Guys!
Do any of you put your pc for downloading stuff 24/7 ?
Do you spend most of the time doing non intensive tasks?
I am going to post here an Undervolting guide for Athlon64 CPU's (applicable to Core 2 Duo also) so that you guys wont have to see grumpy faces of your parents / burn a hole in your pocket when the power bill comes.
First, download the software called RMClock. You can get it from here.
Next, goto Display Properties in Control Panel, click on the Screensaver tab and click Power.
Change the Power Scheme to Always On. This is to ensure that the default power savings features of Windows which reduce the clock speed and voltage of the A64 does not interfere with RMClock. Also, make sure that you have installed the Athlon64 Processor driver which came with your motherboard CD.
Now start RMClock and set it as the below screenshots guide you to.
The above screen shows the details of my processor. It will be quite similar for any other Athlon64 processor.
The below screen shows the Management page. Set it as shown.
Moving onto the profiles page, the important thing here is to set the VID to a value which is not too low because that can lock up the PC and cause it to crash. For my 90 nm Orleans Socket AM2 3000+, I can run it at 0.850V for the low power 1 Ghz 5x multiplier and at 1.275V for the max performance 1.8 Ghz 9x multipler. You can check the multipliers you want to use for each mode.
Now coming to each profile, the below screenshot shows the "Max Perf profile" which I guess you would be using when playing a game / encoding a movie.
Here is a screenshot of the monitoring page in the max performance mode. Do notice the A64 running at 1.275 V at 1.8 Ghz.
I have tested using SuperPI for the 1.8 Ghz @ 1.275 V to be stable for a long time.
The mileage you get can vary with the processor core and stepping.
Now comes the "Max Power Saving Setting".
In this setting, the CPU stays at 5x multiplier and will not increase its clock automatically when CPU load increases. Why this profile? I will explain soon. See the screenshot of this setting below.
And the last one is the "Performance On Demand" setting. Here, all the multipliers are checked and the processor can run at minimum speed when the CPU is not loaded at all, or at max speed when loaded or switch between intermediate multipliers and voltages depending on the load.
The monitor screenshot now shows the variation in CPU speed according to the load. The fluctuations were recorded by opening and closing programs like Outlook, Winamp, a RSS FeedReader, FireFox, IE, and other usual applications.
So why not use this profile all the time?
One thing which I noticed was that the CPU runs at Max speed (1.8 Ghz / 9X multi) even when browsing while playing a song in Winamp! Winamp uses only 10% CPU, but still that is enough for the CPU to be throttled to maximum speed for the time the song is being played. On stopping the playback of MP3, the CPU throttles down to 1.0 Ghz / 5X. I wanted the CPU to run at 1 Ghz / 5X and also play songs while surfing / chatting. Now you know why I defined the "Max Power Saving" Profile.
Playing a MP3 song in Winamp at 1.0 Ghz / 5X uses 22% CPU though, which means enough CPU power is left for loading webpages / those pesky IMVironments / audibles in Yahoo Messenger or even while playing back VCD's. While playing DVD's / MPEG4 / HD videos, you need to run the CPU @ higher speeds though for a smooth multitasking experience.
This guide is short, but I hope its "sweet" and helps lower your energy bills too!
Feeback and updations from everyone here will be very much appreciated. I feel that there is room for improvement.
May the Force be with you.
Do any of you put your pc for downloading stuff 24/7 ?
Do you spend most of the time doing non intensive tasks?
I am going to post here an Undervolting guide for Athlon64 CPU's (applicable to Core 2 Duo also) so that you guys wont have to see grumpy faces of your parents / burn a hole in your pocket when the power bill comes.
First, download the software called RMClock. You can get it from here.
Next, goto Display Properties in Control Panel, click on the Screensaver tab and click Power.
Change the Power Scheme to Always On. This is to ensure that the default power savings features of Windows which reduce the clock speed and voltage of the A64 does not interfere with RMClock. Also, make sure that you have installed the Athlon64 Processor driver which came with your motherboard CD.
Now start RMClock and set it as the below screenshots guide you to.
The above screen shows the details of my processor. It will be quite similar for any other Athlon64 processor.
The below screen shows the Management page. Set it as shown.
Moving onto the profiles page, the important thing here is to set the VID to a value which is not too low because that can lock up the PC and cause it to crash. For my 90 nm Orleans Socket AM2 3000+, I can run it at 0.850V for the low power 1 Ghz 5x multiplier and at 1.275V for the max performance 1.8 Ghz 9x multipler. You can check the multipliers you want to use for each mode.
Now coming to each profile, the below screenshot shows the "Max Perf profile" which I guess you would be using when playing a game / encoding a movie.
Here is a screenshot of the monitoring page in the max performance mode. Do notice the A64 running at 1.275 V at 1.8 Ghz.
I have tested using SuperPI for the 1.8 Ghz @ 1.275 V to be stable for a long time.
The mileage you get can vary with the processor core and stepping.Now comes the "Max Power Saving Setting".
In this setting, the CPU stays at 5x multiplier and will not increase its clock automatically when CPU load increases. Why this profile? I will explain soon. See the screenshot of this setting below.
And the last one is the "Performance On Demand" setting. Here, all the multipliers are checked and the processor can run at minimum speed when the CPU is not loaded at all, or at max speed when loaded or switch between intermediate multipliers and voltages depending on the load.
The monitor screenshot now shows the variation in CPU speed according to the load. The fluctuations were recorded by opening and closing programs like Outlook, Winamp, a RSS FeedReader, FireFox, IE, and other usual applications.
So why not use this profile all the time?
One thing which I noticed was that the CPU runs at Max speed (1.8 Ghz / 9X multi) even when browsing while playing a song in Winamp! Winamp uses only 10% CPU, but still that is enough for the CPU to be throttled to maximum speed for the time the song is being played. On stopping the playback of MP3, the CPU throttles down to 1.0 Ghz / 5X. I wanted the CPU to run at 1 Ghz / 5X and also play songs while surfing / chatting. Now you know why I defined the "Max Power Saving" Profile.
Playing a MP3 song in Winamp at 1.0 Ghz / 5X uses 22% CPU though, which means enough CPU power is left for loading webpages / those pesky IMVironments / audibles in Yahoo Messenger or even while playing back VCD's. While playing DVD's / MPEG4 / HD videos, you need to run the CPU @ higher speeds though for a smooth multitasking experience.
This guide is short, but I hope its "sweet" and helps lower your energy bills too!
Feeback and updations from everyone here will be very much appreciated. I feel that there is room for improvement.
May the Force be with you.
