Simple Undervolting Tutorial - Pentium M Dothan - Page 14

Hey guys, how do you use Prime95? Did you adjust any settings when you first use it or something? Cuz my tests seem to be stuck at Test 1 and it doesn't move to Test 2 and so on, i thought it's supposed to go on in small intervals. For e.g. go to Test 2 in few seconds then Test 3 in another few seconds etc.? Mine doesn't go on but stops at Test 1, when i go to Test and Stop, they tell me how long the test have ran for, and number of errors/warnings. 0 For both errors/warnings. Even after running for more than 10 minutes, it doesn't go to Test 2. Is it normal?

What settings do i need to adjust? Do i need primenet?

Thanks for the help!

If you run torture test in prime 95 it will take it a while to complete steps of the first test and it will switch to a different test automatically every 15 mins or so. The first test (1024k) takes a while to perform each step so it can appear nothing is happening but the next one is 8k and goes much more rapidly. Generally the best thing to do is set it on torture test and just leave it for several hours as it's not the most exciting thing in the world to watch

1024K? How did you get 1024k?

My first set of 2 tests used 8K FFT. Then the second set of 2 tests used 8K FFT too. I dont see any speed you say?

alright, sorry if this is repitition but couldn't find it in search and didn't wanna read the first 18 pages of this thread, but are there any downsides to undervolting the CPU ? and if so, what are they? Thanks.

Well... the only downside I can think of is INSTABILITY if you go too low.. but if you test it properly, there shouldn't be any downsides.

Hiya, this is an embarassing thing to post, but I'd appreciate some help. I've downloaded rmclock (1.5) and prime95 (23.8.1). Prime95 is a doddle to run and rmclock appears simple except that it consistently ignores my changes to maximal FID. I've tried it with the AC profile set to no mgmnt, maximal and auto mgmnt (HLT when idle on and off) and whenever I press apply, the maximal FID is reset to it's maximum value... Can anyone point out the one blindingly obvious thing I've neglected to do?

EDIT1:Forgot to say straight off ( ) - blinding tutorial! Concise, well written and credit given where it was due. 'nuff respect to the OP (rep++). As an XPS2 owner, I'm waiting excitedly for something like this for GPUs!

EDIT2: Having had no luck with Maximal, I successfully tried Minimal. Dropped right down to 0.7 and ran happily for a while. Prompted by booze, I tried Maximal again and was pleased to see that RMClock has stopped over-riding my maximal VID suggestions. If anyone else has problems setting maximal VID, I suggest they reverse the order suggested by the unfortunately named Thin Richard

Got my 1.6 PM running at 0.700v min, 0.892v max, nice and stable.

Nice tutorial.

mayb becuase the fan is not as active which is fine!

That is what I thought to. THe best test I've found to see if it is stable or not is to do DVD encoding. That will show you if it is stable or not.

I had to bump my up 1 step from the original I though was stable from the prime 95. It ran for 10 hours and show stable, but dump in the DVD encoding. Once i bring it up 1 step, worked fine.

Who ever has the 1.6 PM processor, do you have the Pentium M 725 (Dothan)? I'm trying to find out if the voltage numbers depend on just the processor type or/and also the system you have.

I have the 1.6 PM 725 (400mhz bus) and the value that I found as stable are: .7V for min and .972V for max

I still can't afford the S-Series

May be when my Dell gets old~

I have a Dell 700m (768 MB RAM) with Pentium M 725 (1.6 Ghz) and mine are:

0.700 V (stress tested at FID of 6x)
1.020 V (stress tested at FID of 16x)

Most of the time, I run my Max VID at 0.972 V which would not pass a stress test, but most of the time, my CPU load would only peak briefly so, I can live with the risk of a crash. So far, it hasn't crashed yet.

What's wrong if my laptop shows a black screen with alot of words during the test? I didnt quite catch what they were trying to tell me, because it rebooted itself immediately after showing that on the screen. But i think i saw "virtual memory" inside the bunch of words.

When i went back to RMClock, my Maximal VID became 1.148V in the Management tab. I was using 0.988V when the black screen and reboot happened.

So what may be the problem guys? Thanks for any help!

I'm using Acer's 4003LCi.
Pentium M 735(1.7Ghz) Dothan
512ram
9700 64mb

You definitely went too low with your VID. It's very unlikely a 1.7 Ghz will run VID of less than 1 V.


RMClock Utility will only save your settings if you restart or shutdown Windows properly (which would not happen in a crash), so after a crash, RMClock will go back to the setting which last worked.

I would like to see a collection of what the maximum stable voltages folks are getting for each P-M, also.

Perhaps a results thread with a poll is in order?

I see thanks. So the Maximal VID that showed on the settings is the correct one and i should stick with it? Or try going lower but above 1V?

Well, that answers my earlier question about bumping it up one notch for an extra safety margin.

I didn't run into any trouble with the lower setting, but I haven't done any encoding yet either. Anyway since the earlier discussion, I've also been running one notch up from the settings that passed Prime95.

Hiya,

FWIW - Dell XPS2 2.13GHz :-
Min VID (@6x): 0.7
Max VID (@16x): 1.132

For those who are undervolting, it seems that the DVD playback is another test to run (if you don't have a DVD, don't worry about this).

I was watching a DVD last night and the system rebooted maybe 45 minutes into the movie for no reason. After reboot I resumed the movie and it went without a hitch to the end. But it got me thinking, especially when something else mentioned they were getting DVD problems, to do a DVD test.

So, I looped the 2 hour DVD (Sideways) all night long (about 8 hours) and sure enough, in the morning, the system had reset. So! I see another burn-in test that should be done.

Now, since DVD playback only uses maybe 15% - 20% CPU time (when throttled down to 800MHz) and it never throttles to anything higher than 800MHz, I suspect that the low VID is too low. I have bumped up both my low and high VID and I am testing the DVD playback now as I write this. I'll let this loop all day and see if it crashes.

I am using PowerDVD player. My only other theory is that I do have the nVidia Geforce6800 Go overclocked (390/780) and I have hardware acceleration enabled (PureVideo). So, it might be that my video card settings are too high. I'll test that if the DVD fails again.

On another note, someone was asking about the PureVideo thing. Yup, you need to enable hardware acceleration. I watched part of this video with Windows Media Player and it looked like crap. Anyways, I'll post something about this resetting bit later on.

Although, on second thought, the GeForce 6800 has two settings, 2D and 3D. Since playing a DVD is definitely 2D (my settings are default 125/500), there should be no problems with the video card. I'm leaning more towards voltages being a little too low. GPU temps have hardly moved (a degree maybe).