Performance and other power plans missing from my Power Panel.

hdmi · 23 Feb 2021

Ryuji said:

Right, thanks. I'll do some experimenting and I'll gradually lower the Shift EPP number to see what works best in terms of balance between power consumption and performance. Just one more question, sorry. I have a program called Process Lasso constantly on in the background, should I have it shut down to allow ThrottleStop to run at full capability? Or should it be fine for the most part?

Windows allocates CPU resources using a kind of hybrid round-robin/priority based pre-emptive scheduling. One aspect of this scheme can cause low priority processes to unnecessarily pre-empt higher priority processes, starving them of CPU resources.

While it is true that Process Lasso offers ways to help mitigate CPU (and memory) resource starvations on Windows, AFAIK it only holds back processes that otherwise would misbehave in this regard, which it does by letting you set criteria for that, on a per-process basis if necessary. As a result, I don't see a reason why it could hold back ThrotteStop in any way excepting only if you'd force it to do that. But if you are tweaking system performance in multiple parametrically interlinked subsystems at once, it may become harder to see what leverages performance gains, under which complex types of circumstances.

I don't know what exactly it is you are using Process Lasso for, and, I agree that it can be extremely useful in a number of situations, when there simply is no better choice. But if you are using Process Lasso to be able to let a disk defragger run as a background task without ruining performance, then, TBH, you haven't tried Condusiv Diskeeper.

ThrottleStop doesn't need to be kept running excepting only if you want to monitor the data and/or you want quick access to some of its features like profile selection (Performance/Game/Internet/Battery). There's a very long discussion thread, or 'guide' over at NotebookReview Forums where ThrottleStop has been explained in depth, and a few other interesting discussion threads also on there, plus several more at TechpowerUp Forum. The 'full' answer to your previous question about the Turn On/Off button is here: Throttle-Stop's "Turn On" button ? | TechPowerUp Forums

As for Speed Shift, it is a feature that's baked into the Intel CPU itself so, once enabled, Speed Shift stays enabled until the system is powered down. On the next startup, the BIOS automagically re-enables the feature─albeit that still depends on the BIOS capability. So, if the BIOS lacks this capability, that's when creating the task in Task Scheduler, that I was referring to earlier, can be particularly useful─to let ThrottleStop enable Speed Shift, if the BIOS can't. I apologize, if my previous explanations weren't clear enough about that part.

Aside from editing the EPP number, I find that the main benefit of using ThrottleStop is the ability to undervolt. (On my old laptop with a Kaby Lake-U, undervolting lets me shave off a couple degrees Celsius, but my new laptop uses a Tiger Lake-U so on that one voltages are locked by mother Intel in a tiger cage.

) Some people actually prefer to use the official software utility from Intel, called Intel XTU (Intel Extreme ~~taming~~ Tuning Utility).

Ryuji · 24 Feb 2021

hdmi said:

By using a free program called ThrottleStop you can check if Speed Shift is enabled on the CPU. If the 'SST' is shown in green, it means enabled. The EPP number can be edited after you click on it. Lower numbers cause the CPU to ramp up its own clock speed more aggressively thus boosting performance, but at the sacrifice of consuming more power─thus resulting in more heat generation.

Note that, as far as the specific part of power management that only applies to the CPU is concerned, Power Plans have no effect on it when Speed Shift is enabled. Specifically on 6th Gen, or Skylake Intel CPUs and up, Speed Shift replaces the older EIST (Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology). An improved 'version' of Speed Shift was later introduced with the arrival of 7th Gen, or Kaby Lake. Speed Shift v2: Speed Harder - Intel Launches 7th Generation Kaby Lake: 15W/28W with Iris, 35-91W Desktop and Mobile Xeon

Also worth noting is that systems that support Modern Standby have typically only one Power Plan in Power Management of Windows 10. In which case, also typically, the Power Management tab in Device Manager will also be missing. By issuing the powercfg a command from a command window, you can check which type of Standby is supported by the system. There currently exist only these 2 different types:

Standby (S3)
Standby (S0 Low Power Idle)─also known as 'Modern Standby'

They cannot both be supported at once. On some systems it is possible to disable Modern Standby in Windows 10 (20H2), by editing the Windows registry like follows:

Code:

reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power /v PlatformAoAcOverride /t REG_DWORD /d 0

(This setting does not take effect before the system will be restarted.)

I should probably add that Modern Standby on some laptops (also including certain DELL laptops) reportedly had caused serious issues like draining the battery and heating the laptop, with the lid closed, to insane temperatures in a laptop carrying bag. Lucky for me, on my new Medion laptop I was able to apply the above registry hack, and that also brought back the missing Power Plans and brought back the missing Power Management tab in my Device Manager on my Windows 10─20H2.

I also wanted to try using this registry hack, I was wondering where I would add the command? I don't really have much experience editing the registry.

hdmi · 24 Feb 2021

Ryuji said:

I also wanted to try using this registry hack, I was wondering where I would add the command? I don't really have much experience editing the registry.

1. Copy the command to the clipboard. The easiest way to do that is to just triple-click inside the code box such that the whole text inside the box will be selected, and, after that, either press CTRL + C or press CTRL + Ins.

2. Open an elevated command prompt. Here's how:
Open Elevated Command Prompt in Windows 10

3. Paste the command into the window. This can be done by right-clicking on the black background or by pressing CTRL + V or by pressing SHIFT + Ins.

4. To execute this command, press the ⏎ Enter key.

5. You should see that operation completed successfully. It means that the setting has been added to the Windows registry. Next, remember to restart your laptop PC. After that, Modern Standby will be disabled. Or at least it should be.

Also please note, the power consumption of your laptop PC can be affected after you have disabled Modern Standby. There exists an official documentation from Microsoft about this. See:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...modern-standby

If you want to re-enable Modern Standby after you have disabled it in this way, then you can follow these same steps with this command:

Code:

reg delete HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power /v PlatformAoAcOverride /f

...And remember to restart your computer after.