P5B Full Scaling. Expert help needed.

Long tme lurker, i have never had to post here.
i dont really overclock, i just ramp things up a bit, and use them fully stable.
this AMI bios, and the new layer of stuff is not complex at all, UNTIL it is not descibed well in the manuel.
using abbreviations, and technical terms doenst have a lot of value unless you have been LIVING overclocking for a long time.
instead i have been living FAST, with 2 fast AMD cpus, and a totally cleaned up system.
so there are lots of terms that do not click as to thier purpose, in the bios.
and there are functions that do not seem to have any real value, or do what one would expect.

System Specs:
ASUS P5b Deluxe
6600 intel 2 core thing
Stock heat sync
2 Gig of corsair 44412 ram interleaved 800 type
2 500G drives raided on the intel side
1 HP blue thing DVD
1 spare 160G drive for backup and non-raid
ATI 1900 AIW
Cruddy onboard sound Max sound (for now)


What i Want:
I want it all really, i want the system to Ramp down when IDLE and i want the system to ramp up to max stable stock.
I really would like if HLT was active, unlike we have had for so long with the AMD computers.
I will not be (or need) to Increase the voltage , like i said i dont really overclock.
1600 is an adequite Ideling, and 2900 is an adequite high speed for me.

What i dont like:
at 1600, the system is sluggish, i have played with the AI stuff, and scaling for Hours, and have spent Hours trying to read Here, and other fourms , to gain insight on the FUNCTION of this stuff, when it doesnt work like it Could/should. its not as "snappy" as my old dinasour computer when doing meanial tasks.

at 2900, the system workds just fine, BUT , what purpose is all the great heat, and power saving,s and the scaling, if its STUCk there?

I live in california, and will go from using all of both CPUS to wanting the Same type of speed , even during booting (especially at this install everything phase).
But heat and power, totally wasted , are ,,, a waste. power here is very high cost, and Heat , is a bad thing, being pumped out into the room.

So i would Like, to properly configure the Scaling. but there is more than conflict in doing that.

1) Does Intel do a better job at the scaling, than the Asus junk, when it comes to turning on INTEL scaling in the bios?

2) Does the ASUS side of the AI, and OC parts functionally do scaling, Like intel, or working WITH intel at the same time?

3) does that stupid Gear changer do anothing, other than change the fan speed?

4) does HLT work again? seems aufully chilly down there with it on, yet (reading here) you all have tunrned it off. that would be against, what i need , , Save power, and heat, YET still have speed.

5) What Setting A) sensitive B)Standard C) Heavy will REACT quickest, when there is cpu use?

More stuff.
when using 1/2 the cruddy programs, and system of the XPPro, these programs balance out the load of the SINGLE cpu usage between BOTH cpus, so the "scaling" thinks, gee there isnt much going on, lets just stay Parked ,, grrrr.

if your Testing, number crunching, folding, or Gaming, then the CPU is being harshed on, and the "scaling" will occur, and basically stay on.
SO
for the WORK side of the computer , Photoshop, Video editing, 3D video rendering, the scaling in the system is going to work. all that stuff USES both Cpus.
for the gaming, and testing, and folding, side, those things have a fairly constant drain on the Cpu(s) , and the scaling will stay up.
BUT
when it comes to the installing, opening windows, re-booting, messing with minor programs, watching tv on the computer, playing with files, the Scaling is about useless.

MY PDA has scaling, and its Awesome, it snaps to attention at my beck and call, scaling from 1/4th to 1 instantally, and whenever there is a need.
THIS thing, seems to scale after the task is already done, the scaling, and OC scaling needs to occur Instantally, then wait a few seconds, to make sure i am not going to need it again.
instead
it might get around to scaling , if it thinks its nessisary, and drops it again, before the task is done.

now i know your saying, well if your not using 50% of the cpu then it doesnt need to go faster. well the Drives are slow, and drives only take 3% cpu, yet advantage greatly from scaling up. also the SMP (dual cpu software) thing comes to play. There is not a high CPU load, because the software doesnt USE both CPUS, that software even more, needs the speed.
the computer isnt "snappy" when the scaling isnt snappy.

the scaling should engage at as low as 10% cpu usage (x2) and retain, its high level, until below that for say 10 full seconds. or be user configurable, like a PDA can be with 3rd party software.

How can i Have , the speed, AND the power/heat savings BOTH.
what is the best way to configure this beast? See question 5, what setting is the one that would achieve the fastest scaling reaction?

I realise this isnt Your function here, crank up the voltage, blow out the heat, scream to the neighbors, my speed cant be beat.
but you guys comprehend the functions of the buttons and the software junk, from using this board for years.
i just got it 2 weeks ago, and after much reading, and analisis of the actual functions, i am perplexed.

quite the first post, Welcome to OCforums

Dont bother with scaling just buy a good heatsink, like an ultra-120 and a good fan

ALiEN2953 said:

quite the first post, Welcome to OCforums

Dont bother with scaling just buy a good heatsink, like an ultra-120 and a good fan

Click to expand...

Hi Alien2935. i really kinda needed the scaling. that is why i was asking, of course i need it to Work too
because the computer can/will sit for days doing little more than watching tv , reading the web, tweaking, and doing minor tasks.
I sort of Live at this comeputer, yet it only does hard work 1/10th of the time. the rest of the time, i have got all of the stuff to slow to nothing on purpose.
like AIW 1900 has a TV tuner, and it only takes 2% cpu use (after registry hack).
Windows takes less than 1% (when idle) after putting it under control (tweaked to death).
reading the web guides and info for hours, takes nothing, and even hard fast Drive usage takes little juice.
here in California at 85+Degrees F inside, if it would just cool out , and save me 50W of power , that would be really "enviromental" ok its only because i am a cheapskate and cant afford the AC but enviromental sounds good too its also silent, i ended up with a Antec case, by accident, that is practically silent, WHEN there is low heat, low power.

