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I tried overclocking cpu and found that that disables automatic adjustment of the clock speed, thus the overclocked speed stays regardless of the cpu loading conditions. Is there a way to recover the automatic adjustment capability? The CPU is Phenom II x4 970 on Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4.

+ya I found the same to be true on an M5A97 EVO with an Phenom II X2 550 unlocked to a quad core. If I kept the default clockspeed, the quad down-clocks to 800MHz. If I OC to even 3.2GHz (from 3.1GHz) it's locked in at that speed.

ThrottleStop is a handy little utility you can use to change the base clock of you CPU. I use it on my laptop to throttle when I'm on battery and don't need all the CPU power, then use it to not throttle when plugged in.

churin wrote:

I tried overclocking cpu and found that that disables automatic adjustment of the clock speed, thus the overclocked speed stays regardless of the cpu loading conditions. Is there a way to recover the automatic adjustment capability? The CPU is Phenom II x4 970 on Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4.

On AMD CPUs, Cool'n'Quiet is usually disabled when you OC using the BIOS. The solution I use is to manually turn off C'n'Q in the BIOS, set the OC parameters (voltage, NB-CPU frequency, HT frequency, CPU frequency) appropriately and then manage P-States with PhenomMSRTweaker in Windows. I use the stock P-States for the Balanced power profile (P1-P4) and the OC'ed P-State (P0) for the performance power profile, so when I surf etc., the PC uses the Balanced profile and when I game, I manually switch to the High Performance profile. Works like a charm for me.

Best of luck with your OC efforts.

So apparently this broken state of affairs is the norm for current AMD CPUs?

It's not true of my OC'd C2Duo hackintosh. It will throttle back to 6x333 = 2GHz when idle. Then again, it doesn't have the multiplier unlocked. How do unlocked Sandy Bridge CPUs do with idle speeds?

ermo wrote:

churin wrote:

I tried overclocking cpu and found that that disables automatic adjustment of the clock speed, thus the overclocked speed stays regardless of the cpu loading conditions. Is there a way to recover the automatic adjustment capability? The CPU is Phenom II x4 970 on Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4.

On AMD CPUs, Cool'n'Quiet is usually disabled when you OC using the BIOS. The solution I use is to manually turn off C'n'Q in the BIOS, set the OC parameters (voltage, NB-CPU frequency, HT frequency, CPU frequency) appropriately and then manage P-States with PhenomMSRTweaker in Windows. I use the stock P-States for the Balanced power profile (P1-P4) and the OC'ed P-State (P0) for the performance power profile, so when I surf etc., the PC uses the Balanced profile and when I game, I manually switch to the High Performance profile. Works like a charm for me.

Best of luck with your OC efforts.

I ran this for quite sometime and it worked great. Both Intel and AMD CPUs as of the last few gens have had issues OC'ing while downclocking.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

ermo wrote:

On AMD CPUs, Cool'n'Quiet is usually disabled when you OC using the BIOS. The solution I use is to manually turn off C'n'Q in the BIOS, set the OC parameters (voltage, NB-CPU frequency, HT frequency, CPU frequency) appropriately and then manage P-States with PhenomMSRTweaker in Windows. I use the stock P-States for the Balanced power profile (P1-P4) and the OC'ed P-State (P0) for the performance power profile, so when I surf etc., the PC uses the Balanced profile and when I game, I manually switch to the High Performance profile. Works like a charm for me.

A question:

Is the CPU speed limited to the stock max speed under "Balanced power profile"? Or, can it go up to the OC'ed speed?

derFunkenstein wrote:

So apparently this broken state of affairs is the norm for current AMD CPUs?

It's not true of my OC'd C2Duo hackintosh. It will throttle back to 6x333 = 2GHz when idle. Then again, it doesn't have the multiplier unlocked. How do unlocked Sandy Bridge CPUs do with idle speeds?

Sandybridge/SB-E CPUs are a bit weird.

The FSB as you traditionally understood it is dead as the CPU has consumed all the parts. You don't really mess with BCLK anymore (you can, but the range of speeds can be rather limited). You instead end up adjusting the turbo multiplier. So if you leave EIST and the various C states on, it rolls back the multiplier when idling.

http://youtu.be/Kx2z07sFM2I

This video does a good job of explaining. Just be warned it's essentially an hour long class.

churin wrote:

I tried overclocking cpu and found that that disables automatic adjustment of the clock speed, thus the overclocked speed stays regardless of the cpu loading conditions. Is there a way to recover the automatic adjustment capability? The CPU is Phenom II x4 970 on Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4.

Rather than overclocking in BIOS, you might try the AMD Overdrive utility. It has a lot of flexibility and allows direct manipulation of p-states. It has a few quirks, like getting confused by unlocked cores, but other than that I've found it to be pretty useful.

Ryu Connor wrote:

Sandybridge/SB-E CPUs are a bit weird.

The FSB as you traditionally understood it is dead as the CPU has consumed all the parts. You don't really mess with BCLK anymore (you can, but the range of speeds can be rather limited).

I know, that's why I asked - it's closer to this scenario than any Core2 Duo OC I've ever done since it's all in multipliers.

You instead end up adjusting the turbo multiplier. So if you leave EIST and the various C states on, it rolls back the multiplier when idling.

And that's the answer I was looking for. Schweet!

I've never had a board disable Cool 'n Quiet unless I overclocked the FSB. Using just the multiplier to overclock should allow you to keep your CPU throttled down at idle.

WacoKid you said C'n'Q, but your sig has an Intel system listed. Do you really mean SpeedStep, or do you really mean AMD in which case what I've observed doesn't match what you're saying.

StuG wrote:

I ran this for quite sometime and it worked great. Both Intel and AMD CPUs as of the last few gens have had issues OC'ing while downclocking.

Am I correct to say that I have to forgo the automatic speed adjustment by using this utility?

churin wrote:

StuG wrote:

I ran this for quite sometime and it worked great. Both Intel and AMD CPUs as of the last few gens have had issues OC'ing while downclocking.

Am I correct to say that I have to forgo the automatic speed adjustment by using this utility?

Yes, you will be setting EVERY clock speed. It works off the hardware's ability to downclock though. So think of it as a 50|50 split. 50% is naturally the hardware down-clocking when not being utilized, but the speed values it is grabbing from are what YOU configure.

I have to digress at this point because I am not seeing what I assumed I would. The overclocking experiment was originally done on Phenom II x3 720 and saw what I stated in my original post. I restored the BIOS setting for the stock speed and used the machine for over a year.

The cpu has now been replaced with 970 and I have tried the overclocking to 3800 by simply changing the multiplier from 17.5 to 18.5 but the maximum speed is still 3500 and the automatic throttling is alive. I wonder what I am doing wrong.

Edit: Actually I built a new machine using a new mobo of the same model.