Another startling discovery: AMD's cool & quiet doesn't work and does exactly the opposite ?!?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skybuck Flying
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Skybuck Flying

Hello,

I was watching ASRock's OC tuner tool and also ASRock's Intelligent Energy
Saver tool which I think uses AMD's Cool & Quiet CPU technology and I
noticed the following odd behaviour:

1. When "IES" (intelligent energy saver") was ON the "CPU Power Watt"
indicator fluctuates wildly between 2 to 5 to 130 watts !!! (The processor
is supposed to only be 90 watts).

2. When "IES" is off the "CPU Power Watt" indicator is very stable around
21.9 watts !!!

Now comes the quicker:

Under situation 1 the CPU temperature is 35 degrees celcius according to
the OC tool.

Under situation 2 the CPU temperature is 30 (86F) to even 29 degrees celcius
(80F) according to the OC tool.

Also when switching from situation 1 to situation 2 the CPU temperature
immediately drops 4 to 5 degrees celcius !

What a big difference !

First I thought this difference may be caused by the tool's animations but
this appears not to be the case. (Tools where exited).

The same behaviour as described above stayed. (Web browser open and a little
bit of flash activity was used during the described situations).

Also when IES is on the power voltages fluctuate a lot that's probably not a
good thing.

I have now eanble IES again and showing the webbrowser not doing much and
temperatures rise up again to 34 celcius (93 fahrenheit) !

What an odd situation, one would expect "cool & quiet" and "power saving" to
make the system more cool and efficient, but according to these tools,

The opposite happen at least when it comes to "temperature" it doesn't
become cooler it becomes hotter !

How much energy it actually saves is doubtfull though the tool claims some
energy is saved, how much this how save on the electricity bill I don't
know...

And I don't really care, because if my PC dies again it will cost a whole
lot of time to rebuild and a new motherboard so all that energy saving is
useless if it dies !

Another effect of "IES" is probably "stable high temperatures" for CPU...
but this also increases motherboard temperature.

I'd much rather have low temperatures when my system is not doing
anything... 4 degrees probably don't matter that much for CPU but a few
degrees hotter for motherboard might matter, also what if system is more
active like game or so... what does it do then ?!? These HUGE watt/power
fluctuations do not look healthy to me and might even be the cause of
motherboard death.

Therefore I am now going into the bios and disable "cool n quiet" just in
case.

Strange as it may sound but this will probably make the motherboard more
cool too, a few degrees perhaps... because this heat might build up over
time if it's not disabled.

I noticed how the motherboard already quickly dropped at least one degree
when "IES" was off.

So over a period of time it might drop even further which might be a good
thing.

Very strange don't you think ?!? Perhaps this is a known issue with these
AMD X2 3800+ processors ?!?!?

I'm going stable voltages all the way, since that's why all my other
computers probably had and they still living ! ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.

(re-posting, so other newsgroups "hear" it too ! ;) LOL)
 
Skybuck said:
Hello,

I was watching ASRock's OC tuner tool and also ASRock's Intelligent Energy
Saver tool which I think uses AMD's Cool & Quiet CPU technology and I
noticed the following odd behaviour:

1. When "IES" (intelligent energy saver") was ON the "CPU Power Watt"
indicator fluctuates wildly between 2 to 5 to 130 watts !!! (The processor
is supposed to only be 90 watts).

2. When "IES" is off the "CPU Power Watt" indicator is very stable around
21.9 watts !!!

Now comes the quicker:

Under situation 1 the CPU temperature is 35 degrees celcius according to
the OC tool.

Under situation 2 the CPU temperature is 30 (86F) to even 29 degrees
celcius
(80F) according to the OC tool.

Also when switching from situation 1 to situation 2 the CPU temperature
immediately drops 4 to 5 degrees celcius !

What a big difference !

First I thought this difference may be caused by the tool's animations but
this appears not to be the case. (Tools where exited).

The same behaviour as described above stayed. (Web browser open and a
little
bit of flash activity was used during the described situations).

Also when IES is on the power voltages fluctuate a lot that's probably
not a
good thing.

I have now eanble IES again and showing the webbrowser not doing much and
temperatures rise up again to 34 celcius (93 fahrenheit) !

What an odd situation, one would expect "cool & quiet" and "power
saving" to
make the system more cool and efficient, but according to these tools,

The opposite happen at least when it comes to "temperature" it doesn't
become cooler it becomes hotter !

How much energy it actually saves is doubtfull though the tool claims some
energy is saved, how much this how save on the electricity bill I don't
know...

And I don't really care, because if my PC dies again it will cost a whole
lot of time to rebuild and a new motherboard so all that energy saving is
useless if it dies !

Another effect of "IES" is probably "stable high temperatures" for CPU...
but this also increases motherboard temperature.

