GA-X58A-UD3R Core i7 930 @ 2.8 Ghz will not clock down while idle EIST C1 enable

[breenemeister]

This is my first forum post and I hope you guys can help. I've got a Core i7 930 at stock speed (2. in a GA-X58A-UD3R v.2 running BIOS FC. No matter what I do, the processor and voltage will not clock themselves down when the PC is idle. I have EIST and C1 power savings enabled. C3,C6,C7 is disabled. In the power options in Windows 7 Ultimate, the only processor management that shows up is the one where you can choose active or passive fan control. From all of the googling I have done, it appears that there should also be an option to set maximum and minimum speeds for the processor. That does not show up for me. Most people who have that problem have fixed it by enabling EIST and C1 in the BIOS (other mobos of course, I couldn't find a post on mine). However, I've already done that. I ran a power efficiency diagnostics report and it showed an error indicating that:

Power Policy:Minimum processor performance state is 100% (Plugged In)
The processor is not configured to automatically reduce power consumption based on activity

This I know, but I can't find any way to change it. Is this a known issue with the FC BIOS or this mobo in general? I did lots of searches here, but couldn't find it. Anyone else having this problem? Thanks for any advice you can offer.

[breenemeister]

Bump.

Do you think a BIOS update might fix this?  The notes on the two newer BIOSs, FD and FE don't mention power states.

[Master004]

Hello breenemeister,

did you try the Balanced power plan under Control Panel \ Hardware and Sound \ Power Options ?

~Master004

[Dark Mantis]

Do you think a BIOS update might fix this?  The notes on the two newer BIOSs, FD and FE don't mention power states.

It would certainly be worth trying to flash the latest BIOS update as often the descritpions on these update packages are less than complete. Make sure that you use QFlash though not @BIOS for the endeavour.

[JakeF150]

Window 7,
Control Panel,
Power Options,
Change plan settings,
Change advanced power settings,
Processor power management,
Minimum processor state - set to whatever you wish.

[breenemeister]

Here's where I'm at now.  I've updated to BIOS FE.  No power plan makes any difference.  The fields for changing minimum and maximum processor states are not available when I edit any power plan.  The only power setting I can toggle is System Cooling Properties  Processor power management isn't there.  It's as though Windows does not see EIST as being enabled in the BIOS.  I've tried toggling turbo off and on in BIOS and it makes no difference in regards to downclocking.  I did create a new power plan to see if that would make a difference.  Since then, I've noticed that the voltage will go down to 0.944 at idle (from 1.25), but the processor clock speed stays the same.  This happens with all power plans now.  I ran the powercfg /q utility from the command line and in the new power plan I created, it shows minimum processor performance is set to 5%.  However, this has no effect on the clock speed.  This just screams at me that the motherboard is the culprit.  I'm just wondering if I don't have some setting correct, or maybe something is reversed in the BIOS.  I took basically all settings that could possibly be related and either enabled or disabled them so as not to rely on auto, but it hasn't made a difference.

Is someone with the same board and at least a similar processor who has this working properly willing to post their BIOS settings so I can compare them to mine?

Thanks for the replies so far.

[breenemeister]

Here's pictures of my BIOS settings and then a couple of pictures of the desktop showing that I don't have the power options I should and that the processor is running at 100%.  Sorry about the bad desktop pics.  I don't have any screen capture software loaded yet.

























Sorry for the long post.

[Wonderwrench]

Is device manager clean? Did you install the Intel inf aka chipset driver? I'm running the same CPU and motherboard if yours is a rev 2. EIST and C1E are enabled and down clocking works fine for me. I can see min and max processor states in power options. I'm actually overclocking and still able to use EIST and C1E. I'm currently running 166 Bclk x21 so 3.48 Ghz, core voltage set to normal not auto. At idle it down clocks to 1.992 Ghz @ .928 volts. I'm using the FB bios BTW.

If your using CPU-Z to report CPU speed I have found that the CPU frequency, multiplier and voltage are reported wrong most of the time if EIST is enabled in the bios. Some times its correct but not very often. The only way I have found to tell for sure if EIST and C1E are working is by using the resource monitor built into windows 7. See screen shot. I have found nothing that reports voltages with 100% accuracy on this board.

Bill

[Wonderwrench]

I see you are using the XMP memory profile. Try running without it and see if EIST and C1E work.

Bill

[breenemeister]

Bill, thanks for the tips.  I tried totally disabling XMP and it unfortunately didn't change anything.  Device Manager is clean.  I was 99% sure I had installed the Intel chipset drivers and I had, but I went ahead and updated to the latest version.  However, in device manager, clicking on the processor (8 show of course), the driver for it is dated 2006 from microsoft.  Is this legit?  Is there something else you recommend checking?  From what I've read, no specific driver is required.  I remember there was a specific processor driver for my old AMD 64.  Here's the updated chipset driver I installed http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19597&ProdId=3061&lang=eng

As for the resource monitor you're using...how do you get that view?  I only can see total which is one graph.  How do you see all 8 cores like that?  Maybe this points to another problem I may have.

[breenemeister]

  Woo Hoo  Problem solved!  Bill, your picture of the 8 the resource monitor showing 8 cores made me question why I was only seeing 1.  I did a search which led me to msconfig.  There, only 1 processor core was showing under the advanced options on the boot tab.  I wonder how in the world that happened.  Anyway,  I followed the instructions, cleared the checkmark and rebooted.  This reset everything and now I have 8 cores showing again.  Further, I now have access to the minimum and maximum processor performance settings in power management.  A quick check of CPU-Z shows the processor clocking down to 1600 mHz at idle.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this post and especially thanks to Bill who got me pointed in the right direction.

[Wonderwrench]

Good to see you got it fixed! BTW was windows 7 installed clean on the exact hardware you are now using? If so the cause and fix should have never happened. To get to the resource monitor you can go to start and type the letter r and choose resource monitor or you can get to if from task managers performance tab.

Bill

[breenemeister]

Good to see you got it fixed! BTW was windows 7 installed clean on the exact hardware you are now using? If so the cause and fix should have never happened. To get to the resource monitor you can go to start and type the letter r and choose resource monitor or you can get to if from task managers performance tab.

Bill

Yeah, I installed it clean.  I did take an image, do a secure erase and reload the image once I was good to go on the initial installation.  I did do some registry hacks and optimizing based on some OCZ forum guides.  The biggest was moving my profiles to a separate drive from the Windows installation.  I imagine that something I did along the way may have done it.  I was able to load my resource monitor and that's what helped me find the problem.  Thanks again.