[hokiealumnus]

This question gets asked so frequently, I figured it merited an easily searchable post. So I'll post the explanation. If anyone who has ever seen it asked would be so kind as to reply with any phrase you can think of that might be used to ask this question to make the thread easily searchable, it would be greatly appreciated. Tags may be helpful as well. Thanks everybody!

So, you get a new computer and your CPU is running what you percieve with monitoring software to be too slow. What's going on? Most likely EIST (Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology) or C1E (Extended Halt State) are enabled in your BIOS.

We'll start with EIST. Here is Intel's explanation:

Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology allows the system to dynamically adjust processor voltage and core frequency, which can result in decreased average power consumption and decreased average heat production. By decreasing power and heat on desktop PCs, system builders can (depending on system configurations) potentially lower acoustics, and even develop more innovative small form factor designs. Additionally, this feature can help address power concerns in companies with sites approaching the limits of bounded electrical infrastructures. Combined with existing power saving features, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology can provide an excellent balance between providing power when you need it and conserving it when you don’t.

All C2D / C2Q chips down clock by reducing the multiplier to 6x and dropping the Vcore. i5 / i7 chips work in a similar fashion, but I haven't looked to see what the normal downclocked multi is. The principle is the same.

Per this data sheet, Intel describes C1E as follows:

Extended HALT state is a low power state entered when the processor core has executed the HALT or MWAIT instructions and Extended HALT state has been enabled via the BIOS. When the processor core executes the HALT instruction, the core is halted. The Extended HALT state is a lower power state than the HALT state or Stop Grant state.

Note: The Extended HALT (C1E) state must be enabled for the processor to remain within its specifications.

The Extended HALT state requires support for dynamic VID transitions in the platform. The processor automatically transitions to a lower core frequency and voltage operating point before entering the Extended HALT state. Note that the processor FSB frequencyis not altered; only the internal core frequency is changed. When entering the low power state, the processor first switches to the lower bus to core frequency ratio and then transition to the lower voltage (VID).

While in the Extended HALT(C1E) state, the processor processes bus snoops. The processor exits the Extended HALT state when a break event occurs. When the processor exits the Extended HALT state, it first transitions the VID to the original value and then changes the bus to core frequency ratio back to the original value.

So, basically they are two things that make the CPU perform very similar actions.

To keep your CPU from doing this, search for things in your BIOS labeled EIST / Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology / Speedstep and C1E / Halt State / Enhanced Halt State; basically anything having to do with those terms. Disable them and your CPU will run full speed all the time.

Should you do this? It's up to you. Some people say it affects stability at high overclocks. Unless you're really pushing the envelope it's usually not a problem. If you're going for max clocks, they should be turned off anyway. The problem is the voltage drop, even at 6x, may be too much for your CPU and the system could become unstable. Likewise, if you want to change the multiplier from anything but default, you must disable these features or you could run into problems (i.e. I've seen some even have to reflash their BIOS because of that, though it's rare).

Aside from those scenarios, it doesn't really hurt anything. The change is instantaneous and no human could ever tell when it happens. See for yourself; pull up CPUz and then run Prime95 or whatever you'd like to use to put your CPU under a load. Watch the change. From when the program loads the CPU to when the multi changes is imperceptible. Put succinctly, if you're not benchmarking or under either of the two scenarios above, you need not worry about it.

[deadlysyn]

I would vote sticky, but then nobody would read it.

[EarthDog]

+1 to the OP and to the second post.

"You can lead a horse to water..."

[jgv115]

This has to be a sticky. There are too many posts on this.

[deadlysyn]

Originally Posted by jgv115

This has to be a sticky. There are too many posts on this.

The problem is, if it gets stickied, nobody will read it. Keeping it out in the open, with the occasional bump should get it the attention it deserves.

[jgv115]

How come no one will read it? Maybe put the topic title in red?

[deadlysyn]

The reason is that for the most part, instead of checking the stickies for the information they need, they tend to go straight to posting. A lot of times, and considering the amount of posts that I have seen about this recently, I think it would be better off left out of the stickies for a little bit, in the hopes that some of the people posting this very question, might actually see the answer.

[nzaneb]

Originally Posted by jgv115

How come no one will read it? Maybe put the topic title in red?

It still will not get read. Newcomers tend to think their needs warrant an immediate answer. So instead of having to read through a bunch of stickies, to try and learn for themselves, they post a question "helpdesk" style, in hopes to do as little as possible. It would be great if all New members had a huge SEARCH FIRST button, right in the middle of the screen, for their first 2 days of membership

Not that I don't like to help with questions like this, but you can only repeat yourself so many times before you decide to stop answering the question. Which, I think, is why Hokie started this thread. Most new members are drawn here through a search engine. If we can Tag this correctly, and include all of the possible questions one would ask about this topic, we can keep it towards the top of the search engines results.