Psycogeec said:

3) does that stupid Gear changer do anothing, other than change the fan speed?

Click to expand...

Yes, it messes your performance up. Please check out my thread on the subject here, particularly my last post.

thanks traveler, that answers one question.
did you notice that when using that "gear" thing, that it starts Low, even thought it SHOWS it being in the "high Performace" location on the GUI.
if you move it off, then back again, it is actually at the "high performace" mode.
As if it is starting LOW, untill you change it, even though its GUI posistion shows high.
i didnt really want to MANUALLY control the scaling/voltage/cooling, in the OS, but the gear thing is shown in the wrong posistion (IMO) untill you move it out and back again.

with a manual Set FSB thing, the gear thing is non-functional, with a AIOC , it is non functional.

messing around more, i have INTEL scaling off in the bios, but HLT still on, and a manuel OC, and i managed to get to 333 OC WITH scaling??
so now the CPU step from 6-9 goes from 1900(about) to 3000(about).
and it seems to react faster.
so is asus USING intels scaling , and working with it? or do they have thier own communication to do the scaling?

So that works too for me, but when i went above 333, to try and get a higher OC, the scaling stopped again :-(
as if there is sweet spots in MANUAL OC where the scaling still functions. 266, 321, 333.

Memory: when I 5:4 the memory, memory thouroughput increases 7-9% without a decrease in CPU arithmatic functions.
some people say 1:1 for the memory on INTEL is the only way to go, yet my minor benchmark (not reality) shows that OCing the memory is working fine?

Asus SUITE instalation, runs a driver at startup, even if the suite is not running (at the time) the driver is still installed, like any probing sys type driver.
Mabey that is able to do the 6-9 speed stepping, when intel speed stepping is not on?

i am so confused. i seemed to have aquired a decent (adequite) OC with scaling, IF only i knew what all the buttons were for.

One more thing that Seems to occur.
the double powerup: if you make a non-bootable Manuel setting, memory or FSB, the power up stops then re-starts, as mentioned in some posts here.
when it does that, it stopped, dropped the memory OC, or FSB OC to a working level, then restarts the boot process.
so you can stick things in any posistion you want (visual 400 fsb) and the machine just re-starts with a lower setting.
sometimes i wish it would just FAIL, instead of making me believe that it was at 400, when it had changed stuff in this recover process.
the BIOS still shows some high faluting setting still, even though it knocks you back to a normal OC at the boot/re-boot.

ahh crud, i had it beautifull.
i was running 370 , some how magically, with everything set correct, meaning there was not tricks, no overvolt, no CPU divider change, no balking, no problems.
the system would go from (about) 2300 to 3100 when scaling.
it was everything i could ever ask for. then i went higher
now i cant get the old profile to work even, the one i saved after it passed EVERY test, and rebooted many times.

adding in more power sucking memory didnt help.
i am almost there, and yet 100 miles from it.

ok gonna tell ya what i lernt

the scaling is almost always on, being a grand feature of the board and the cpu, this CAN cause stuttering in audio. that is why you might be interested even if UNDECLOCK is a nasty word for you

you must disable BOTH speedstep, and the HLT in the bios to stop the scaling, most overclockers have this covered.
so now, when you get INTO the operating system, i have seen a way to CONTROL everything after that.
you can have your cake and eat it too.

there is shareware program called "RightMark CPU Clock Utility" (does NOT OC just scale)
this thing made mostly for latops, can do these things for me:
After the Bios is stopped from allowing any stepping or halting
in the OS you can set rightmark to have 4 methods of adjustment.

1) not mess with anything, just tell you the ACTUAL speed the processor is at , so you can see if its toned down. (much smaller than AIsuite)

2) Lock the speed LOW, basically stop the scalling, if your just listening to music, cool out your machine, drop your power consumption, and stop the sound stuttering, because its LOCKED to a set speed.

3) Lock it out to a HIGH speed, you guys would already have that covered.

4) set it to scale and Throttle, with a fairly rapid responce on throttling up

5) show some stats, graphs, and cute icons in the systray

6) show the CPU temperature, BUT only relativly, meaing it goes up and down, but its off by about 20*c, still usefull to observer change.

7) re-enable HLT in the OS

if you dont disable the BIOS intel switches for BOTH cpu scalers , the program itself will not STOP scaling, it starts it in the OS, when its off in the bios, giving the user control.

you must set the CPU display (in the tray) to show the CORE values, not the throttling values to see the stepped values

if you wanted to make many more profiles, then you pay, but there seems to be adequite Quad control in the free parts (this week).

Caveates- it takes approximatly 1% of your CPU power to do its thing, between the graphs, and temp monitoring, and the scaling all functioning. so it might be good to know its actual cost of operation on the system.
although in the respect of its consumption, you can have it EXIT and LEAVE the setting it was on.

basically it full Scaling Control Post boot.

another Find, that i found for older users of "ClockGen" which most people dont know it supports P5B, so i am passing that data hunk.in the PLL setup use the CY28551 Chipset profile thing, and ya good to go.
clock gen will adjust LIVE in the OS , like soft sfb did both the FSB and the PCI, as seprate things. 2 adjustments, one raises FSB (memory buss and cpu) one adjusts PCI (all of the PCI, the PCI-e the PCI and probably even the USB) .