PhenomMsrTweaker: Cool and Quiet customized

@Bladesinger: I'm quite good at reading ;), so I already knew that the multis are applied, I was just a little worried about the core voltage if the temperature did not decrease (some mainboards do not allow to specify CPU VID and NB VID separately...). The gadget is a built-in Windows component, therefore it's gonna be notified by the CPU driver controlling standard C&Q. Seems like MS did not think about tools controlling the CPU directly - it's just not cleanly programmed, it doesn't poll the actual hardware state. Other tools like Everest also have (or at least used to have) problems in this regard due to not reading the CPU registers correctly.

@high5: It's always been supported - the tool supports all K10 CPUs.

kink, I'm curious, is there a possibility you could add more (one or two more) P-states?

I've met that request on another site too, especially from HTPC users. I sadly did not think about that when writing the app, I just wanted to keep things simple by limiting the number of parameters. Now I've already moved on to other projects, so the tweaker is not under development anymore. There's already a mod offering an intermediate P-state, but only in the GUI and not in the service if I remember correctly (haven't tried it myself). Links may be found here.

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Originally Posted by kink

Now I've already moved on to other projects, so the tweaker is not under development anymore.

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Does your schedule allow you to return to the Tweaker at some point in the future?

It does actually, but I'm not keen on continuing working on it since it already satisfies my needs completely. It's open source, everyone's invited to contribute.

bump, this needs to be sticky'd really :)

This program is exactly what I've been looking for. My Phenom is stable when overclocked to 2.7 GHz at 1.3V (235 MHz base clock), but in power saving mode it doesn't get enough juice (1.05V when it would probably need something like 1.25V..just a guess).

However the program doesn't work quite as expected:

1. The P1 voltage is off by about 0.01V. For example if I set it to 1.135V in the tweaker, CPU-Z indicates 1.1232. Which one is right?

2. The P0 voltage is off by nearly a full 0.1V. If I set it to 1.2V, CPU-Z indicates 1.296V. I also think the actual voltage *is* 1.296V, not 1.20V. At 2.7 GHz my system would probably crash at the desktop with only 1.20V going through the CPU...
I have increased the voltage by exactly 0.1V in the BIOS, from 1.2V to 1.3V, so maybe it's normal that the actual voltage is always 0.1V higher than what I've selected in the tweaker?

-How do I know what the Northbridge voltage actually is? I don't want to accidentally overvolt it by 0.1V, e.g. maybe running it at 1.4V instead of 1.3V... In BIOS, it's set to 1.2875V up by exactly 0.1V. Does this mean I should always lower the NB voltage by 0.1V in the tweaker, just as I do with the core voltage?

Specs:
Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe, Phenom X4 9650 at 235x11.5, 4GB Corsair XMS2, Radeon HD 4850, Win7 RC

Also, what is the default behavior of the NB clock and voltage with Cool n Quiet enabled? Is it lowered along with the CPU core clock?

Shame I can't use this program...

When using k10stat or AOD to modify voltage it jumps all over the place from 1.1v - 1.6v so until a BIOS fix comes there is really no way for me to use it even thou I really want to :(

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1. The P1 voltage is off by about 0.01V. For example if I set it to 1.135V in the tweaker, CPU-Z indicates 1.1232. Which one is right?

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CPU-Z. The setting in the tweaker is just the voltage requested by the CPU, the actually delivered one depends upon the board.

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I have increased the voltage by exactly 0.1V in the BIOS, from 1.2V to 1.3V, so maybe it's normal that the actual voltage is always 0.1V higher than what I've selected in the tweaker?

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This depends completely upon the particular BIOS implementation of the board, e.g. my mainboard of the same brand adjusts the P0 settings when altering the default voltages. In your case, it seems the board adds those +0.1V set in the BIOS to whatever voltage you select for P0 (but interestingly not for the P1 voltage). This allows for higher overvolting because the VID is limited to 1.55V.

