Take a look at our
ThinkPads.com HOME PAGE
For those who might want to contribute to the blog, start here: Editors Alley Topic
Then contact Bill with a Private Message

W520 turbo boost issue?

W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series
Post Reply
Message
Author
freakwave
Freshman Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 1:00 pm

W520 turbo boost issue?

#1 Post by freakwave » Sat Apr 30, 2011 1:28 pm

Hi all,

I am playing around with my new machine and wanted to see that the cpu clocks up to 3.4GHz.

I am using prime95 and set the affinity to core1 and core2.
Then I am using Argus Monitor to see the CPU clocks.

All 4 cores are clocked continuously to 3.1 GHz, but the overall CPU utilization is 25%.
The task manager shows core1 and 2 100% and the rest pretty low.

So whats the conclusion here?
For me it seems that turbo boost does not work. I have never seen any clock above 3.2GHz yet.

Any other thoughts here?

Wolfgang
W520, 2820QM, Full HD, 16GB RAM, Intel S320 300GBytes, Windows 7 64 Enterprise

jdrou
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 670
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: Madison Heights, MI

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#2 Post by jdrou » Sat Apr 30, 2011 3:03 pm

Which CPU did you get?
Did you see the expected behavior with your W510?
Current Thinkpads:
X31, X40, X61T, X61, X201, X220 (i7 IPS), W520 (FHD), T440p (FHD),
T480 (QHD)
Dells: Latitude C840, Precision M70, Precision M4400, M6400 (WUXGA), M6600, M6700, 7730, XPS 13
Daily driver: MS Surface Pro 7 (i7)

freakwave
Freshman Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 1:00 pm

Re: W520 turbo boost issue? - solved

#3 Post by freakwave » Sat Apr 30, 2011 5:49 pm

Ok, sorry, there is no issue. I tied the task manager and the Argus Monitor also to the first core.
After that I saw the expected 3.4GHz (i7 - 2820QM)

It seems that the slightest utilization on any other core will clock the CPU down.

Overall I am really happy with the performance. That beast is so much faster than my W510, its hard to believe.
My J2EE application starts now in 20 seconds instead of 32 seconds.

Wolfgang
W520, 2820QM, Full HD, 16GB RAM, Intel S320 300GBytes, Windows 7 64 Enterprise

Q-Ball
Sophomore Member
Posts: 235
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:00 pm
Location: Kelowna Area, Canada

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#4 Post by Q-Ball » Sun May 01, 2011 4:09 am

It seems that the slightest utilization on any other core will clock the CPU down.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the one problem with Turbo Boost.
Windows isn't advanced enough to use it properly- it can't park cores so other cores run faster.
W520 (i7-2720M, Quadro 1000M), T41, 600E

ExcursionPSD
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:49 pm
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

Re: W520 turbo boost issue? - solved

#5 Post by ExcursionPSD » Mon May 02, 2011 2:12 am

freakwave wrote:Ok, sorry, there is no issue. I tied the task manager and the Argus Monitor also to the first core.
After that I saw the expected 3.4GHz (i7 - 2820QM)
...
Wolfgang
Exactly how did you tie those processes to the first core?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
W520 4276-2QU i7-2720QM quad core, 4GBx1, FHD(1920x1080), NVIDIA Quadro 2000M, 500GB-7200, 6205WiFi, 720pCamera, Bluetooth, vPro, 57++9cell, 27++9cellSlice, Win7Pro64
IBM R50 WinXP for backup.

freakwave
Freshman Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 1:00 pm

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#6 Post by freakwave » Mon May 02, 2011 4:29 am

You can simply open the task manager, right click on the process and set the affinity.
W520, 2820QM, Full HD, 16GB RAM, Intel S320 300GBytes, Windows 7 64 Enterprise

Colonel O'Neill
ThinkPadder
ThinkPadder
Posts: 1375
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2009 8:03 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#7 Post by Colonel O'Neill » Mon May 02, 2011 10:56 pm

There's some Core Parking threshold tweaks in the registry that you can use to prevent it from reactivating the other cores too easily.
W530, W520, X61T, X200s, W550s, E590, T430

davidhbrown
Junior Member
Junior Member
Posts: 307
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:26 pm
Location: Kingston, RI

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#8 Post by davidhbrown » Tue May 03, 2011 8:00 pm

The CPU tab of Resource Monitor is telling me right now that all the odd-numbered "CPUs" are parked. This is with hyper-threading enabled. Is it actually parking cores or just not hyperthreading? (i7-2820QM, Windows 7 Pro x64)
W520 (2820QM, Q2000M, FHD, mSATA SSD, dock)
Previous: T61p (died 1m past warranty :-(), Dell 8600, iBook ("Dual USB"), Gateway Millennium, Macintosh G4 , PowerPC Mac clone, Mac Duo 210, iBook (clamshell), Quadra 630, Mac IIsi, C-128, C-64, Vic-20

freakwave
Freshman Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 1:00 pm

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#9 Post by freakwave » Tue May 10, 2011 11:55 am

ok, another issue or feature:

Should the processor, when plugged in, always be clocked @2.3Ghz? Its nominal clock?
I understand there are sleep modes, but howto disable then.

I tried "deeper sleep" off in the power manager, but that has no effect.
My cpu clock is always between 800MHz and 3.4GHz.

Wolfgang
W520, 2820QM, Full HD, 16GB RAM, Intel S320 300GBytes, Windows 7 64 Enterprise

jdrou
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 670
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: Madison Heights, MI

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#10 Post by jdrou » Tue May 10, 2011 2:25 pm

As a point of reference, my Thinkpad X201 with Core i7-620M (2.66 GHz base, turbo speeds 3.06/3.33 GHz) rarely runs below 1.33 GHz when idle even on 'max battery' setting (based on CPU-Z reading). It does go to 3.33 with 'always on'.
Current Thinkpads:
X31, X40, X61T, X61, X201, X220 (i7 IPS), W520 (FHD), T440p (FHD),
T480 (QHD)
Dells: Latitude C840, Precision M70, Precision M4400, M6400 (WUXGA), M6600, M6700, 7730, XPS 13
Daily driver: MS Surface Pro 7 (i7)

plympton
Sophomore Member
Posts: 246
Joined: Wed May 14, 2008 3:25 pm
Location: Portland, OR

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#11 Post by plympton » Sat May 28, 2011 11:24 am

FYI: the latest firmware 1.25 disables turbo boost completely. Reverting to 1.06 restores turbo boost functionality.

Went through most of yesterday wondering why my machine was dog slow never going above 2.2 ghz, and a quick Google search revealed the answer. Oh well, so much for rigorous testing before release....

KongMD
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 9:11 am
Location: Palmer, MA

Re: W520 turbo boost issue?

#12 Post by KongMD » Sat May 28, 2011 7:54 pm

Looks like TurboBoost can be enabled on battery for version 1.06 of the BIOS if you start the computer plugged in, put it into Sleep mode, then unplug the laptop and resume your session.
ThinkPad W520
Core i7 2720QM | 120GB Vertex 3 Max IOPS | (2x2GB) 1333MHz DDR3 RAM | 1600x900 Display | Quadro 1000M | Win 7 Pro | ThinkPad b/g/n | 3 Yr Depot Warranty
ThinkPads and SSDs Part 1: Preparation
ThinkPads and SSDs Part 2: Hard Drive Swapping and Windows 7 Installation

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “ThinkPad W500/W510/W520 and W700/W701 Series”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 52 guests