[hokiealumnus]

Originally Posted by nzaneb

Not that I don't like to help with questions like this, but you can only repeat yourself so many times before you decide to stop answering the question. Which, I think, is why Hokie started this thread. Most new members are drawn here through a search engine. If we can Tag this correctly, and include all of the possible questions one would ask about this topic, we can keep it towards the top of the search engines results.

Precisely! Making it easily search-able is the best thing we can do. Especially since a lot of them say they searched and couldn't find anything on the subject. If it's made a sticky it would still be search-able (not that I'm advocating that...to advocate for one's own post to be made a sticky is tacky; but thanks for the thought guys).

Anyway...let's see how many ways we can phrase the question and tag the thread. It certainly can't hurt. I'm out of tags. Perhaps we could phrase it like this:

If your question is any of the following, see the first post:

Why is my multiplier stuck at 6?
Why does CPUz show my CPU running slow?
Why is my CPU not running its rated speed?

[nzaneb]

If your question is any of the following, see the first post:

"Why is my i7 920 not running at 2.66 Ghz"
"Why is my i7 underclocked!"
"Why does my i7 CPU speed slow down and speed back up?"
"Why does my i7 CPU speed fluctuate?"
"Why does my i7 idle speed go way down?"

Trying to go as innocent as possible, so they may be a little redundant

[CreePinG_DeatH]

I disabled the two settings and am now running stock consistently; however, after I saved and exited the bios, my PC wouldn't POST, the screen stayed black and the hard drive was hardly accessed. It took about 5 attempts with powering off, waiting, unplugging the powercord while off, etc, to get this thing finally working.

What would cause this, and how can I prevent it from happening again?

I am dualbooting 7 and xp, with an e6550 and 4gb ram. Everything has been running stock for the past 2 years. I have 2 hard drives in matrix raid, and then 2 other spare drives that are basically empty. What this actually reminds me of is when I ran Vista and it wouldn't resume after sleeping. I did notice that the boot priority showed the right matrix slice first (boot) but it also list the blank drives as options, even though they are not set up for booting. Any help is much appreciated as always. Thanks!

[hokiealumnus]

That is indeed a very strange problem. Disabling those two features should not adversely affect anything and cause that behavior. What board and BIOS are you running?

If it has the feature, try saving your BIOS profile, shutting down, disconnecting power and clearing CMOS for ~30sec. Put the jumper back, restore power and go immediately into BIOS. Reload your BIOS settings and see if it does the same thing. Don't forget to set the proper RAM voltage.

Make sure you set your RAID functions properly before allowing it to go past BIOS from clearing CMOS. I know very little about RAID (never used it) and cannot help you if something goes awry.

[CreePinG_DeatH]

I am running a gigabyte GA-p35-DS3R with f11 bios. There is another f13 bios, but it doesn't fix any outstanding issues. I too know little about RAID; I was smart enough to read the tutorials to get it working, but that's about it. I just didn't know if there was some power issue I should be worried about.

[hokiealumnus]

Not really. I'm pretty sure those two features don't even begin to affect anything prior to OS loading (well, I know EIST doesn't, not 100% sure on C1E), so enabled or disabled shouldn't have changed anything prior to that. Have you shut down or restarted since that time and has it happened again?

[CreePinG_DeatH]

I've restarted just now and everything acts as if it's fine. As long as this thing doesn't blow up during the semester, I'm fine lol.

[Emiya Shirou]

Ok I need to add something from me

But first. People are morons thinking they cpu STUCK at 6x and when somebody with real stuck at 6x searching for resolution to their problems it comes to hounded or thousands of post about something that doesn't exist on theirs PC, so it's good that topic like that has come to life to explain to those morons that they don't have any f*** problem.

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And Now i would like to come to the REAL Stuck Problem which occurred on my PC and when i searched the tons of posts I've come to some people who got the same problem and it's sad but no, one know what's going one. Maybe here will be some progress on the matter.
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Hmm but from the beginning I will explain what's have occurred.

I bought parts to build my pc around June 2008. I build the PC with following Parameters:

Main board: Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L
CPU (Processor): DualCore Intel Pentium E2160 Or simply Intel Pentium Dual Core e2160 it is 1.8GHz processor.
Graphic Card: Galaxy NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
On Board Memory RAM: At first i got 1GB and in about beginning of 2009 i bough the second one so now i got 2GB Of ram. It is a ram with max 1066 MHz (if somebody would like to OC it a little)

I think this specs i posted should be enough for now.