I'd much rather have low temperatures when my system is not doing
anything... 4 degrees probably don't matter that much for CPU but a few
degrees hotter for motherboard might matter, also what if system is more
active like game or so... what does it do then ?!? These HUGE watt/power
fluctuations do not look healthy to me and might even be the cause of
motherboard death.

Therefore I am now going into the bios and disable "cool n quiet" just in
case.

Strange as it may sound but this will probably make the motherboard more
cool too, a few degrees perhaps... because this heat might build up over
time if it's not disabled.

I noticed how the motherboard already quickly dropped at least one degree
when "IES" was off.

So over a period of time it might drop even further which might be a good
thing.

Very strange don't you think ?!? Perhaps this is a known issue with these
AMD X2 3800+ processors ?!?!?

I'm going stable voltages all the way, since that's why all my other
computers probably had and they still living ! ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.

(re-posting, so other newsgroups "hear" it too ! ;) LOL)
Click to expand...

Interesting project S. F.
Keep up the good work. :-)
 
I noticed an option in the bios which I hadn't seen before it's called
something like "cpu fan control" or something...

So I decided to test it first, but it doesn't work.

But I did notice a strange activity from my floppy drive.

Then I rebooted again and this time disabled the fan control and the cool n
quiet.

I booted again into windows, strangely enough the energy saving was still on
?!?

According to the GUI it did seem to save some energy like 10 watts or so...

Very strange, perhaps a strange inconsistency between software and
hardware/bios.

Then I turned IES off and tried to turn it back on but it said: "cool n
quiet must be enabled".

So it was not possible anymore to enable it... and the wattage jumped up
from a fluctuating 15 to stable 21 watts.

So perhaps it is possible to run "IES" and "cool n quiet" off with this
trick but I wouldn't do it... since the CPU temperature was still at 34
degrees, which could indicate that it was still fluctuating... so perhaps
the CPU is controlled by the motherboard... thus the motherboard and it's
software first have to be configured to be in a stable/consistent state.

Now that IES is off the CPU temperature is back again at a stable 31 degrees
celcius.

Motherboard temperature is now 30 degrees celcius so this is now slightly
higher... not sure
why that is... perhaps because of the reboot.

Or perhaps a different explanation is required... perhaps "cool n quiet" is
not about "keeping the cpu cool" but "keeping the motherboard cool"...

So what the fok was "cool n quiet designed for ?!? What is it supposed to
keep cool ?!?

That's a pretty good question ! ;)

The bios does mention "system" and not necessarily cpu... so perhaps "cool n
quiet" was designed for "total system temperature".

Well I shall keep a close eye on motherboard temperature to see what happens
to it...

However a 1 degree difference is probably nothing to severe....

However the CPU temperature is now at 35 degrees celcius... Perhaps ambient
room temperature is rising too it's now 22.5 degrees room temperature.

Don't know what it was previously...

Well currently it doesn't seem to make much difference... CPU temperature is
now back at 35 degrees while cool n quiet is off.... or perhaps
trying to turn it on confused it ?!? very strange... there is not much cpu
activity... except me typing... perhaps that does consume some cpu.

So I will now stop a little bit and see what happens perhaps live mail does
consume lot's of cpu... it's fluctuating towards 50 to 60 procent.

Hmm cpu temperature now back to 31 degree celcius... perhaps it's because of
task manager over the desktop background.

Now 32 degrees celcius... now 33 degree celcius... cpu activity is high
while I type this...

Floppy drive just went active again... very strange...

Perhaps somebody trying to hack me ;)

Or perhaps it's microsoft virus scanner

Or perhaps a motherboard malfunction... hmmm strange.

There seems to be some net activity while nothing major is running so that's
a bit strange...

Well for now I am gonna let cool n quiet be off, since I probably don't like
power fluctuations...

Added benefit is perhaps quicker system response times...

Unless motherboard temperature rises further I would enable it again...

On the other hand having a stable system power wise is interesting... at
least this doesn't lead to sudden strange power/watt/heat increases while
doing something...

So perhaps this is better ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
I was watching ASRock's OC tuner tool and also ASRock's Intelligent Energy
Saver tool which I think uses AMD's Cool & Quiet CPU technology and I
noticed the following odd behaviour:
Click to expand...

It could have been just a motherboard issue, not AMD. :)

--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and farces be with you!
/( _ )\ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39
^ ^ 00:09:01 up 7 days 9:11 0 users load average: 1.05 1.04 1.05
ä¸å€Ÿè²¸! ä¸è©é¨™! ä¸æ´äº¤! ä¸æ‰“交! ä¸æ‰“劫! ä¸è‡ªæ®º! è«‹è€ƒæ…®ç¶œæ´ (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa
 
Very strange don't you think ?!? Perhaps this is a known issue with these
AMD X2 3800+ processors ?!?!?
Click to expand...