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How do I know what the Northbridge voltage actually is?

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Use AMD OverDrive to get a look at all clocks and voltages. If you want the default NB voltage, just deactivate the service temporarily, reboot the machine, start the tweaker and read the default settings configured by your BIOS. If the NB VID equals the original 1.1875V, you know that the board adds those 0.1V to the NB voltage too and you should use that setting (since you do not want to alter the voltage anyway). Beware that by checking the default settings BEFORE making any adjustments, you would have spotted that the VIDs are 0.1V lower than the actual voltages - if you want to increase a voltage by 0.1V, just increase the default setting by 0.1V and you should be fine.

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Also, what is the default behavior of the NB clock and voltage with Cool n Quiet enabled? Is it lowered along with the CPU core clock?

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Nope, the NB always runs at full speed. The voltage is usually modified, e.g. my M3A78-T adds (yes, adds) 0.075V in P1 (1.225V for P0, 1.3V for P1). I think it should be roughly the same for every P-state since the NB clock is constant.

/edit: Make sure the NB voltage is not by 0.1V lower in P1 (remember, the Vcore's +0.1V are only applied for P0, not for P1 - so that may apply to the NB voltage too), i.e. you may need to set P0's NB VID to 1.1875V to obtain the desired 1.2875V (0.1V added by BIOS), but P1's NB VID to 1.2875V if the BIOS doesn't add the 0.1V in P1. That may be a reason for the crash when switching to P1. My X4 9950 needs 0.95V for 1.5 GHz (and it's not a particularly good overclocker), so I guess your 1.05V ought to suffice unless you use high core clocks.

A utility to completely customize the Cool & Quiet feature of AMD K10 (Phenom etc.) processors. It may be used to overclock and/or undervolt the CPU. Its primary aim is to allow on-demand use of the powersaving Cool & Quiet feature even when running the CPU above its original speed.

PhenomMsrTweaker allows to fully customize two CPU performance states: multiplicator (per core), Vcore (CPU VID) and integrated Northbridge voltage (NB VID) of P-states 0 (performance) and 1 (powersaving).

Additionally, it provides a customizable replacement for the standard implementation of Cool & Quiet in the Windows driver and allows to control standard or custom Cool & Quiet via on-the-fly power scheme switching.
http://phenommsrtweake.sourceforge.net/Screenshot1.png

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If you want the default NB voltage, just deactivate the service temporarily, reboot the machine, start the tweaker and read the default settings configured by your BIOS.

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Thanks, this cleared up a few things, or made me more confused, depending on how you view it :)

I experimented with different voltages and read the results in CPU-Z and the tweaker...

Regarding P0 core voltages, at about 1.25V and lower selected in BIOS, no voltage is added to the requested voltage. The tweaker displays the voltage I selected in BIOS. With higher voltages than 1.25 selected in BIOS, it simply begins adding 0.1V. 1.3V in BIOS = 1.2V in the tweaker, but 1.325V in BIOS = 1.225V in the tweaker. So it always adds 0.1V, probably like you say to boost the maximum voltage you can select. P1 core voltage also goes up from 1.05V to 1.15V, probably as a side effect (but it might help when oc'ing with CnQ enabled).

The same seems to be true for the NB VID in P0 mode: At 1.25V and below, the tweaker simply displays whatever I selected in BIOS. At higher settings, it displays values that are 0.1V lower.

However for P1 mode, the tweaker always displays 1.25V NB VID, no matter what BIOS is set to... :rofl:

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That may be a reason for the crash when switching to P1. My X4 9950 needs 0.95V for 1.5 GHz (and it's not a particularly good overclocker), so I guess your 1.05V ought to suffice unless you use high core clocks.