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Time for the Problem
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My PC was running without OC overclock for couple of months, i dunno exactly how much but i would think that minimum 4 or 5.

I was in need to OC it because some software, game, and Emulator of Wii which i was testing then needed more power and i knew at that time that my CPU is good for extreme OC (with some good cooling device) but since i didn't have anything good for cooling, just the BOX fan which was with my CPU when i bought it.

I changed my CPU to work with 2.0GHz at multiplier 9x, C1E and ...wait dunno why but my bios didn't have EIST functionality then...(it showed up like a 10 months later when i upgraded the BIOS software to newer one and then the functionality appeared but it was already too late... thought I will come to details later on In this post)

As I was saying I changed my processor speed to 2.0 GHz at multiplier ratio 9x which was default MAX in Bios.

C1E [ CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) ] and TM2 [ CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ] Was ENABLED for all the time until the problem occurred (multiplier stuck at 6x) and i didn't have EIST option at bios... (if you want a foto from that time, i could provide one because i have it on my HDD)

Also I didn't know back then how to set up my Voltages so i turned it from Normal to Auto and leaved the PC like that for next 6-7 Months when i Switched for Windows XP and Vista (at that time i got both OS'es there) to Windows 7 Beta.


######
Around March 2009
######

After a week or two (maybe 3) on Windows 7 x64 Beta I noticed that my pc is runing slower than before, I opened the CPU-Z and looked at parameters. I knew since the beginning that when cpu is in IDLE state your multiplier is set there at 6x and it was working with 1.3GHz speed. So i got something to stress it a little, now i don't remember did i Get Prime Software, or runned some game or something, I just simple stressed it to the point where ration should jump to 9x and my PC should started to working at designated 2.0GHz as always before....but It didn't.... it was stuck at 6x multiplier with a 1.3 GHz ratio. . .

I've repeated the test like 5 times, done restart and stuff but nothing still 6x.

I've Noticed that when my pc bots on the memory and components check screen that my CPU is set to be working with 6x multiplier and was set at 1.3 GHz ... So I've entered the bios > the oc Settings and was surprised O.o

My Multiplier was set to 6x...What the... I've changed it to 9x back, Saved the settings and exit.

After reboot...*looking at the bios screen* CPU is 6x at 1.3 Ghz ...

I'm entering the bios again > OC Settings .... Multiplier Ratio is set to 6x again...

I've reseted all the bios to defaults so my pc should now work with 1.2GHz at 6x and 1.8 GHz at 9x, I just double checked that the ratio is at 9x... Saved...Reboot...Entering Bios...Again it is set to 6x...



From that point of time my multiplier In Bios was stuck on 6x and never changed to 9x since today...

I've searched internet, Upgraded, and downgraded my bios... after Upgrade option EIST appeared, i read about EIST, C1E, TM2, TM1 and all kind of s**** but nothing worked

My CPU was bond to be working with multiplier 6x at speed 1.2ghz... i gave up like 3 times with searching for rescue here and in that time, I've set my CPU to be working with 2.0 ghz on 6x multiplier... even later when i needed more power i'v switched it to be working with his stable max which is 2.11 GHz and thats the speed I'm running now on multiplier ratio 6x >.> (my windows 7 sees the pc as 3.17 GHz one =.=") (btw. since the problem came to light i switched my voltages to normal, and never switched them to auto again, I've read somewhere that it was a bad idea...)

I can't set higher because the computer occasionally just crash and I need to reboot. My Temperatures are stable as a side note.


...ah! i forgot about one thing after another 10 months since the problem occured and I was running a new version of Bios, i Disabled C1E, EIST and TM2... set ratio to 9x ... and it worked O.o for the first time my ratio was set to 9x but there was a problem in windows with that... Everything was laggy, runs slower when it was set to 6x, HD Ready movies (720p) wasn't playable at all (i didn't have any problems with playing them at full speed before) Points in some games and fps drooped for like about 60 or more % >.>

There was a huge drop down in system performance so i came back to 6x (enabled all the s*** like C1E and stuff) and my computer started working faster...




That would be all of the explanation about the problem. Any ideas what is going on? Is it some damage to procesor? or to Main Board? What exactly is damaged? What's is wrong? I'm not asking anymore about the fix to that, but if you know how to fix it

PLEASE TELL ME!! I'm desparated at this TT_TT

PS: Sorry for the long post You must now read but I've wanted to explain this as detailed as possible.

EDIT: I've done some testing (again) it seems like the CPU Multiplier only change to 6x when i ENABLE CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ... what should this mean?