3800+ is a very old CPU. I don't think its C&Q implementation is good.

--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and farces be with you!
/( _ )\ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39
^ ^ 00:34:01 up 7 days 9:36 0 users load average: 1.04 1.03 1.05
ä¸å€Ÿè²¸! ä¸è©é¨™! ä¸æ´äº¤! ä¸æ‰“交! ä¸æ‰“劫! ä¸è‡ªæ®º! è«‹è€ƒæ…®ç¶œæ´ (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa
 
It's been running for 4 hours now or so.

The cpu temperature is 34 degrees celcius or 93 fahrenheit.
The mb temperature is 32 degrees celcius or 89 fahrenheit.
The room temperature is 23 degrees (though perhaps sensor not super
accurate, lamp is on and sun shining on shades)
The graphics card temperature is 38 to 39 degrees or 100 fahrenheit.

I watch some video's, surfed some web, and make a picture in paint ;) =D

The room temperature was 22.5 degrees and is now 23 degrees, a 0.5 degree
incrementation.

While the motherboard was 29 to 30 to 31 degrees which is now 32 degrees, 1
to 2 to 3 degrees rising.

So at least double the rise of temperature. (1 full degree celcius)

However the difference between CPU temperature and motherboard temperature
is very minimal only 2 degrees difference.

I suspect most of the heat in the case is coming from the graphics card
which is passively cooled, only a heatsink.

These temperatures ain't bad, it far from bad... it's actually quite good !

And voltages are stable at least they should be.

I wonder why the double rise of temperature. As far as I can tell there is
no dust build up yet so that can't be it.

Perhaps room temperature is slightly different on both sides, this could
explain the 0.5 celcius difference.

So far I am happy with these temperatures, I wonder what a hot summer will
bring, probably just 4 degrees extra.

I still haven't done any heavy gaming, so that remains to be seen as well ;)

I guess that would add a few degrees extra as well, so then close to 40
degrees, which is still 5 degrees better than previous build, but this is
speculation so far ;) :)

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Skybuck said:
Hello,

I was watching ASRock's OC tuner tool and also ASRock's Intelligent Energy
Saver tool which I think uses AMD's Cool & Quiet CPU technology and I
noticed the following odd behaviour:

1. When "IES" (intelligent energy saver") was ON the "CPU Power Watt"
indicator fluctuates wildly between 2 to 5 to 130 watts !!! (The processor
is supposed to only be 90 watts).

2. When "IES" is off the "CPU Power Watt" indicator is very stable around
21.9 watts !!!

Now comes the quicker:

Under situation 1 the CPU temperature is 35 degrees celcius according to
the OC tool.

Under situation 2 the CPU temperature is 30 (86F) to even 29 degrees
celcius
(80F) according to the OC tool.

Also when switching from situation 1 to situation 2 the CPU temperature
immediately drops 4 to 5 degrees celcius !

What a big difference !

First I thought this difference may be caused by the tool's animations but
this appears not to be the case. (Tools where exited).

The same behaviour as described above stayed. (Web browser open and a
little
bit of flash activity was used during the described situations).

Also when IES is on the power voltages fluctuate a lot that's probably
not a
good thing.

I have now eanble IES again and showing the webbrowser not doing much and
temperatures rise up again to 34 celcius (93 fahrenheit) !

What an odd situation, one would expect "cool & quiet" and "power
saving" to
make the system more cool and efficient, but according to these tools,

The opposite happen at least when it comes to "temperature" it doesn't
become cooler it becomes hotter !

How much energy it actually saves is doubtfull though the tool claims some
energy is saved, how much this how save on the electricity bill I don't
know...

And I don't really care, because if my PC dies again it will cost a whole
lot of time to rebuild and a new motherboard so all that energy saving is
useless if it dies !

Another effect of "IES" is probably "stable high temperatures" for CPU...
but this also increases motherboard temperature.

I'd much rather have low temperatures when my system is not doing
anything... 4 degrees probably don't matter that much for CPU but a few
degrees hotter for motherboard might matter, also what if system is more
active like game or so... what does it do then ?!? These HUGE watt/power
fluctuations do not look healthy to me and might even be the cause of
motherboard death.

Therefore I am now going into the bios and disable "cool n quiet" just in
case.

Strange as it may sound but this will probably make the motherboard more
cool too, a few degrees perhaps... because this heat might build up over
time if it's not disabled.

I noticed how the motherboard already quickly dropped at least one degree
when "IES" was off.

So over a period of time it might drop even further which might be a good
thing.