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You're probably right that my VCore, especially at 1.15V should have been enough for stable operation at 1350 MHz. Something about the NB VID is probably what causes my stability problems with CnQ enabled. I guess simply increasing the NB VID for P1 in the tweaker to 1.2875V without touching anything else might be enough to cure that... When overclocking without CnQ, I didn't manage to get my system stable enough to run Prime95 indefinitely until I boosted the NB voltage to about 1.2875V. Since the default NB clock for my 9650 is only 1.8 GHz, an overclock to 2115 MHz isn't insignificant.

Oh well, this behaviour is not quite what I expected :D

Did you manage to stabilize your overclock in P1? And may I ask why you chose to stop at 235 MHz reference clock? Just out of curiosity, as I'm running 262 MHz to let my RAM operate at nearly DDR2-1066 (my Corsair modules are incompatible with the board in 1066 mode, but work fine in overclocked 800 mode).

Does this work in Windows 7 x86? I am able to activate different clocks with it, but when I enabled custom cool and quiet, it won't ever switch clocks.

I'm 99.99% sure it does, as I haven't had any problems whatsoever on Win7 RC x64 since a couple of months now. Just make sure to use appropriate settings...

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Originally Posted by Dopamin3

Does this work in Windows 7 x86? I am able to activate different clocks with it, but when I enabled custom cool and quiet, it won't ever switch clocks.

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I am using it on both win 7 64 and 32. So far the answer is yes.

I read that AMD Cool n' Quiet has an issue in that it doesn't give you the maximum performance when you need it, i.e., when the load is high. For that reason it has been called "Cool n' Slow". So this article is recommending to use RMClock instead. Are there any such "slow down" issues with PhenomMsrTweaker? And how does PhenomMsrTweaker compare with RMClock?

Thanks! :)

We need Istanbul support for Particle please :).

@mtl777: The article is based on the K8 architecture, there have been quite some improvements in K10. If you had cared to check PhenomMsrTweaker's webpage (link's in the first post), you would have come across my statement that the performance of single-threaded applications may be vastly improved (by more than 20% on my X4 9950) when using its custom C&Q instead of the standard one.
Regarding RMClock, I haven't heard of it being used for K10 CPUs, so there's probably no support for the newer architecture. The article's author also mentions that it does not use a service, so you can only use it if someone's logged into the PC (i.e. not very useful for server machines) - PhenomMsrTweaker features such a service, which also gets rid of the annoying UAC prompt right after booting when an autostart program requires elevated privileges.

@Mechromancer: I don't know what you mean by "Particle", but anyway: Istanbul should be supported, as well as CPUs with even more cores (I think I used a limit of 64 cores) - it's just not implemented in the GUI, but usable in the service. You need to dive into the registry, surf to HKLM\Software\PhenomMsrTweaker and adjust the P0 and P1 strings accordingly - just add the missing multipliers, e.g. change something like "10|10|10|10|1.3|1.2" to "10|10|10|10|10|10|1.3|1.2" (the first values are the core multipliers, the second last one is the core VID and the last one the NB VID). Restart the service or reboot, and the settings should have been applied.

is new version PhenomsTweaker, il test it today :)

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Originally Posted by kink

@Mechromancer: I don't know what you mean by "Particle", but anyway: Istanbul should be supported, as well as CPUs with even more cores

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By "Particle" he means the guy on these forums named Particle. He recently built a dual Istanbul computer and needs to overclock it past 2.5GHz. I guess the program crashes instantly at startup for some reason.
Thread here:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...226283&page=11

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Originally Posted by kink

@mtl777: The article is based on the K8 architecture, there have been quite some improvements in K10. If you had cared to check PhenomMsrTweaker's webpage (link's in the first post), you would have come across my statement that the performance of single-threaded applications may be vastly improved (by more than 20% on my X4 9950) when using its custom C&Q instead of the standard one.
Regarding RMClock, I haven't heard of it being used for K10 CPUs, so there's probably no support for the newer architecture. The article's author also mentions that it does not use a service, so you can only use it if someone's logged into the PC (i.e. not very useful for server machines) - PhenomMsrTweaker features such a service, which also gets rid of the annoying UAC prompt right after booting when an autostart program requires elevated privileges.

