Question i5 11400F 2.6Ghz only boosting to 4.4 when in Ultimate power mode

[Gus_33]

Hello, as the title says, my i5 11400F is only boosting when I use Ultimate power mode.

I have a MSI B560m pro-vdh motherboard and have Intel boost enabled in the bios but it doesn't happen unless I'm on this power mode. It stays at boost and doesn't go down to 2.6 at idle unless I change the power mode. I recently put an aftermarket cooler on it so fortunately it can handle the higher temps, it couldn't with the stock cooler. I have updated the bios.. still noticed a few spelling mistakes in it.

I am only a novice PC builder and most of it goes over my head but I can tell that there's something not right here.

I only really play Warzone nowadays and occasionally a bit of VR. Before I changed the cooler and power mode I was getting on average 60fps, now I'm getting 130fps but I am conscious as to how much power I'm using (UK energy bills have skyrocketed) and whether it could degrade the CPU over time.

Please let me know what you think I should do.

i5 11400F
MSI B560m pro-vdh
Corsair 2x8gb 3200 XMP
RTX2070 8gb
600W psu
2 x NVMe drives
Windows 11

 

[Darkbreeze]

What is your current motherboard BIOS version?

Have you installed the latest B560 chipset driver (.inf) from the MSI product support page for your motherboard?

Are Intel speed step/Speed shift enabled in the BIOS? Are all C states set to either Auto or Enabled in the BIOS?

What other power plans have you tried?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hello, as the title says, my i5 11400F is only boosting when I use Ultimate power mode.

I have a MSI B560m pro-vdh motherboard and have Intel boost enabled in the bios but it doesn't happen unless I'm on this power mode. It stays at boost and doesn't go down to 2.6 at idle unless I change the power mode. I recently put an aftermarket cooler on it so fortunately it can handle the higher temps, it couldn't with the stock cooler. I have updated the bios.. still noticed a few spelling mistakes in it.

I am only a novice PC builder and most of it goes over my head but I can tell that there's something not right here.

I only really play Warzone nowadays and occasionally a bit of VR. Before I changed the cooler and power mode I was getting on average 60fps, now I'm getting 130fps but I am conscious as to how much power I'm using (UK energy bills have skyrocketed) and whether it could degrade the CPU over time.

Please let me know what you think I should do.

i5 11400F
MSI B560m pro-vdh
Corsair 2x8gb 3200 XMP
RTX2070 8gb
600W psu
2 x NVMe drives
Windows 11

Hey there,

Did you clear CMOS after updating the bios? If not, then try that.

 

[Darkbreeze]

BIOS Hard Reset procedure

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for about three to five minutes. In some cases it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes while the CMOS battery is out of the motherboard, press the power button on the case, continuously, for 15-30 seconds, in order to deplete any residual charge that might be present in the CMOS circuit. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP, A-XMP or D.O.C.P profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, or installing a new version, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset in the boot manager.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

This is how you clear CMOS for your mobo! : B560M PRO-VDH (msi.com) It's on page 37. You need to switch a jumper cap or short the two pins with a screwdriver.

https://imgur.com/kN6IIuU

View: https://imgur.com/kN6IIuU

 

[Darkbreeze]

All boards show a similar procedure. It doesn't always work though, which is why I generally recommend doing a hard reset for any situation where ANY kind of reset is desirable. But it doesn't hurt to start with a basic pin reset either if you prefer.

 

[Gus_33]

Thank you for all your replies.

I don't think I've ever reset the CMOS after updating the BIOS, is that always necessary?

What is your current motherboard BIOS version?

Have you installed the latest B560 chipset driver (.inf) from the MSI product support page for your motherboard?

Are Intel speed step/Speed shift enabled in the BIOS? Are all C states set to either Auto or Enabled in the BIOS?

What other power plans have you tried?

Only just found that there has been another BIOS update released in October so I'm going to flash to that one. If there's no change then I'll reset the CMOS.