Very strange don't you think ?!? Perhaps this is a known issue with these
AMD X2 3800+ processors ?!?!?

I'm going stable voltages all the way, since that's why all my other
computers probably had and they still living ! ;)

Bye,
Skybuck.
Click to expand...

Energy savers involve turning off some phases on the Vcore switching
regulator. To do so, the board may take system management interrupts
at regular intervals, which might increase CPU activity.

From the Asrock manual:

"The voltage regulator can reduce the number of output phases to improve
efficiency when the CPU cores are idle."

The picture here, it looks like a five phase Vcore regulator.

http://images.pricerunner.com/product/image/169257222/Asrock-939A790GMH.jpg

I never install energy saver software here. I rely on EIST or Cool N' Quiet
to save any power necessary. If I really wanted to save power, adjusting
Vcore downward and doing stability testing, would be another way to
do it. I just don't want all the side effects, of any Energy Saver
software solutions.

To study the behavior a bit better, you might need to install something
to measure current on the Vcore 12V leads. And that would tell you
whether there was an actual saving or not.

The CPU temperature may give you some idea, whether it has the potential
to "save" or not.

I see no reason to assume this causes "wear" or "damage" to the motherboard.
If the processor is still running, and has not crashed, the circuit
is working properly.

Paul
 
Hello,

I was watching ASRock's OC tuner tool and also ASRock's Intelligent Energy
Saver tool which I think uses AMD's Cool & Quiet CPU technology and I
noticed the following odd behaviour:

1. When "IES" (intelligent energy saver") was ON the "CPU Power Watt"
indicator fluctuates wildly between 2 to 5 to 130 watts !!! (The processor
is supposed to only be 90 watts).

2. When "IES" is off the "CPU Power Watt" indicator is very stable around
21.9 watts !!!

Now comes the quicker:

Under situation 1 the CPU temperature is 35 degrees celcius  according to
the OC tool.

Under situation 2 the CPU temperature is 30 (86F) to even 29 degrees celcius
(80F) according to the OC tool.

Also when switching from situation 1 to situation 2 the CPU temperature
immediately drops 4 to 5 degrees celcius !

What a big difference !

First I thought this difference may be caused by the tool's animations but
this appears not to be the case. (Tools where exited).

The same behaviour as described above stayed. (Web browser open and a little
bit of flash activity was used during the described situations).

Also when IES is on the power voltages fluctuate a lot that's probably not a
good thing.

I have now eanble IES again and showing the webbrowser not doing much and
temperatures rise up again to 34 celcius (93 fahrenheit) !

What an odd situation, one would expect "cool & quiet" and "power saving"to
make the system more cool and efficient, but according to these tools,

The opposite happen at least when it comes to "temperature" it doesn't
become cooler it becomes hotter !

How much energy it actually saves is doubtfull though the tool claims some
energy is saved, how much this how save on the electricity bill I don't
know...

And I don't really care, because if my PC dies again it will cost a whole
lot of time to rebuild and a new motherboard so all that energy saving is
useless if it dies !

Another effect of "IES" is probably "stable high temperatures" for CPU...
but this also increases motherboard temperature.

I'd much rather have low temperatures when my system is not doing
anything... 4 degrees probably don't matter that much for CPU but a few
degrees hotter for motherboard might matter, also what if system is more
active like game or so... what does it do then ?!? These HUGE watt/power
fluctuations do not look healthy to me and might even be the cause of
motherboard death.

Therefore I am now going into the bios and disable "cool n quiet" just in
case.

Strange as it may sound but this will probably make the motherboard more
cool too, a few degrees perhaps... because this heat might build up over
time if it's not disabled.

I noticed how the motherboard already quickly dropped at least one degree
when "IES" was off.

So over a period of time it might drop even further which might be a good
thing.

Very strange don't you think ?!? Perhaps this is a known issue with these
AMD X2 3800+ processors ?!?!?

I'm going stable voltages all the way, since that's why all my other
computers probably had and they still living ! ;)

Bye,
  Skybuck.

(re-posting, so other newsgroups "hear" it too ! ;) LOL)
Click to expand...

Eventually those power saving features bite you in the ass if you are
a power user (run devices from your PC). The speed step feature on
that chip set works fine. Using the monitor from linux, you can see
the CPU speed double if feed a number crunching task.

You might want to look at the history of those AMD dual cores. I
recall having to do some sort of flash on mine once. It wasn't a bios
flash, but actually on the CPU. This is quite a few years ago so I
don't recall the details. Also AMD had some program you install that
made the dual core work better. I found a thread on it.
http://forums.speedguide.net/showth...ore-Fix-Read-if-you-have-an-AMD-Dual-Core-CPU

The 939 was a good CPU for it's day, but that is 3 sockets ago.
 
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