@Mechromancer: I don't know what you mean by "Particle", but anyway: Istanbul should be supported, as well as CPUs with even more cores (I think I used a limit of 64 cores) - it's just not implemented in the GUI, but usable in the service. You need to dive into the registry, surf to HKLM\Software\PhenomMsrTweaker and adjust the P0 and P1 strings accordingly - just add the missing multipliers, e.g. change something like "10|10|10|10|1.3|1.2" to "10|10|10|10|10|10|1.3|1.2" (the first values are the core multipliers, the second last one is the core VID and the last one the NB VID). Restart the service or reboot, and the settings should have been applied.

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AWESOME! I just told Particle about it in his Istanbul thread. Check out his thread because I'm sure he could use your help. Thank you very much for this explanation.

Oh, hey there kink! I'm wondering what the expected behavior is in regards to max VID. Does your program enable a person to go beyond the max VID? Using other apps I can go anywhere between min and max VID, but I'm unable to go above.

As for the program, it seems to crash on start. I'll try again when I get home from work.

me love you kink :P

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Originally Posted by kink

@mtl777: The article is based on the K8 architecture, there have been quite some improvements in K10. If you had cared to check PhenomMsrTweaker's webpage (link's in the first post), you would have come across my statement that the performance of single-threaded applications may be vastly improved (by more than 20% on my X4 9950) when using its custom C&Q instead of the standard one.
Regarding RMClock, I haven't heard of it being used for K10 CPUs, so there's probably no support for the newer architecture. The article's author also mentions that it does not use a service, so you can only use it if someone's logged into the PC (i.e. not very useful for server machines) - PhenomMsrTweaker features such a service, which also gets rid of the annoying UAC prompt right after booting when an autostart program requires elevated privileges.

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Thank you so much for explaining how it works! :up: I didn't have time yet to read the webpage, just wanted to have a bird's eye view. But now you've got me very interested!

My machine is for a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) which is used for music recording and production. My CPU is a Phenom II 720 BE, and the apps that I use are mostly multi-threaded. I hear that people are having issues with Cool n' Quiet and similar throttling software causing latency spikes and stuttering audio in their DAW's. There is a program called DPC Latency Checker which allows you to find out if you have any such problems. I'm interested in PhenomMsrTweaker as it seems better and easier to use than RMClock. But I would like to know beforehand, will I not run into these issues with PhenomMsrTweaker?

@mtl777: I'm quite sure that you're gonna run into these latency issues when using any kind of Cool'n Quiet. E.g. if all cores enter a power-saving state, the single core voltage is reduced in small steps before reducing the core clock frequencies. So I think it's very likely that the cores are blocked for a very short time period during this transition, hence increasing the latency. PhenomMsrTweaker's custom C&Q keeps all cores synchronized and allows you to adjust the responsiveness to load changes. I've just run this latency checker for some minutes while surfing and starting 2 very short Prime95 runs (one with 2 threads, then one with 4). My absolute maximum latency has been 162 microseconds, so it should actually be fine (surprisingly). I'm using a slightly overclocked X4 9950 and PhenomMsrTweaker's custom C&Q with default settings on Win7 RC x64. But please perform your own tests, it's not gonna destroy your CPU. ;) Oh and btw, you can always disable C&Q temporarily by switching the active power scheme to 'High performance'.

@Particle: I've just browsed very quickly through your thread. I'm sorry but I can't help you, since the tweaker only adjusts the CPU cores' MSRs - and whenever a VID change is requested, it is checked for validity (i.e. in [MinVid, MaxVid]). Since these are read-only MSR fields, there is no way to fool the CPU by using higher VIDs (unless the fields aren't really read-only as the docs suggest...). I guess you need to either wait for BIOS support (although you'll probably wait forever), access the voltage regulator manually if somehow possible (e.g. by accessing the PCI configuration space) or get soldering. ;)