The right way to disable speedstep on Z68Deluxe?

Ruffesebb

Junior Member
Sep 5, 2011
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0
0
Hi everyone!
I'm new around here, and fairly new to changing settings in a BIOS. I have an ASUS Z68 Deluxe motherboard with an intel 2600k processor and basically want to disable its speedstep technology to continuously keep the speed at the intended 3.4Ghz instead of it going up and down from 1.6 to 3.4.

I've tried disabling the enhanced intel speedstep thing in the cpu configuration of the BIOS, and I've also disabled C1E. Power settings in Windows 7 are also set to 100% on minimum and maximum. But it still goes up and down (according to CPU-Z)

So I'm wondering what I'm missing. Do I need to disable more of those C-states? Do I need to change Intel speedstep settings somewhere else in the BIOS as well, power settings?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)
 

GrumpyMan

Diamond Member
May 14, 2001
5,780
266
136
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...d=1&model=P8Z68+DELUXE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

To ensure your CPU multi does not go up and down, please:
1. Disable EIST.
2. Disable C1E
3. Disable C3 Reporting
4. Disable C6 Reporting
5. Disable Intel Turbo Boost Tech if you don't even want it to go up..

Now, if you want to reduce the DPC Latency even further, you can also try to disable HPET, according to a friend of mine, this also helps in some cases. May be worth trying.

Advice from link above.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
7
81
Hi Ruffesebb, and welcome to AnandTech Forums.

Is there a reason you don't want the CPU to automatically downclock itself when it is doing nothing? It is able to shift speeds on-the-fly near instantaneously, so you wouldn't lose any performance. You can monitor it too - Intel makes a utility called the Turbo Boost Monitor which will show you what speeds it is running at.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,627
2,024
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Unless you're planning on a marathon process of over-clocking the conventional way, I don't really understand why you want to disable the EIST and related features.

You can over-clock in Turbo mode with those features enabled even at speeds above 4.5 Ghz. You can over-clock with VCORE = "Auto" by manipulating two other voltage settings to keep control of the over-clocked voltages.

Either way -- with the power-saving features enabled or disabled -- you should arrive at the same minimum allowable vcore to reach some over-clocking target ( -- one that is realistically achievable).

But the advice you've received -- to disable all the features EIST, C1E and the C3 and C6 reporting -- that's the way to go and should give the result you sought.
 

Ruffesebb

Junior Member
Sep 5, 2011
3
0
0
I turned off C3 reporting and C6 reporting as well now other than already having the speedstep and C1E turned off in the cpu config. Now it does indeed stay at 3.4-3.5Ghz all the time! Thanks a bunch guys! I did keep the turbo mode enabled, not sure why - maybe I should turn that off as well since I'm not overclocking. Should the "power-related" speedstep thing be disabled as well?

I should probably explain why I want to try running it this way (for anyone that is interested to hear). I basically work as a composer, making music for primarily games and trailers - mostly orchestral music. These days we spend a lot of time making digital orchestral "midi mockups" with the help of sample libraries (directors/audio directors want to hear what it'll sound like before hiring an orchestra, many times they just go with the midi mockups too to keep the cost down). Here's an old example of mine for anyone who is interested: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/375330/mischiefFinal.mp3

These sample libraries are basically where someone has recorded every note, velocity/dynamic, vibrato, legato transitions etc. of an instrument and then have programmed these audio files to be played on a keyboard through apps like PLAY and Native Instrument's Kontakt.

As sample libraries have become more advanced and comprehensive the amount of sound files used has increased greatly. A good example is Hollywood Strings from east west samples - one mic position (out of five available) amounts to about 50-60Gb of content that needs to be both streamed from hard drives/ssds and partly be loaded into RAM. They can also be hugely CPU intensive. Hollywood Strings for example calculates in real time, based on how fast you play, how long/short the legato transitions are.

I use the PC as a slave machine to a master computer to run some of the more intensive libraries, primarily strings and some percussion. To be able to record good MIDI performances I have to keep the audio latency as low as possible which requires low cpu buffers within the audio application (Cubase 6). I used to run things at higher buffers and then CPU never was much of a problem, but when I worked at really low buffers it felt like the speedstep technology wasn't very good at anticipating how much CPU the audio application would be using as it jumps up and down a lot. And in general it didn't seem to increase enough or fast enough. I've heard similar experiences from some other composers, but there are also other factors that I might need to change in the setup.

But yeah so I was basically thinking, "maybe it's better to just continuously have it at 3.4Ghz to eliminate that as a suspect in why I got some clicks and pops where the audio/buffer didn't manage to keep up".

But we'll see how it works out! Thanks a bunch again for the help everyone! :)
 
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RyanGreener

Senior member
Nov 9, 2009
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If you go to Windows and set it to High Performance mode, it'll set your minimal CPU usage to 100%....
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
7
81
:thumbsup: That was an excellent description of what you are hoping to accomplish by disabling downclocking. I hope it resolves those click/pop issues you have experienced.

You may also want to do a web search for the terms, "dpc latency fix." Seems to be an ongoing issue (with possible fixes) that can affect audio streams, resulting in cilcks/pops.
 
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Ruffesebb

Junior Member
Sep 5, 2011
3
0
0
:thumbsup: That was an excellent description of what you are hoping to accomplish by disabling downclocking. I hope it resolves those click/pop issues you have experienced.

You may also want to do a web search for the terms, "dpc latency fix." Seems to be an ongoing issue (with possible fixes) that can affect audio streams, resulting in cilcks/pops.

Interesting, I will definitely check that out! I've done some initial tests with my template and it seems to work great so far, but if the latency can get even better, that would of course be awesome :D