.7.3 - Only for Windows Vista 32 Bit. Note NHC-developer manni's words in the thread NHC Entwicklungsstand Februar 2009.

Johan