I don't think I installed the chipset driver, not sure so will do that too.

From what I remember speed step is enabled but speed shift isn't. C states were in auto I believe.

All other power plans, ultimate is the only one that makes a difference.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Flash the new BIOS, do a hard reset of the BIOS, power up and go into BIOS and load optimal default settings, configure any custom BIOS settings like fan custom fan curves or presets, boot settings, etc. that you need to, then save settings, restart, boot to Windows, install latest chipset driver, restart, back into Windows, set power plan to Balanced, restart and check. I've been unable to get my 12th Gen system to run the full gamut of idle to full boost clock frequency (5%-100%) without setting it to balanced.

If that does not work for you, then set it to Ultimate power mode BUT go into the advanced configuration settings for that plan and under processor power management, set the minimum to 5%. Maximum should already be set to 100%. Save settings, restart and check.

 

[Gus_33]

I've flashed the new BIOS and installed latest chipset. Can't do a hard reset of BIOS yet as I have a cat sat on my PC seeking the warmth.

I've noticed that it idles at 2.47Ghz in high performance mode, Balanced mode it ranges from 1.5Ghz to 3.9Ghz, Power saving much the same. Ultimate performance idles over 4Ghz. I haven't gone into a game to see if it boosts in other modes but I'm wondering whether it could all be due to the Desktop Window Manager using 100% of my GPU. It's a bug with the latest Nvidia drivers and the only way round it currently is to disable Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling. When I'm ingame, the DWM only uses a few percent of GPU, it's only using 100 at idle.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I have the latest Nvidia drivers installed and my system isn't doing that.

Try the Ultimate performance mode but changing the minimum processor power management setting to between 5-8%.

 

[Gus_33]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game-ready-drivers/13/502444/geforce-grd-52225-feedback-thread-released-101222/

Turning off scheduling is their recommended work-around.

Yeah I've tried that before, set the minimum setting to 5% and its still idling over 4Ghz. Strangely enough it idles over 4, then when I move the mouse around it goes down...

 

[Gus_33]

To be honest I shouldn't complain, my system feels quite stable right now and I'm getting good performance with games and temps tend to be below 70C. GPU scheduling may not provide much performance gains anyway as my CPU is not bad.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Try this.

In the BIOS, disable Speed shift (But if Speed step setting is present, enable or leave it enabled). I've had problems with Speed shift before on more than one board/system and multiple different generations. I've never had problems with Intel Speed step. The newer generations have abandoned Speed step in favor of Speed shift it seems, so in some cases it may not be present. Since 6th Gen there could be both present, only Speed Shift present or only Speed Step present. The newer the platform, the more likely Speed step will not be present as a setting in the BIOS.

If all else fails try resetting the BIOS to default settings or, if you're happy with it as is, then just move on. It's not normal for it to not work properly, idling down to nominal clock speeds while at rest, but it might take some work to get it to work properly. Also, you have to keep in mind that the VDH boards have always been basically stripped down budget models, so it's entirely possible for some of the more advanced features or settings to be missing on this and other budget models.

 

[Gus_33]

Ok, I've disabled Speedshift. It's still jumping around a lot but maybe less. At idle it went down to 0.99Ghz, still boosts to 4.3 as I look at it in taskmanager with only this window open. I read somewhere that disabling Speedshift might improve gaming but it was a matter of opinion.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If it's idling down to less than 1Ghz (Depends on what you have the "Min" set to under processor power management in the advanced power options) and boosting to 4.3Ghz, then it's working as it should. Gaming performance shouldn't be affected realistically whether at base clock plus boost or running the full gamut of the power profile because when a load is presented CPUs boost to max frequency faster than a human could notice the change or realize any kind of lack of performance. People who say "I can notice the difference, which is why I keep it at 100% clocks all the time" are full of crap. It happens in a matter of MICRO-seconds, so maybe if you are a fighter pilot, or astronaut, but probably not even then.