Simple Undervolting Tutorial - Pentium M Dothan - Page 8

Will this work with the new sonoma 533mhz fb with 2ghz. See im finally mad the pludge to buy the dell m70 and i heard the fans are quiet but then i want to try this to make them even quieter? will it be compatible?

Yes it will work with sonoma.

Look at how much you could push Dothan!

I FINALLY got it to work and I feel stupid as to why I couldn't get it to work so I'm not sharing what the problem was. But I do have two problems.

First:
Task Manager and I8KfanGUI both that the CPU load is 100%. Under processes it says that RM is taking most of it. Does RM just take the System Idle Process or is it doing something?

Second:
My Virtual Memory is getting low frequently (and it only started when I started using RM). I don't have any other applications open that would take up virtual memory I don't think. Does anyone have this problem and how do I solve it?

Thanks in advanced

First:
In RM under the Management tab, uncheck "run HLT..." and checkmark "Use alternate CPU load determination..." Then restart. That will fix the fangui reporting 100% CPU load.

Second:
Set your paging file to the recommended 768. (amount of memory x 1.5) since you have 512, paging file should be 768.

That was what it was on when I got the errors.

You have 512 of ram and you're still having low virtual memory?? What programs are you running?

Normally you will BSOD immediately, if you have the settings too aggressive. If the settings are low and you're not having immediate problems, you could BSOD at some point but this doesn't always happen - sometimes if any errors occur, it will result in corrupt data instead. That means the data will be useless.
I would definitely suggest testing at least 4 hours for any errors - overnight if possible.

I've been working on lowering my dell m70 and so far it doesn't look like it'll be lowered too much, or at least as much as some of the other people with 2.0ghz chips have gotten.

Although I gotta say my m70 is freakin' quiet. It is my first laptop so maybe it isn't but compared to my mom's older Pentium 4m laptop it is better cooled and much quieter out of the box.

While I am still testing I have a question for the enlightened. From watching i8fangui, at a reduced voltage my computer eventually drops to 45 C, at which point the fans go off and the cpu temp creeps back to ~62 C at which point the fans come on at low and it goes back to 45 C to repeat.

Would it be better to make it so that the fans stayed on after it hit 45C, or came on earlier? Is this turning on and off of the fans worse than having them always running?

Tellerve

When I do torture test, I just leave my fans always on and my CPU stays at 39.

BlownFuse: I have torture tested my Maximal (0.972V) for 2 hours and no errors using the 1st option in torture test. Will it not impose damage to the CPU if I ran a torture test for 4 hours? I mean, Im still quite septik. Overnight? Are you serious?

so far I've only gotten bsod as my indicators of trying too little voltage. However, they come along after awhile of testing. Not sure how long as I was sleeping during both times it happened recently.

In any case, I think you should test it for awhile, but that's just my gut. As for 'torture test', I just start prime95, i don't select torture test or anything like that. Well, actually when I first installed it I said it was for testing purposes. Is there something else I should be doing...my cpu load is at 100% at 2ghz.

Also, should I enable my fans to continue to constantly blow? Figures I'd wanna have it as similar to how I'm going to be having it in normal work.

Tellerve

No, you will not damage your CPU. Running your CPU at 100% or undervolting doesn't damage, increasing voltage can (when overclocking, for example).
For example: I have some computers running a distributed computing program called Folding@Home (folds proteins for science). This program runs 100% cpu usage (it is just as stressful as Prime95), and I have been running them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - for over 2 years now.
For the most part, the only way hardware damage occurs from running software, is if you are running the hardware out of spec. So, as long as you test your settings (as thoroughly as you can), and everything is running good - you should be all set.

BSOD (no matter how long it takes) = bump voltage up a little, and try again.
Testing over a period of time @ 100% usage (regardless of how you test, as long as it is stressing the cpu) is the way to find out the limits of the cpu. Over time, you will see if you have enough voltage for all those calculations while the cpu is shedding gobs of heat - and heat is hardware's main downfall.
I did not have my fans constantly on while stress testing, I let Dell's default settings dictate my fans' functionality. My logic behind it, is that I wanted the processor to get hotter than I normally would run it (pushing the limits). The higher the temperature, the more potential for failure - so if it makes it through the testing, than I know I have definitely hit the sweet spot for my settings.
Just my $.02, hope it helps.

yeah, that's pretty much my thought as well. I don't wanna try anything with the fans blarring as I wouldn't want to use it at that point.

Another question about BSOD, I have Spybot installed and it has a Spybot SD-Resident that came up when I rebooted as the registry changed. The kernel file, the one that faulted in the BSOD had changed and wanted me to know if I wanted to allow or disallow it. I went ahead and allowed it but it made me wonder, do my bsods accumulate in my registry like this? As I was testing a got a couple more and while it isn't a lot obviously it was still something I wanted to understand better. Would a registry cleaning utility see them?

Tellerve

edit: Well I had it running at 1.132 v on prime for ~10 hours with no problems. Then tonight I was playing around on it and during the installation of the bluetooth stack I got a BSOD. Not sure what to make of that really. I am putting the volts up to 1.148 volts for now.

I am trying to do this according to the instructions and when I changed the maximal voltage in the management tab it changes back to the original voltage as soon as I hit apply. Is it changing the voltage and just not displaying it? Or am I not doing something right? I appreciate any info you guys can give me.

This happened to me. Try adjusting the Minimal first.

yep you have to change the minimal one as well otherwise it'll bounce back because the minimal will be higher than the max. I set them both to the same and went down the list.

My low eventually became .7v as that was already set as the lowest so I didn't feel i needed to check that.

Tellerve

What system do you have and what is your maximal?

dell m70 with a 2.0ghz cpu. My minimum is .700v and my maximum is currently 1.148v due to that bsod while installing.

Tellerve

you i rab got similar notebok like ur's so im wondering when i receive my new dell m70 i can do this right and it is easy? This aint nothing hard right? Also do you noitce that your computer get better batter life and that the fans are never on? Well the notebook has quiet fans to begin with

The fans come on occassionally but really I typically have to check the fan control unless I'm really focusing and leaning in near the computer. The fans are very quiet, never over 3k rpm and typically around 2.5k-ish. As for battery life, *shrugs* I dunno, I didn't test the system at its old amount, but I'd imagine it isn't a huge amount but maybe 15-20minutes at most like most everyone else.

Before I did the test and I would run prime at the old setting it would stay at 54 C with fans always on, now that I lowered it it would go down to 45 C, fans would shut off and slowly creep up to 62-65C in ~ 2 minutes before the fans came back on and dropped it back down, which took about ~7 minutes. Rinse and repeat.

Tellerve