Turbo boost - the mess of mis-inforamtion. [ Edited ]

[eos]

1. Intel Turbo Boost (which increasese one core speed and decreases the others if needed). There seems to be no way to switch this on or off, or to see if it is enabled or no. I would hope its always enabled by default. Various older posts have stated that you get a green tick in the Power Manager Basic view when its enabled, but I cant see this tick or where it might be.  There is no checkbox in advanced mode or similar.
2. Lenovo Turbo Boost+.  I missed this as its only in the Power Manager Basic view, not in advanrced.  So you will have to keep switching between them if you want to cover all options.  Enabling "Lenovo Turbo Boost+ does nothing more than wack up the fan speed and keeps it there, even with the machine idling at 1% CPU.  As soon as you disable it, the fan speed goes back to normal.   The enabling is "forgotten" when you reboot - it goes back to disabled. This button really should be renamed to "Increase Fan Speed to Max" as it seems to have nothing to do with boosting performance.  I understand that if the fan is running max, then the cpu will be slighly cooler so Intel might be tricked into overclocking more than when it was hotter.  I guess this is what they were aiming for, but it seems a good way to wear out your fan and to clog up your air intake.
3. Turbo.  A system perfromance option in Advanced Mode of the Power Manager.  I can find no inforamtion about what this switch does. 
4. Maximum Turbo.  A system perfromance option in Advanced Mode of the Power Manager.  I can find no inforamtion about what this switch does.  Presumably it puts the CPU in permanent overclock mode, but I cant detect any changes, and doesnt seem to affect the clock frequency.
5. The slider bar in basic mode.There is a very strange relationship between this slider and the advanced settiings. E.g. if you put the slider to the left (High performance), hit apply, go to advanced, it still shows the System performance as "Balanced".  If I now change the system performance to Low, the slicer still stays at High performance.  If i set the System performance to Low, and the slider to low, apply, then slide the slider to hiigh performance, it says on low in advanced.  Its mind boggling.  There is also an amusing round CPU meter in BAsic mode.  This is on 100% most of the time, but flicks to 36% occasionally.  I have experimented with various CPU options, and it seems to display this pattern no matter what your settings are.  Im guessing its an animated giff, and just looks like something useful.

Wow, Ive just found something amazing.  Ive always had the system performance set on Balanced.  In the basic, there was no indication that Intel turbo boost was enabled.  Now after playing with various modes, its is showing in basic mode the phrase "Intel Turbbo Boost Technology Enabled" below the round CPU meeter.  This is with Balanced.  now if I chang it to low, then balanced again, the phrase has gone.  So I have no idea how you turn it on and off, but its independent of both the slider, and the advanced system perfromance balanced options, as I have had it on and off with balanced.  I could not be more confused.  Now I have set it to maximum turbo, and its not showing that "Intel Turbbo Boost Technology Enabled" in basic mode.  So thats It, I saw it breifly, but its gone now - no way to get it back on.

This is a link to download the intel turbo boost monitor, which I had hoped might help me deduct what the power plan options might mean:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3052&DwnldID=19105&lang=eng

However, it just shows the processor frequency  (the same as Computer->Properties) so is no more use.  It shows an "energy saver" leaf most of the time, even with both the basic slider all the way to the left, and maximum turbo enabled.

I recon I have wasted 10 hours+ trying to figure out what these settings mean and how to get it so tha the processor just does its own thing as intel intended.  I.e. boosts a core when needed.  there is no deductable relationship between Basic and Advamced mode, and noone knows what the System Peformance modes do, nor is there any information in the help files.

Nice work Lenovo.

[soko11]

hi eos!

The Intel Turbo Boost Monitor does give wrong information of Turboboost AND CPU-Clock (I've read it in the long W520 Turbo-Boost thread somewhere)!

The ONLY way to be sure if turboboost is working or not is to stress the one core (ie with Prime95) and look at the "Core Speed" value: If it goes higher then the nominal frequency of your CPU Turboboost is working...

Soko 

PS: I'm not using the Lenovo Power Manager software! Just the Windows 7 build in software 

[denial]

When I found out my CPU is locked to 800 MHz on AC power (i7 2820QM), I disabled SpeedStep in BIOS, this disabled also TurboBoost and the CPU was then all the time running at its default 2.30 GHz.

If I wouldn't try some CPU-Z and read some forums I would never know that the $600 CPU is working at 1/3 of its power...

Is there some accurate program which can log values for temperature/clock frequency/usage % for both CPU and GPU and maybe make also graph from these values?

I also found out that stressing GPU (furmark) makes it throttling, and when running both prime95&furmark, both CPU and GPU are throttling then, also if I tried it with TPFControl.

Lenovo should fix these things with low frequency and bad cooling... immediately.

Is there some official statement to these problems in fact?

[ThorsHammer]

It isn't "mis-inforamtion", it's marketing.

[JNavas]

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eos wrote:
Lenovo Turbo Boost+.  I missed this as its only in the Power Manager Basic view, not in advanrced.  So you will have to keep switching between them if you want to cover all options.  Enabling "Lenovo Turbo Boost+ does nothing more than wack up the fan speed and keeps it there, even with the machine idling at 1% CPU.  As soon as you disable it, the fan speed goes back to normal.   The enabling is "forgotten" when you reboot - it goes back to disabled. This button really should be renamed to "Increase Fan Speed to Max" as it seems to have nothing to do with boosting performance.  I understand that if the fan is running max, then the cpu will be slighly cooler so Intel might be tricked into overclocking more than when it was hotter.  I guess this is what they were aiming for, but it seems a good way to wear out your fan and to clog up your air intake.

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Lenovo Turbo Boost+ lowers CPU temperature by running the fan at a higher speed thus enabling Intel Turbo Boost to kick up processor speed more often. This is obviously intended only to temporarily boost performance a bit when needed at the expense of fan noise, so goes back to off (normal fan speed control) when the system is restarted. I'd call it more a marketing feature than a truly useful option.

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ThorsHammer wrote:

It isn't "mis-inforamtion", it's marketing.

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Mis-information and marketing are of course the same thing.

[karatedog]

Great job. You have significantly reduced your notebook's time on battery, because it will never slow down even if it has no job to do.
Your CPU is NOT locked on 800 Mhz. It is the normal frequency when CPU does nothing and it will immediately go up to 2.6 Ghz, when it needs some power. (like running Prime95).
So it is not a problem, you won't find any material on it.
When I ran Prime95, the CPU speed went up to 2.9 Ghz without setting anything.

[eos]

Karatedog - there were some pretty bad bugs in the Lenovo BIOS which meant that the CPUs were stuck at their base frequency, or locked at 800MHz after plugging in power. These have now largely been fixed with the BIOS update 1.3x

[muol]

Intel Turbo Boost can be switched on or off with Throttlestop.

[doeringwr]

How did you disable Speedstep and Turboboost from Bios?  I do not see that option when I got to my laptop's bios.

I am using a y470p bios version: 47CN30WW (v2.08)

Anyone?

[jonlenovo]

I'm still seeing inconsistencies in the basic mode power slider on my T520 windows 7.  All drivers updated.  I find I have to move the slider to 95% in order to boost the dial above 100% (into turbo boost).  If I slide to 100%, the clock frequency is down shifted to 33%

Any solution to the problem described above?  I may give throttle stop a try.