What does the Minimum Processor State option in the Advanced options box of a Power Plan do?

Question

Original title: Minimum Processor State

What does the 'Minimum Processor State' option in the Advanced Options box of a Power Plan do? If I set it to 50%, does that mean that Windows will feed the processor useless calculations just to keep it at 50% capacity? If so, why would that be of any use? If not, then what does it do?

Thanks for any clarifications,

Rifdhan

Answer 1

Yes, it should.

Answer 2

Hi Rifdhan,

The main reason you would set your Minimum Processor State option to above the minimum (such as 50%) is if you are running very CPU intensive programs and they would not function well at lower CPU states.

Processors do not require a steady stream of information to function at a certain speed. For example if you have a 2.0ghz CPU and you set the minimum processor state to 50%, the lowest it will ever drop to is 1.0ghz, even at idle.

With your minimum set to 50% and maximum set to 100%, the actual speed it runs will stay between those two values and current battery life amount will factor into what speed it chooses to run at with an average of 75%.

If you set your minimum to 5% and maximum to 100% it will drop extremely low to preserve battery life.

Hope this helps explain how this works and hopefully someone else can help clarify further.

Answer 3

Hello... may i ask what are the consequences of setting the minimum to a Higher than 5% state ? say for example 90-100%

Answer 4

If it's a laptop or older PC - almost certain overheating during prolonged periods of being turned on, no matter what you're actually running. You may notice it getting very hot, randomly going off (a safety mechanism) or the screen turning to static & performance that starts off as decent then declines steadily during uptime. These problems are not usually quickly evident on a desktop PC or a laptop with very good cooling mechanisms & on modern PC's may slip by for quite some time because most PCs do have some inbuilt protection against overheating & just as your processer won't always obey the OS setting min if it's not possible, same applies to the max setting. 

However, this is a setting which tells your computer to "go for it" and therefore provides short-term performance whilst reducing the life of the hardware. It's kinda like your car engine doing the revs for going 100mph even when you're doing say, 30mph or even waiting at the lights. You're going to use more fuel & the engine will get hotter. There are few situations in which the home-user would need to set this setting. If you do, you *may* in some circumstances notice performance improvements, but within a few months you will have irreparably damaged your hardware. Possibly within weeks if it's an older PC, laptop with poor ventilation or you leave it turned on constantly without sleeping/hibernating.

Obviously every second your processor runs it's getting closer to death anyway, so making it run at 100% most the time, even when idle, simply makes it run to it's death a lot faster. Even if you can easily keep it cool it just makes so much more sense to buy a processor that can handle what you want to do than buy one barely sufficient & force it to it's limit. Decent computers can provide good performance enhancements by temporarily setting the minumun processer state to around 50% as opposed to 90-100%. You can do this by using the default windows "High Performance" profile. Try not to use this profile all the time, especially on a laptop. If your computer randomly starts powering off - this may happen when you're not using it (like overnight) - then your settings are doing major damage.

Answer 5

I've read that what you are saying is not really true.  Assuming cooling is not a problem.  CPU's are designed to run at 100% of their stated speeds all the time with no real change to their normal lifespan. Lowering the % will have no real impact on lifespan.  You only change the min & max  in these power settings to save on your electric bill (from CPU & indirectly from fan).  Correct me if I'm wrong.

If cooling is a problem you may have all kinds of hardware failures.  Also, I'm assuming that a CPU generates a certain amount of heat no matter how low you restrict the speed.  So 1% may generate the same amount of heat as 50% or 75% especially in older CPU's. Unnecessary heat equals unnecessary electric bills.