AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology-basic terms, what is it?
- Thread starter micky
- Start date
DeathKnight
Regular
The one time I tried it at work it simply didn't function properly. Under load it did not speed back up (which in turn killed the 3DMark2K1 score). Turned off Cool 'n' Quiet and the score shot right up to where it should have been.
Vortigern_red
Newcomer
As others have said cool & quiet lowers the multiplier (hence clock speed) and also the voltage.
It seems to work better on some boards than others, I've been running with it on for several months and there is no obvious, performance difference with it on or off. (early gigabyte, via board and A64 3000+).
A few games run funny with it on, X111 and one other I can't recall, where they run at a fast or slow speed depending on what state the CPU was in a level load but you can easily switch it of by selecting "home/office desk" in power management rather than "portable/laptop".
Out of interest I may run some benchmarks later with it on and off and see how much difference it actually makes on my system.
It seems to work better on some boards than others, I've been running with it on for several months and there is no obvious, performance difference with it on or off. (early gigabyte, via board and A64 3000+).
A few games run funny with it on, X111 and one other I can't recall, where they run at a fast or slow speed depending on what state the CPU was in a level load but you can easily switch it of by selecting "home/office desk" in power management rather than "portable/laptop".
Out of interest I may run some benchmarks later with it on and off and see how much difference it actually makes on my system.
Is this hardware based?
Would be great if it was software based, as i have an A64 which gets used to its full potential very sporadically. If i leave the PC on while i'm in bed or at work, it would be nice to have it slow down by itself.
Would be great if it was software based, as i have an A64 which gets used to its full potential very sporadically. If i leave the PC on while i'm in bed or at work, it would be nice to have it slow down by itself.
Vortigern_red
Newcomer
OK I ran a few tests with CnQ on and off: (I switch it off by selecting "home/office desk" in power management, rather than uninstalling the driver, in this mode the CPU runs at full speed all the time)
My system: Gigabyte motherboard ga-k8vt800(pro), via chipset. 1 gig DDR cas 2, Radeon X800XT (flashed pro) 520/520
I figured a default 3Dmark 2001 run would be pretty system limited with that video card so I ran that, as its easy. (no AA/AF)
CnQ on: run 1 21852: run 2 21190: run 3 21268 (ave 21437)
CnQ off: run 1 21652: run 2 21457: run 3 21292 (ave 21467)
Make of those what you will, I did not restart the program between runs (except between CnQ on and off obviously) yet the first run is faster in both cases, I expected it to be the other way round. The differences between the aves are much closer then the differences between individual runs, but the "CnQ on" first run seems slightly high.
I also encoded a 3.11 min PAL DV video file into a PAL DVD compliant MPEG2 file, the source DV file was on an 80 gig SATA Seagate drive partitioned as one drive and the destination file was on 40 gig partition at the start of a Seagate 160 gig PATA drive. I was using Ulead MSP 7.2 which uses the Mainconcept MPEG encoder and I restarted the application between each run.
CnQ on: run 1 4.32 min: run 2 4:30 min
CnQ off: run 1 4:29 min: run 2 4.30 min
I got the figures by watching the timer as it ended encoding and I am certain they are correct to +/- 1 sec.
London-boy: it is hardware based and requires a small driver from AMD, most motherboards claim to support CnQ, but many people complain that it does not work correctly on some boards. My board required a BIOS update to support it but this was pretty early A64 days. All else that is required is to select "portable/laptop" in power management. (I think that some BIOS also require you to select CnQ as an option, my board does not have this option)
EDIT; Should add that my A64 is one of the first steppings and actually clocks itself down to a 4x multiplier (800MHz) whereas the newer ones, I think, clock down to 1000MHz,.
My system: Gigabyte motherboard ga-k8vt800(pro), via chipset. 1 gig DDR cas 2, Radeon X800XT (flashed pro) 520/520
I figured a default 3Dmark 2001 run would be pretty system limited with that video card so I ran that, as its easy. (no AA/AF)
CnQ on: run 1 21852: run 2 21190: run 3 21268 (ave 21437)
CnQ off: run 1 21652: run 2 21457: run 3 21292 (ave 21467)
Make of those what you will, I did not restart the program between runs (except between CnQ on and off obviously) yet the first run is faster in both cases, I expected it to be the other way round. The differences between the aves are much closer then the differences between individual runs, but the "CnQ on" first run seems slightly high.
I also encoded a 3.11 min PAL DV video file into a PAL DVD compliant MPEG2 file, the source DV file was on an 80 gig SATA Seagate drive partitioned as one drive and the destination file was on 40 gig partition at the start of a Seagate 160 gig PATA drive. I was using Ulead MSP 7.2 which uses the Mainconcept MPEG encoder and I restarted the application between each run.
CnQ on: run 1 4.32 min: run 2 4:30 min
CnQ off: run 1 4:29 min: run 2 4.30 min
I got the figures by watching the timer as it ended encoding and I am certain they are correct to +/- 1 sec.
