Enable Speed Step

[sheroo]

Hi, I've recently replaced my mb and got the B3 revision of my Asus P67 Deluxe board. I've got a 2500K under a D14 and 2*2GB Mushkin Blackline 6-8-6-24 ram. I'm just starting to tinker around with it, and I have never attempted to overclock or really delve into the tweaker menu.

Anyway I've been playing around quite happily and am taking it nice and slow and have got upto 3.8Ghz. Woopidoo I hear you all exclaim! I literally am just starting to play....

So I noticed that in CPU-Z that my multiplier is always the same e.g. 33 x 100. Now with speed step I thought it was meant to revert to 16 when not under load? Or am I missing something? I don't really want to push the system until I know why speed step ain't working, can anyone help please?

 

[zak4994]

To be honest Speed Step should be disabled if you are going to overclock.

 

[sheroo]

But I like the idea of it idling at 1.6, and then kicking in when the power is needed. I don't want to run the system at 4.4 all the time. I remember when Tom was doing his initial SB vids that he had to run prime to get the system to kick into turbo mode and run full wack.

 

[sheroo]

Here's the CPU-Z screenshot - this is just at idle.

 

[Firat]

so when you were overclocking was turbo boost enabled?

if not reset your bios

then dont touch anything but the multiplyer and the vcore

see if that works

mayb you fiddled with the wrong setting, start from scratch and do the above

 

[KaraMurat]

Go in to the bios and see if speed step is off.

 

[SieB]

Don't worry about it running at 4.4ghz constant it won't cause any harm speedstep is for saving on the electric and conserving energy not to protect the CPU.

I have mine running at 4.5ghz at 100% load 24/7 for folding I did have it running at 4.7ghz 24/7 but couldn't get a safe low voltage to get it stable. In the BIOS just disable speedstep and turbo boost, enable PLL voltage, set LLC to Ultra High and Phase and Duty Control to Extreme. Then you just need to set your multipler to what you clock you want and find the lowest stable voltage for that clock.

With LLC set to ultra high your voltage will go higher than what you set it to in the BIOS at times but that is ok because it improves stability and prevents V Droop.

 

[sheroo]

Don't worry about it running at 4.4ghz constant it won't cause any harm speedstep is for saving on the electric and conserving energy not to protect the CPU.

I have mine running at 4.5ghz at 100% load 24/7 for folding I did have it running at 4.7ghz 24/7 but couldn't get a safe low voltage to get it stable. In the BIOS just disable speedstep and turbo boost, enable PLL voltage, set LLC to Ultra High and Phase and Duty Control to Extreme. Then you just need to set your multipler to what you clock you want and find the lowest stable voltage for that clock.

With LLC set to ultra high your voltage will go higher than what you set it to in the BIOS at times but that is ok because it improves stability and prevents V Droop.

What would you consider a safe low voltage?

 

[SieB]

What would you consider a safe low voltage?

Intel recommends you don't go over 1.38v so anything below that is ok for a 24/7 overclock, I couldn't get 4.7ghz stable on anything lower than 1.39v so I just dropped it down to 4.5 @1.36v.

I only have the standard P8P67 though and it's not that good at over clocking with the Deluxe you should be able to get 4.7ghz at around 1.33-1.35v depending on how good your CPU is as well.

 

[sheroo]

Have you any idea what these EPU and TPU switches on the board are? I can't find much documentation on them except the marketing blurb which doesn't really help.

 

[SieB]

Have you any idea what these EPU and TPU switches on the board are? I can't find much documentation on them except the marketing blurb which doesn't really help.

TPU switch will do a automatic Overclock for you around 4.3ghz or something like that but it always overvolts the CPU using more than it needs so you are better of overclocking yourself.

EPU switch if for power saving it will scan the system and apply the most energy efficient power settings to but if you aint worried about saving as much electric as you can it's not really worth it. you can also change the different EPU settings in the BIOS and in the Asus AI Suite.

 

[sheroo]

Cool thank you. I just thought that this EPU setting may be responsible for speed step not being enabled.

Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology - Enabled

Turbo Mode - Enabled.

The only other things I've changed is setting the memory to run @ 1600 & setting it to 1.65v and forced the right DRAM timings. It's become annoying now that I can't get it to work. I do also like the idea of saving some pennies as well, as most of the time I'm browsing or on the forums. I have a kilowatt meter as well so it would be interesting to see what the difference is at the wall.

 

[SieB]

No probs, the only thing with speedstep and turbo boost is you don't have the constant overclock and it will down clock when not in use.

I'm on one of those meters as well and it costs me around £10 extra a month to leave my PC on 24/7 but if you want to save as much as you can definietly set the EPU to the best energy saving mode and leave speedstep and turbo boost on.

 

[sheroo]

Still haven't had any luck with enabling speed step. Have managed to get a stable mild overclock of 4.4 with 1.315 vcore. Had to disable Internal PLL Voltage otherwise it wouldn't resume from sleep properly.

I've been running this most of the day and played a bit of Black Ops and all seems fine. How do you guys test for stability? Prime95? For how long?

 

[el-ve]

You may need to enable it in windows, in the power options select "balanced" I had high performance selected and speedstep wouldn't work, you can then customise the balanced setting to suit your needs.

 

[sheroo]

You may need to enable it in windows, in the power options select "balanced" I had high performance selected and speedstep wouldn't work, you can then customise the balanced setting to suit your needs.

Cool thank you that worked a treat.

I found that if I set the power options as follows then it will run @ 1.6 and ramp up to 4.4 when needed. I don't think it saves that much power, but it does seem to lower my temps by about 4-5C.

 

[kilobravo]

1.6v is way to high.I am running a 2600k at 1.42v in bios at @ 4.8ghz on i7-2600k 24/7 for folding.Temps at 73c at peaks with a nh-d14.

You need to disable turboboost,enable read live in OS.

What you need is enable LLC to high.Manually set ram timings and volts at specified settings.

 

[sheroo]

1.6v is way to high.I am running a 2600k at 1.42v in bios at @ 4.8ghz on i7-2600k 24/7 for folding.Temps at 73c at peaks with a nh-d14.

You need to disable turboboost,enable read live in OS.

What you need is enable LLC to high.Manually set ram timings and volts at specified settings.

No dude not 1.6v its 1.6Ghz stepping up to 4.4Ghz @ 1.315v. I wouldn't dare put that voltage through it.

 

[kilobravo]

Okay dude,4.4ghz @ 1.315v is nice

 

[el-ve]

Glad it worked. I had the same prob. At the time I thought it was a bios problem, didn't realise windows controlled speedstep.