RM Clock problem

Currently, im using have trouble undervolting with RM Clock 2.25.

I can't seem to get any of my voltages to the 0.950 level (the lowest value on the pulldown menus is 1.000V)

Im using Vista Home with a T7100 on a Lenovo R61

Any idea on what the problem might be?

I find it also weird that sometimes current multiplier is 8.0x but has a required voltage of 0.900V. Could there be some incapability between RMClock and Vista?

 

I think your T7100 is like my T7300: The minimum voltage is pre-set to 1.0V. This seems to be a change implemented with the Santa Rosa CPUs although it appears, from this thread, that some Santa Rosa CPUs may have their minimum voltage below 1.0V.

The 8x @ 0.9V is another CPU operating mode. It is actually 800MHz because the FSB has been halved. You should be able to see this using CPU-Z. That mode operates outside of the control of RMclock.

As a matter of interest, what is the default maximum voltage for your T7100? Reducing that is where the power and heat savings are made although buying a CPU seems to be a lottery because of the variations in the pre-set minmum voltage.

John

 

Its prolly made that way, like my cpu, I can't put it lower than 0.950V because its locked or something.

 

The highest voltage shown on RMclock is 1.175V on the 9x multiplier

Any idea on what setup will give the best battery life? Leaving it with RMclock and loosing the 800mhz mode? Or not using RMclock?

 

A little update:

Sometimes, my max multiplier seem to up to 10x @ 1.275 (which is weird, since my processor is only a T7100)

Also, i read the link from John's post, and i too have seemed to lost the ability to hit the 800mhz operating mode.

 

The occasional 10x may be another of the new Santa Rosa features: One core can be overclocked (I think it is one step) if the other core is idle. If you want all the details, download and study this Intel document. However, I have also seen the voltage of my CPU occasionally spiking above the maximum I have set in RMclock.

If you have RMclock running, then the CPU page of CPU-Z may provide an indication of what the CPU is actually doing and whether you are still getting the mow voltage mode. I'm waiting for Zepto to give me a BIOS with these features enabled, so I can't check what is happening.

The real test of whether RMclock helps battery life will be to do some measurements of battery discharge and time under light load conditions. RMclock + undervolting will definitely help when the CPU is under load.

John

 

I tried running super pi 2M, and the result that i got was 1min and 41 seconds (which is very slow). What also troubles me is that the cpu can't seem to clock over 1200mhz, even when under stress testing.

Any suggestions as to what the problem may be?

 

Something is holding the CPU at 1200MHz.

First check your Vista power plan. I always used Balanced, which should allow the CPU speed to adjust to suit demand.

What have you got the RMClock profile set to (if enabled)? "No Management" means what is says, and you can just use RMClock's monitoring to check what is happening. Otherwise, I use "Performance on Demand". However, you need to go into the Performance on Demand sub-menu, tick the Use P-states transitions and enable all the speeds you want to use (see the attached).

And is there a speedstep option in the BIOS which needs to be enabled?

John

 

Well, i did a fresh reinstalled of vista, so rmclock should not be the problem.

The bios is already set to max performance, so it shouldn't be the bios...

Also, windows is set to balanced, just as you said.

But super pi still reports the same score of 1min and 41~42 seconds

Oh... and i installed rmclock back, but still i can't seem to clock over 1200mhz

 

Just a hunch, do you have the battery pack installed or are you running solely on AC? If the latter, try reattaching the battery pack and see what you get after. I dont know if this applies to just the T61, but when the battery pack is removed and you are solely running on AC, the Max CPU Frequency is locked below 100%.

 

Can you capture (Fn+Alt+PrtSc) and post the RMclock window showing your profile settings, similar to what I posted above.

Without RMclock running, what does CPU-Z show as the CPU speed / voltage under no load / load (CPU-Z updates itself).

John

 

Wow! This solved my problem exactly, thank you.

Now that i've put the battery pack on, the cpu is running at 100% again. Any idea on how to set it so that the frequency won't be locked when running only on AC? I'll take a pic of the bios power setting screen when i wake up in the morning again.

Oh, and thx again everyone for taking time to solve my problem

 

Do we call that a feature or a bug?

I can understand capping the CPU speed when running on battery, but to do it when there is no battery.

See if Vista changes to a different power profile when you remove the battery. If so, you shoud be able to change the CPU speed settings in that profile. If there's no change in the power profile used by Vista, then look in the BIOS. Maybe it disables speedstep when there is no battery, but leave the CPU running at the slow speed?

John

 

I checked all the settings when my friend was helping me debug the problem using Ubuntu. It's a problem with Vista's Power Management.

 

Yeah, i tried everything in the bios but nothing could solve the problem

I'm going to install xp in a few days and see if the problem still occurs

Just wondering, does this happen only with lenovo notebooks, or with all the brands using vista?

 

My Zepto + Vista runs happily on fully speed with the battery out.

It looks as if you have found a Lenovo "feature": Reduction of mains power demand when running on mains only. That's a new take on the green business.

John