Idle power running high at ~90W

[rchan]

I just put together a system using Intel's new Sandy Bridge 3960x processor paired with a ASRock x79 Extreme 4 mobo. Everything works fine with the exception that idle power is very high at ~90W. Using ThrottleStop monitoring tool it shows 100% C0 state residency, which is most likely the cause of the high power consumption. Moreover, frequency is pegged at 3.3 GHz (stock) and doesn't ever change.

I just flashed the lastest BIOS (p1.7) for this board but it didn't make any difference.

I believe the key BIOS setting is to have Intel SpeedStep enabled with everything else set to AUTO. This should have done the trick but I didn't notice any changes.

Anyone else have other ideas?

Thanks.

--bob

[kick]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

Um well not knowing much about this setup.
I can only suggest the obvious.
reset to default values using the q in bios then see if you can use the ezclock settings.
If no change ,do a hard reset of the cmos,save it when you get to uefi,repost,change whatever settings you need to to get into the OS.then boot into windows.

Wait for it to be fully loaded, shutdown ,repost into OS and try the 1stezclock setting, go into windows see how it looks, and so on.

[rchan]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

Thanks for the pointers. I'll try it out. For the most part I have done what you suggested already. Hard CMOS reset, default BIOS settings, different settings, etc.

I'll try and gather the info and repost when I get a chance.

[wazza300]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

There should be option in BIOS for OS to handle power saving,make sure its enabled instead of auto,then check in windows power saving options that your using "balanced" power saving profile

Then CPU should downclock at idle

[rchan]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

There was something called OS Real-time adjust CPU Ratio. I enabled it and it did slow down the frequency to 1.2 GHz. The problem I had after that was that running prime95 did not kick the frequency back up to 3.3 and runing ThottleStop still showed the C0 residency at 100% even at idle.
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[unclewebb]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

There was something called OS Real-time adjust CPU Ratio. I enabled it and it did slow down the frequency to 1.2 GHz. The problem I had after that was that running prime95 did not kick the frequency back up to 3.3 and runing ThottleStop still showed the C0 residency at 100% even at idle.

There is something wrong with your bios setup or with Windows. If the Task Manager is not showing any unusual activity at idle while ThrottleStop is showing your CPU spending 100% of its time in the C0 state then that is a problem. That doesn't mean your CPU is fully loaded. It just means that some setting is preventing your CPU from using its various idle states like C1/C3/C6/C7. A CPU should at the very least be using C1 when idle. This will greatly reduce the idle core temperature. The deeper sleep states can reduce idle temperatures a little further too. Check your bios for something like C-State Tech and turn that on if you can find it.

Go to the following Windows Registry folder.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\intelppm

Try setting the Start REG_DWORD entry to 3.

[rchan]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

Turn out the high idle power is OS related. I initially installed Windows XP Pro 32-bit and it looks like the power schemes don't work with 3960x at all. After re-installing with Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate, idle power drops down to ~10W and package C0 residency rates are in the order of 0.5% and C6 at ~80%. The only annoying ASRock default BIOS setting is CPU Fan Target Speed set to Max (Level 9) even though the CPU is idling at 30C.

[wazza300]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

They should work in xp,there's power profiles like in win7 but its called minimum hardware and it downclocks CPU just like win7 does,it worked fine on x58 running xp

[rchan]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

I tried the min power scheme with no luck. Maybe because it was the XP 32-bit version?!? Different generation of CPUs (X58 is paired with Nehamlem) may behave differently. For instance, my old Conroe E6600 running the same XP 32-bit OS utilized the power schemes just fine and the idle power was really low too.

[wazza300]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

i was using 32bit with x58,checked in bios to make sure c1e eist c3/c6 are enabled and os real time adjust are all enabled,cantsee why it wont work should do even on modern cpu's imo

[rchan]

Re: Idle power running high at ~90W

Yeah, I was surprised that it didn't work either. The BIOS real-time OS adjust was actually OFF using default settings. After I enabled it I saw the core frequency drop to 1.2 GHz, but then got stuck there even when running prime95.

Bottom line. Nobody in their right mind would be running XP 32-bit paired with a 3960x. Only a fool like me because that's the only OS I had availabe when first putting it together. Now with Windows 7 everything is running very smoothly.

Thanks for all the feedback.