CPU low idle clock speed

[zamandguth]

Hey everyone,
My i7 3770k has been overclocked to 4.5Ghz at 1.240v stable and has been this way for a long time. (factory default is 3.5Ghz)
Just recently I have noticed that the multiplier drops to 16x when I'm not doing much (word doc open and 10 or so chrome tabs)
When I'm playing cs:go, for example, it will stay at 45x with the bus speed at 100Mhz.
I was wondering is this low multiplier and therefore speed is normal with this CPU?
Heres a pic to show you whats going on: http://imgur.com/HrpMKdy
Thanks in advance

 

[MarkW]

It is supposed to do that. When the CPU is idle, it drops down to conserve power, which lets it cool down easier. And then as soon as there is something to do, it jumps back up to its working speed, and does the work.

 

[zamandguth]

It is supposed to do that. When the CPU is idle, it drops down to conserve power, which lets it cool down easier. And then as soon as there is something to do, it jumps back up to its working speed, and does the work.

Thanks for the fast reply, not sure if this has any affect but a couple of weeks ago I got a bsod reading clock_watchdog_timeout which, when i googled it, meant that one of the threads are faulty, hence causing my concern.
Reckon these two are connected?

 

[Outlander_04]

This is Intels speed step technology . It slows the processor when you do not need all the processing power .

You burn much less electricity , and the pc runs cooler and longer .
Its not a problem . Its a good thing

 

[Shaun o]

If you want to keep the clock frequency at it`s highest all of the time.
In windows change your power plan scheme to no power saving.

 

[RunLuke]

What were you doing when it BSOD'd? Is it cool enough? (Windows DOES turn down the multiplier when system is idle as MarkW says)

Does sound like a volt issue.

 

[MarkW]

If you only got the error once, and it has not repeated, it was probably a one time thing. I would not worry too much unless it happens again. If it does happen again, think about which program(s) you were running when the original error happened, vs when it happens the next time. If it is in the same program, it might just be a software bug in that program. If its a completely different program, then there might be driver issues or something going on.

Random errors that only happen once can be almost impossible to track down.

 

[thehutti]

The modern CPUs all have some ways to reduce power consumption and to stay cooler. If a core is not needed it goes to a lower speed or multiplier. You can change that by changing C3/C6 States of your CPU in the BIOS, but that would mean you are disableing the cpu-internal power management and your cpu would run at full clocks all the time (I would recommend to leave it as it is). Your clock_watchdog_timeout has probably nothing to do with it, you'll get a watchdog error if a component isn't responsive anymore, but this is very rarely caused by your CPU (At least at stock speed). Maybe it's a side-effect of your overclocking (Overclocking can cause a lot of funny stuff).

 

[zamandguth]

What were you doing when it BSOD'd? Is it cool enough? (Windows DOES turn down the multiplier when system is idle as MarkW says)

Does sound like a volt issue.

thats what i thought aswell, I think i was playing csgo when it happened, increased the voltage by 0.05 and it hasnt happened since

 

[zamandguth]

The modern CPUs all have some ways to reduce power consumption and to stay cooler. If a core is not needed it goes to a lower speed or multiplier. You can change that by changing C3/C6 States of your CPU in the BIOS, but that would mean you are disableing the cpu-internal power management and your cpu would run at full clocks all the time (I would recommend to leave it as it is). Your clock_watchdog_timeout has probably nothing to do with it, you'll get a watchdog error if a component isn't responsive anymore, but this is very rarely caused by your CPU (At least at stock speed). Maybe it's a side-effect of your overclocking (Overclocking can cause a lot of funny stuff).

Ahhh that makes sense, dont think I need all cores active at once,
Hopefully the watchdog error wont be an issue any more since i have now done a clean install of windows, may have been a non-responsive driver or something 😛

 

[zamandguth]

If you only got the error once, and it has not repeated, it was probably a one time thing. I would not worry too much unless it happens again. If it does happen again, think about which program(s) you were running when the original error happened, vs when it happens the next time. If it is in the same program, it might just be a software bug in that program. If its a completely different program, then there might be driver issues or something going on.

Random errors that only happen once can be almost impossible to track down.

Yeah it wasnt anything too intensive, hopefully its a one off thing, the clean install of windows 10 hopefully will ensure that