Turbo Boost Decay Over Time

[turtile]

My laptop has a Core-i5 4300M. For some reason, the Speedstep option would jam the frequency at 800mhz even when I needed the power which would make the computer near unusable so I disabled it.

Due to the change, the CPU keeps itself boosted to 3.33Ghz (from 2.59Ghz). However, after 3 and a half years, it's gone down to 3.22Ghz.

Has anyone else noticed this and how has it changed over the years?

 

[LTC8K6]

I haven't heard of it.

Maybe your cooling isn't quite as good as it used to be? Thermal paste getting old, dust building up, etc.

I haven't heard of Speedstep malfunctioning either, though.

 

[ninaholic37]

It may be stuck at 800MHz because your powercord is messed up and not giving your computer enough voltage. That happens on my Pentium M laptop sometimes depending on how the powercord is bent. I never tried to force it to go higher though, I just kept twisting the powercord around until it's placed "right" so it gets enough voltage and the BIOS decides on it's own that it can now do 800-1867MHz instead of just 800MHz. I imagine forcing to do Turbo all the time regardless of temperature would cause problems over time especially if it tries to tell you that it only has enough juice to do 800MHz.

 

[ZGR]

I would get Throttlestop:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

This software monitors core temps and allows you to manually set a core frequency.

You are most likely thermally limited due to poor thermal paste degradation.

if you cannot reapply, disable Turbo Boost.

 

[turtile]

When the fans are off, the temperature holds at 57C and when the fans turn on, it drops to 42C. The frequency remains the same regardless of temperature.

I'm going to see if I have issues with Speedstep if I turn it on again. It could have been an issue in Windows 8 when I first got the laptop.

Isn't the voltage regulated by the laptop itself? The output from my power brick is 19.5v (180w total) which is probably more than the Quadro K1100M, CPU and all other components combined at full load.


To me, it's more interesting to see how Turbo core figures out how far to boost the frequency over time. I highly doubt my laptop is in any risk of failing.

 

[ninaholic37]

I'm going to see if I have issues with Speedstep if I turn it on again. It could have been an issue in Windows 8 when I first got the laptop.

That could be it (an OS problem where Windows power scheme settings got messed up). I would try booting a Linux from USB to see if it has the 800MHz and 3.22Ghz problem too out of curiosity.

 

[EXCellR8]

Spectre/Meltdown patch related?

 

[LTC8K6]

Spectre/Meltdown patch related?

I think we'd all love that small of an affect...

 

[turtile]

I tried Speedstep and it works fine now. The boost clock hits 3.26Ghz with Speedstep.