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

So what is best settings for maximum performance and system speed?

Answer 4

Best settings is to set minimal and maximum speed at 100%. It keeps CPU in state ready to hard tasks, but request maximum power and noise.

Additional information available Processor Power Management Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2(docx from microsoft downloads) and Power Policy Configuration and Deployment in Windows.

But...

I seat at Samsung 530U3C Laptop Right Now.

It equipped by Intel 3317U CPU with Turbo state: maximum is 1.7 GHz and Turbo 2.4 GHz (both cores) and 2.6 GHz (one core).

I use utility pwrtest.exe from Microsoft DDK for Windows 7.

C:\AllDocs\Satya-Yuga>pwrtest /ppm

      Elapsed  Idle   C1   C2   C3  P-     Freq    Freq     Perf/

Cpu      [ms]   [%]  [%]  [%]  [%]  State   [%]   [MHz]  Throttle

---   -------  ----  ---  ---  ---  -----  ----   -----  --------

  0      5007    71    0    6   93      0   100    1701         P

  1      5007    72    0    9   90      0   100    1701         P

  0     10014    84    0    2   97      2    94    1600         P

  1     10014    84    0    5   94      2    94    1600         P

  0     15021    67    0    8   91     10    47     800         P

  1     15021    77    1    8   89     10    47     800         P

  0     20028    83    4   13   82      5    76    1300         P

  1     20028    80    3   11   85      5    76    1300         P

  0     25035    71    1   12   86      8    58    1000         P

  1     25035    77    1   10   87      8    58    1000         P

  0     30027    43   63   24   11      0   100    1701         P

  1     30027    24   66    9   23      0   100    1701         P

  0     35034    70    5   15   79      0   100    1701         P

  1     35034    73    3   11   84      0   100    1701         P

  0     40026    83    1   11   87      0   100    1701         P

  1     40026    84    0    6   92      0   100    1701         P

  0     45049    72    0    3   96     10    47     800         P

  1     45049    81    0   10   89     10    47     800         P

  0     50072    85    0    6   93      8    58    1000         P

  1     50072    78    1    8   90      8    58    1000         P

  0     55079    72    0    7   92      0   100    1701         P

Here I run CPU intersive task and utility break out, nothing to show... Just cmd prompt back...

C:\AllDocs\Satya-Yuga>

Nothing more 100% for Msft power management.

Turbo state is equal to 140%. I don't understand how I can setup Intel Turbo in Windows power settings?

I find free utility ThrottleStop 7.0 (Beta) and It successfully manage all CPU states and sound flow is good, no flicking.

Good Luck.

Answer 5

I have gone even farther and set both the minimum and the maximum to 1%.

The q6600 machine runs as it did before.