Hi again, back with a few more problems. Recently I was using cpuz to take a screenie for a friend regarding my oc (only 4.3, and dont know why he asked for a screenshot but there you go). And I noticed that instead of dropping to 1.6 when idling, it drops in stages to 1.6 via 2.2, 2.0 and 1.8ghz, sometimes ticking along at one of them before ramping back up. It was that time of the year so did a reinstall of windows with new drivers for everything, except ai-suite and mb drivers which i used the cd that came with the mb for (as I usually do), so have since lost my oc, but the behaviour is the same. Turboboost seems to be working ok, as I ge the usual 3.7,2.6,3.5,3.4 depending how many cores are loaded, but the idle speed still drops in steps, sometimes with my cpu at approx 1-% load it stays happily at 2.0ghz for hours until the load changes then drops to a lower level or ramps up to full power. Is this normal (as it was definately just 1.6 or max speed before), or do you think something might just be dying. If so, it better wait until haswell, then I dont care as my friend (weirdo screenshot guy) is getting it anyway
CPUs have many power states they can be in and they switch between them as required. I'm not sure of the algorithm for clocking down but turbo boost clocks up when usage hits 100% on a core for a second or two without dropping. This can cause problems with things which only use 80% of a core but need the full power. I guess it steps down when it has nothing to do, but I wouldn't worry too much about it going down slowly. My laptop does the same as your PC.
unless it uses less voltage at 1.6 vs 2 your not gaining or loosing anything. Its also very unlikely to be dieing unless you have been pushing 5ghz + at crazy volts for the last year a bit. Id personally give the wiring a once over for good measure check for cracks and damage on it. Give everything a decent clean and just leave it as it is.
I dont think anythings wrong. Mine will go from 1600 to 2400 sometimes, but obviously if it needs more oomph then jumps to its max.
It's completely normal. Only if the CPU goes into deeper sleep states such as S3 then you'll get 1.6GHz (but only then if nothing is required from its L1/L2 or it needs to add anything to L3 etcetc). The fact it's so fine grained is better because it makes a more responsive system
If its all good then am a very happy man with my system and am going to reOC tonight Just thought I better check on here as I only ever noticed a drop to 1.6 from full speed before and not inbetween Cheers everyone!