London-boy: it is hardware based and requires a small driver from AMD, most motherboards claim to support CnQ, but many people complain that it does not work correctly on some boards. My board required a BIOS update to support it but this was pretty early A64 days. All else that is required is to select "portable/laptop" in power management. (I think that some BIOS also require you to select CnQ as an option, my board does not have this option)
EDIT; Should add that my A64 is one of the first steppings and actually clocks itself down to a 4x multiplier (800MHz) whereas the newer ones, I think, clock down to 1000MHz,.
Vortigern_red
Newcomer
Also encoded some MP3s to OGG with CDex (not very real world. I know but I did not want to involve the CD drive, and could not be bothered ripping a CD to wav first), same drives as above.
On, 1st run 127s: 2nd run 126s:
off, 1st run 127s: 2nd run 126s:
I timed these with the windows clock and could easily be out by a large % of a second at each end, so I would only assume they are accurate to within 2 seconds. (probably more like 1 though)
On, 1st run 127s: 2nd run 126s:
off, 1st run 127s: 2nd run 126s:
I timed these with the windows clock and could easily be out by a large % of a second at each end, so I would only assume they are accurate to within 2 seconds. (probably more like 1 though)
My notebook uses this. It works flawlessly for everything except Unreal engine 1 based games. They will be turbo speed if I don't set the CPU to max speed before loading.
BTW, people should check out RMClock. Rightmark Clock Utility. It lets you set the max and min voltages and multipliers from within Windows. I got my CPU from 1.4v to 1.225v at max speed still stable! And .95 to .825v at min speed! Very nice heat drop, meaning less fan.
BTW, people should check out RMClock. Rightmark Clock Utility. It lets you set the max and min voltages and multipliers from within Windows. I got my CPU from 1.4v to 1.225v at max speed still stable! And .95 to .825v at min speed! Very nice heat drop, meaning less fan.
Vortigern_red said:
Ok.. so how would i know whether i have it or not? I have a A64 3200 (the 1Mb version)... Not sure about the motherboard, apart from being a Gigabyte.
Vortigern_red
Newcomer
I think gigabyte claims support on all its boards. Just download the driver from AMD
Here.
Install it and set "portable/Laptop" in power management. Use something like the above mentioned rightmark clock thingy to see if your clock speed is going up and down as you run apps ect. Some other monitoring apps only seem to take the clock speed at startup and never change, but you can still use these and watch the voltage instead.
If it does not work just uninstall it from Add/remove progs. As I said with my board I did have to update the bios to get support, so you may need to look at that if it does not work.
Here.
Install it and set "portable/Laptop" in power management. Use something like the above mentioned rightmark clock thingy to see if your clock speed is going up and down as you run apps ect. Some other monitoring apps only seem to take the clock speed at startup and never change, but you can still use these and watch the voltage instead.
If it does not work just uninstall it from Add/remove progs. As I said with my board I did have to update the bios to get support, so you may need to look at that if it does not work.
Can I get cool n' quiet on my nforce 2 board? There's some sort of throttling option in my bios, along with c1 disconnect, but they don't seem to do anything. The throttling option has a bunch of different percentages, but I'm not sure what they affect. I've never seen my cpu throttle down though when idling, and it just seems to crash when temperatures get up.(possibly related to the thermal throttling and c1 disconnect options not working right?)
arjan de lumens
Veteran
Nforce2 would imply a SocketA processor; these processors don't support Cool'n'Quiet, only Athlon64 processors do.
arjan de lumens said:
Aw, but I think they support PowerNow which is like an earlier version of cool'n'quiet.
I have a mobile athlon xp so I know it supports some kind of power management stuff.
Also, I know some athlon xp motherboards are able to use that power management stuff...I've just never heard of an nforce2 mobo that can(maybe because there were no mobile nforce 2 boards?), but I was wondering if thermal throttling or c1 disconnect were related, or if anyone knew what caused them to activate.
You're right that powernow and cool 'n' quiet in principle is really pretty much the same.Fox5 said:
However, desktop boards typically do not implement the ability to change the voltage on-the-fly (and if you really want to reduce heat/power, lowering frequency alone will do a LOT less than lowering both frequency and voltage).
C1 disconnect is for disconnecting the bus - this is a prerequisite for powernow/cool 'n'quiet afaik (can't change multiplier while bus is connected), and it will also reduce the power consumption of the cpu while idle (because without it the cpu won't really enter its low-power state).
As you mentioned, nforce2 boards don't seem to work with the utilities dynamically changing the multiplier, seems like a chipset issue to me (well there is no mobile version of it nor have I seen it used in a notebook, so it probably isn't a feature nvidia bothered with).
No idea what throttling will do, maybe this will lower the fsb when the cpu gets too hot. You should be able to do that (lowering fsb) with tools afaik.
Yeah, but it'd be nicer if it was done automatically and in a split second. BTW, I can't lower my fsb too much before it will freeze up in windows.
Seems wierd than an nforce2 board would have c1 disconnect and thermal throttling if it can't really use them. There's no way to define when thermal throttling will activate, nor does it tell you, it just has the percentages which I assume are what the cpu drops down to.
Seems wierd than an nforce2 board would have c1 disconnect and thermal throttling if it can't really use them. There's no way to define when thermal throttling will activate, nor does it tell you, it just has the percentages which I assume are what the cpu drops down to.
