SOLVED: Task manager has suddenly started reporting the wrong CPU speed

[Puffnstuff]

I have an asus maximus vii hero motherboard bios 3201 and I'm having an issue with a fresh install of windows 10 pro creators edition x64. It has started incorrectly reporting my 4790k as having a maximum clock speed of only .8ghz (800 MHz). Right after I installed it the other day task manager reported a maximum speed of 4ghz just like its supposed to. I also ran an instance of CPU-Z to verify that the pc is indeed operating at the desired overclock of 4.6ghz. Now I was at stock when this first started this time and OC'd for the very first time just to see if it would make a difference in the maximum reported speed and there was no change.

On the old build of windows this issue occurred but at that time it also locked my motherboard's bios down to the same speed forcing me to flash it to correct the problem. This time on a fresh install of windows 10 pro x64 the motherboard has retained the correct settings which I verified in bios plus CPU-Z also reports the same speeds. What would make task manager suddenly start reporting the incorrect speeds? I've scoured the registry looking for speed settings and I cannot find them to check the data.

I was running asus aisuite3 and also messed around with it just before I noticed this issue. I uninstalled it and removed all registry entries pertaining to it plus ran ccleaner and the problem persists. The picture below illustrates this issue and as you can see the CPU utilization rate is skewed as its being based upon a maximum speed of .8ghz. Funny thing is that the actual speed fluctuates like its supposed to and will bounce up and down beyond .8ghz. The first time this happened it locked my pc down to a max of .8ghz.

 

[deustroop]

Have you disabled speedstep ? Is turbo boost a problem ?

Beyond weird though to have high cpu usage with no obvious disk activity going on.

Maybe there's a ghost in the machine ?

Or its just Task Manager gone FUBAR which may require another install. Don't overclock this time.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I wasn't OC'd until after I saw this and I did it just to see if it would change the readings I got from cpu-z and task manager. I normally just run stock which is where this problem started at.

 

[Iron Woode]

was aisuite3 installed when you upgraded?

I know aisuite3 causes massive slowdowns and other odd things if I install it.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I installed it and once this happened I uninstalled it but the condition didn't change. CPU-Z shows the cpu cycling through its speed range under load while task manager just sits there. I'm going to run auslogics registry cleaner and see what happens. I tried ccleaner and even though it did fix things it didn't change what the kernel is doing. I ran DISM healthcheck and it found no errors.

 

[Iron Woode]

I found another thread about this issue. seems this is fairly typical of Task Manager.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?44939-4-2Ghz-OC-on-4770k-reported-by-Windows-as-0-8Ghz

 

[Puffnstuff]

Thanks for the link and I've seen this happen with multiple manufacturers uefi boards. The very first time it happened to me on the previous build of windows it also managed to lock down the bios speed to .8ghz which forced me to reflash the bios to clear it back to normal. This time the bios still reports the correct speeds as does cpu-z but I'd still like to resolve the sudden change in behavior in task manager.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Somehow, I think folks are misinterpreting Task Manager. This is the suggestion evident on the ROG link.

My i7-6700K skylake @ 4.7 Ghz EIST-enabled variously shows 1.7 to 3.13Ghz at idle while typing this post, and briefly 4.65 Ghz opening a graphic-arts program.

So it's really reporting real-time current processor speed. Isn't that right?!?

But looking at Puff-n-Stuff's screenies -- no -- those are ridiculous. Something f***y going on there.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Windows is also not abiding by the minimum processor speed rules I placed in advanced settings. I have it set to 30% which should make my minimum cpu speed 1.2ghz so its not even abiding by its own rules. The fact that this is a clean install of windows really burns me up as it's barely a week old.
Edit: I tried booting in safe mode but the issue persists and now I'm convinced that the root cause lies with how windows obtains the cpu speed from the uefi bios.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I just wanted to add that when I run msinfo32 that it also reports a max cpu speed of 801mhz so windows is obtaining the incorrect cpu profile information from someplace and the uefi bios is the most likely culprit.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Gentlemen I have discovered the source of my issue and it took some scientific methodology but it hit me over the head like a ton of bricks when I got it. Today I first tried resetting the windows hardware information and forced a rescan which returned the very same results. Then I begin thinking about when this problem first occurred and what bios version I was using and then it hit me. The issue is in the bios so I went back into my bios and started looking more closely at the different screens. Keep in mind that I was running asus maxiums vii hero bios version 3201 when this problem started.

The very first time I had this issue I was running bios version 3003. I had previously updated to bios version 3102 but ESD issues forced me back down but I never had a cpu speed issue. Then I considered the fact that prior bios releases have never exhibited this behavior so I ended up rolling my bios back to version 2901 which is the highest version I've used that did not have this problem.

Getting back to what I discovered in my bios is as I went across my screens I discovered that it was indeed reporting a rated cpu speed of 804mhz on a single page. Funny thing is that on the right side of the same page it was reporting the correct speed of 4000mhz. Below are some screen shots so you can see what I am talking about. You can also see the difference in the data after I reflashed to 2901 and that task manager is now reporting the correct speeds.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The more experience I have with Microsoft and PCs (and going back 30 years), the less eager I am to reinstall an operating system to fix something, maybe with causes defined or guessed with uncertainty.

Most recent case was installation of Build #1703, followed by an interaction between caching software, stress-test software, Windows and memory management. Over at the Romex forums, some colleagues felt it necessary to do the same thing -- clean re-install.

Maximum PC magazine published some years back a recommendation to reinstall Windows once annually. I never quite embraced the idea. If you have a lot of software, things work together in a certain way, you don't want to go through software and configuration hoops again if you can avoid it. Even if you took notes, they are never sufficient in detail. Now, I think that article was published at least six years ago, or not long after the initial Windows 7 SP1 release. And I built my Sandy Bridge 2600K system at that time. The same installation of June, 2011 is still running fine.

BIOS troubles can be a bitch sometimes. I never buy this year's 1st release of a new motherboard. Sometimes there is a flurry of BIOS revisions following that. Last time, ASUS Sabertooth boards wouldn't run with memory set at above 2,600 MHz during the first three or four months of the board's history. I followed the trails online through that time, and then either a change log or some forum poster announced that the problem was fixed with a BIOS revision. All that time, people may have avoided buying the board just for those RAM configuration limits.

Of course, except for reviews, if everyone did as I, there wouldn't be any guinea pigs to follow.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I've read about an issue with the thermal sensor forcing haswell cpu's down to 800mhz and read several posts where people used a command to turn it off. I've never had any thermal warnings making this issue a great source of frustration. I did use AISuite3 last week right after I installed it and I wonder if it triggered the bios issue on my board.

Like I previously stated I've never had this issue prior to bios version 2901 and this is the second install of windows to fall victim to it. Just as soon as I rolled back my bios the issue cleared up but then again when I reflashed the board before it cleared up too. As for AISuite3 I uninstalled it and removed any traces of it from the registry.

As for windows I've got it down to a science and clean installs are just a minor inconvenience that an afternoon can resolve. I stopped cloning drives years ago and always prefer to do a clean install when problems arise. Having so many cloud based programs makes backing up your settings easier than ever so just reinstalling and logging in brings it all back. Today is day 8 on this build of 1703 and I hope to be able to keep it chugging along until I can build an all ssd replacement machine later on. I believe that I'll be doing at least 8 cores this next go around with at least 32gb of ram.