Underclocking in Windows

Startled Pancake · Post by **Startled Pancake** » Mon May 05, 2003 5:54 am

Although Im more interested in power consumption than in silence (although the two go hand in hand to some extent) Ive been experimenting with my system in order to reduce the clockspeed whilst running overnight downloads.

Using CPUFSB on my ECS K75SA (SIS 735 chipset) Ive been succesful at underclocking to 66 MHz FSB on a 1800+ palamino and you can definatly hear the difference on the load on the power supply. Unfortunatly you cant go back to 133 without the system hanging.

Has anyone else had more success than this or can anyone recommend a motherboard with more ability to undervolt/underclock in windows? Basically Im looking for a kind of speedstep using my motherboard rather than the processor. Anything solutions than involve me buying a nice shiny new motherboard to replace my dirty old one will be gratefully received. I really dont need 1.5 Ghz to write this message but I dont want to have to reboot to fire up Battlefield 1942...

Startled Pancake · Post by **Startled Pancake** » Mon May 05, 2003 8:28 am

For uses I mention (downloading and running windows) an Athlon XP at 750 with 66 Mhz FSB is more than suffcient. If anyone knows a motherboard that allows mutiplyer adjustment on the fly, that would also be an excellent option.

DDR SDRam is a real power hog (10-15w per 256 Mb stick at 133 MHz I believe) so underclocking it doesnt hurt either.

Startled Pancake · Post by **Startled Pancake** » Tue May 06, 2003 10:52 am

DDR SDRam is a real power hog (10-15w per 256 Mb stick at 133 MHz I believe) so underclocking it doesnt hurt either.

Have you seen comparative power figures for different memory types ?

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I cant remember where I got the info, it could have been from an article on PC power consumption on Dans Data. Ill look into it if your interested but I was amazed at the amount to power that DRAM requires.

Many thanks for the motherboard info, Ill look into where I can purchase them in the Netherlands. Ive been trying to find that out in vain for some time.

Its all a con anyway as the speedstep/power now is built into all processors as I understand, just disabled to allow the manufacturers to charge higher prices for mobile parts. It wouldnt really matter if a p4 was using 10 watts but now they are using over 100.

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Tue May 06, 2003 11:04 am

intel sucks

aphonos · Post by **aphonos** » Tue May 06, 2003 12:19 pm

pingu666 wrote:intel sucks

Aw, come on now...let's play nice here.

starsky · Post by **starsky** » Tue May 06, 2003 3:47 pm

DDR SDRam is a real power hog (10-15w per 256 Mb stick at 133 MHz I believe) so underclocking it doesnt hurt either.

Ahhhh.... so now I know why going from 256MB to 1Gb made my Sonata 380s powersupply so loud !

ON the underclocking... I have been thinking of doing the same thing for running my machine overnight.

It doesn't need speed overnight, just basic functions.

rpc180 · Post by **rpc180** » Tue May 06, 2003 9:20 pm

Off topic: but Startled Pancake is a great name!

Post by **MikeC** » Tue May 06, 2003 10:57 pm

rpc180 wrote:Off topic: but Startled Pancake is a great name!

Agreed

Ditto 0dB.

Startled Pancake · Post by **Startled Pancake** » Wed May 07, 2003 12:13 am

When a plate of pancakes is in front of my great fat northern gob, they arnt just startled, they're bloody terrified...

For anyone interested in underclocking in windows it looks like from the the reviews that they Aopen boards cant do multiplyer adjustment or FSB underclocking within windows (the utility's broken). Argh.

Anyone using CPUFSB on an Nforce board with a PLL able to do 66Mhz's ?

Startled Pancake · Post by **Startled Pancake** » Thu May 08, 2003 4:23 am

...and how often is Shrove Tueday in your house

ß

Try dropping the Shrove and your about one seventh of the way there.

Ive decided to go for a abit NF7-S revision 2 and a 1700+ t'bred. Ill change the multiplyer to 8.5x, the vcore to 1.4v or 1.3v and the bus speed to 166 in the Bios. When I leave the machine on or want quieter running (ie about 80% of its use) Ill lower the FSB down to 100 using CPUFSB. I will also lower the fan speed and hopefully the bus disconnect that this board supports will stop the CPU getting too hot. Im hoping this should leave me with a quiet, cool running, power efficient system in theory but we all know what theory's are worth.

Damn that northbridge fan though, maybe Ill change that.

The Inq has a campaign going for Pentium-M's in desktops which sounds like a great idea although for now could you just enable the power saving features that are already in my processor please Intel and AMD? Not that Im accusing you of producing items which are deliberatly higher in energy consumption to allow you to sell mobile parts at 3 times the price you greedy swines. Oh wait, actually I am...

rpc180 · Post by **rpc180** » Thu May 08, 2003 5:48 am

Damn that northbridge fan though, maybe Ill change that.

I saw your post on your system in the Newcomer's Forum. Definately get rid of the NB fan. Its usually a screamer due to its small size. You can usually just get away with unplugging the thing! After the HD and maybe a 4500+ rpm CPU fan (if you run that), the NB fan is loudest.

Startled Pancake · Post by **Startled Pancake** » Thu May 08, 2003 10:48 pm

Thanks for the info, Ill be aware of that.

Im hoping that then new rev 2 Nforce 2 boards (ultra 400) are running cooler than their older counterparts so changing that NB fan for a heatsink shouldnt be a problem. Another theory unfortunately...

Has anyone thought of a good use to put all these spare small high RPM fans too? My girlfriends pet rabbit has just eaten part of my dining rooom curtains so a kind of multi stage mincer is top of my list. Will fur clogging be an issue?

starsky · Post by **starsky** » Thu May 08, 2003 11:08 pm

didn't mikeC write an article about undervolting as the best way to reuce heat and power consumption ?

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Fri May 09, 2003 12:27 am

DDR SDRAM System-Power Calculator
http://download.micron.com/downloads/mi ... alc_10.xls

... could someone please post some figures? I dont have exel.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Fri May 09, 2003 3:32 am

starsky wrote:didn't mikeC write an article about undervolting as the best way to reuce heat and power consumption ?

Yes but that's a hardware-based solution. The guy in this post is trying to acheive similar results by underclocking his CPU from within Windows. It seems like he only wants to do this on a temporary basis so that's why he wants to be able to control it from within Windows (as opposed to having to reboot into the BIOS to change it there). That's my impression anyway.

prjparry · Post by **prjparry** » Fri May 30, 2003 10:39 pm

Could you advise the link for MikeC's report.
Do you know what the voltage should be for a P4 3.06 533fsb version?

Thanks

Paul P

Gandalf · Post by **Gandalf** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 6:56 am

Damn. I had no idea memory consumed *this* much power. I guess I should use a bit less ram.
Boy .. I can just imagine the power consumption of those ramdrives with 4gigs of ram :/.

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 7:00 am

prjparry wrote:Could you advise the link for MikeC's report.
Do you know what the voltage should be for a P4 3.06 533fsb version?

Thanks

Paul P

CPU Undervolting & Underclocking: A Primer -- under General in Main Menu.

Underclocking in Windows

Underclocking in Windows

Undervolting

Re: Undervolting