underclocking a t42?

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afterwave · #1 Post by **afterwave** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:19 am

Hi!

I've got a t42 with a pm 1.6. With the intel speedstep utility it's possible to run the processor at 600mhz ("battery optimized performance").
Is it possible to lower the processor speed even further? At 600 the fan starts spinning after a couple of minutes and I'm not happy with that if I'm only about to read a document or browsing the web.

Hope you can help!

thanks in advance!

/Anders

jeeva · #2 Post by **jeeva** » Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:51 am

your just search the problem for the fan at the wrong point, because it is the GPU, which is responsible for the fan. Use the omega-drivers www.omegadrivers.net so you can underclock your GPU, but be warned, that could make your system instable! Another possiblity is to activate PowerPlay even on AC Power, for that use the Omega drivers, too.

afterwave · #3 Post by **afterwave** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 4:14 am

Thanks for the information!
I would like to change the speed of the gpu in a simple way just like the intel speedstep utility works.
Is there any application to underclock the gpu which works like the intel speedstep utility? ie a small application which sits in the systray which can change the speed from normal to low with just two clicks.

jeeva · #4 Post by **jeeva** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 4:26 am

AFAIK there is no pissibility, but you can install the Omega-Drivers and set the Powerplay option to "low" in every condition - Batery powered, low battery and AC powered- then you can use the "Graphic power management" checkbox in the menu of the battery maximizer, the green display in the Systray, so when you need high performance graphics, just disable the checkbox and afterwords enable it to stop the fan. Worksd good for me (now I'm using Linux).

I think that's one way.

dvorak · #5 Post by **dvorak** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:01 am

Use display properties, under advanced it has a possibility to choose Powerplay on AC.

Use RADLinker or ATITool for underclocking, without the need of extra set of drivers, I've never used them actually, so let me know what they change and how the do :)

afterwave · #6 Post by **afterwave** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 8:26 am

I've tried setting all the powerplay options to "optimal battery life" but the fan still starts after a couple of minutes. This happens when I'm only doing som light web browsing.
what core and memory settings should I use in atitools?

jeeva · #7 Post by **jeeva** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 9:36 am

If you can live with it, set the Color Depth to 16 Bit. The Colors are a little bit choppier, but that helps, too.

dvorak · #8 Post by **dvorak** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 11:21 am

I suggest monitor your temperature, my fan starts when the CPU temp is above 42 or so degrees.
Eg. use Mobile Meter (http://dssc3031.ece.cmu.edu/~tamaru/mob ... adme-e.htm)

What BIOS version are you using? Is the machine hot underneath?

I don't consider it very normal for the fan to always start when the machine is cold, of course I don't know about your room temperature, perhaps lay that in the open too :)
Anyways, if the machine is warm, definitely, if you're a man, keep it away from your pants, if you wish to have children in the future :)

afterwave · #9 Post by **afterwave** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 3:34 am

I use the mobilemeter and the fan will start when above 42 degrees. The machine is not that hot underneath. The room temperature is 20 degrees and the bios version is 3.13 (2004-10-29).
Is it normal that the cpu temperature goes above 42 degrees when I'm only doing some web browsing. I'm running windows 2000 sp4, miranda, norman virus control, sygate personal firewall, mobilemeter. The computer is a t42 2373-fwg.
What settings should I use with atitools if most of the work done on the computer is programming and webbrowsing (not very graphic intensive stuff)?
Is it possible to make the cpu run lower than 600mhz or is the heat "problem" only because of the gpu?

dvorak · #10 Post by **dvorak** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:17 am

What are you other settings when you browse?
LCD brightness max?

42 degrees for the fan to start, I think, is rather normal, although why does it run that hot in simple browsing is peculiar.

What is your CPU's usage while it's idle, without any running applications other than those default and small systray apps?
The more the CPU does the more heat it generates, and hence more power consumes.
What is your power consumption at idle and while you're browsing?
Mine stays at near 9-11w while browsing, that with rather low LCD brightness.

PS: As far as I know and have experienced, 600MHz is the minimum these processors run on.
PS2: The GPU definitely doesn't produce much heat while browsing, so I doubt unclocking it will help noticeable.

jeeva · #11 Post by **jeeva** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:48 am

The problem is, AFAIK the heat pipe transports the heat from the GPU to the CPU and then goes out by fan, so if the GPU runs at his high level, the CPU goes also higher and brings the 42°C. Did the decrease of the color depth work and was the CPU cooler?

dvorak · #12 Post by **dvorak** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:38 pm

This is in general not normal, whatever ways the GPU affects the temperature, it won't be in so much use with only browsing.

I'm still interested in the CPU utilization, if there are perhaps some updating programs / other resource hoggers not calming down and constantly running, they may drive the processor use up to a point it goes over 42 degrees with browsing.

If this does not happen in Linux, it may as well be some Windows program malfunctioning, was Powerplay really activated, did it display a notice in the ATI tabs (Display Properties > Advanced)?

afterwave · #13 Post by **afterwave** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:07 am

The cpu utilization is only 1-4% when i'm not active. I didn't notice any differences when using powerplay and a lower color depth. The fan remain spinning at its lowest rate. Maybe I have to use these settings for a couple of days to make fair comparsion..
I'm not running linux on this computer yet (but I will) so I can't tell if it's some problem with windows.

I'm now using following apps:

firefox, total commander, mobilemeter, sygate personal firewall, norman virus control, miranda.

with following settings: 32 bit color depth, full lcd brightness, 600MHz

and then I get this values: 39 degrees, 15.33W discharge rate, 35 degrees (hd), the fan spinning at its lowest rate

should I upgrade (is there a upgrade?) the bios? (bios version 3.13)

what is the lowest working core and memory settings that I can use with atitools (or radlinker)?

Thanks for the answers so far! Great forum!

dvorak · #14 Post by **dvorak** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:11 pm

Well, I can now add my contribution :)
I browsed the forums yesterday when in bed and monitored the temperature. The machine was lying on my stomach while I used it.
Brightness was set to level 3.

At one time the fan did work, for a second or two, then stopped, temperature returned to 39 from 42 degrees celcius in a few seconds.
After a while, I remember a little more fan-action, but definitely not constant, I of course during this whole test were sweating, I lain directly next to a radiator ;)

None the less, the temperature stayed between 38-43 degrees and to see if the fan was spinning I had to put my ear next to it, the HDD's sound was louder.

beeblebrox · #15 Post by **beeblebrox** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:59 am

You forgot that there is another sensor next to the wireless card.
When you surf the web via WLAN, just check underneath the touchpad (where the WLAN card is located) and feel the heat.

As soon as you stop WLAN and wait a few minutes, the fan stops (assuming the GPU is in throttled mode or powerplay).

When I read ebooks (Adobe), the Thinkpad is dead silent (HDD timer set to 3 minutes as well). Fantastic!
It took IBM about 2 years to figure out the controller software to allow this.

corsair · #16 Post by **corsair** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:09 pm

Maybe you could try this: http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm

It is a very nice Centrino Control Utility. You can select the multiplicator and voltage. Sometimes you can undervolt your CPU even more. There are some test routines included in the software !

underclocking a t42?

underclocking a t42?

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