How Do I Set Adaptive Voltage

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

I have reached a successful overclock of my i7 4790k with an Asus Maximus VII Hero at 4.6 GHZ and 1.23 V in manual mode. I now wanted to set up the power saving settings. So I went to the BIOS and tried setting the adaptive voltage. I set the turbo voltage to 1.23, and the offset to a negative 0.05. That gave me an idle 1.24 V and 1.3 V while stressed. So I tried setting it to 1.18 V with a positive 0.05 offset. It didn't even post, because it tried to give the CPU a core voltage of 1.6 V (!!!). So once again I tried to do this, but this time through Intel XTU. It brought the same result.
Am I doing something wrong here? Is there a better way to do this? Or is this just part of the Haswell power management, and if so, is there any way of overcoming this and actually setting an adaptive voltage?

oczdude8 · Apr 12, 2015

Its best to manually set the voltage when overclocking. Otherwise, your system may be unstable (as you experienced). The adaptive voltage setting is not really meant to work with overclocking. In fact, it should be the first thing you disable to be able to get better overclocks, since sometimes it unnecessarily increases the voltage too high, which can create heat and reduce the life of your cpu.

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

oczdude8 :

I already reached a stable overclock, and what I'm trying to do now is to get my system to run at lower voltages when idle.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

Stress testing with adaptive voltage is not a good thing to do. Stress tests such as Prime95 and AIDA64 (not limited to these 2) will increase the voltage past what it is set in the BIOS (usually 0.1-0.2 volts).

If you really want to stress the CPU while overclocked and using adaptive voltage, i recommend ASUS Realbench.
Link for download is right under the title.
http://rog.asus.com/rog-pro/realbench-v2-leaderboard/

Realbench also gives a good representation of the performance gained by overclocking.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

As for setting the adaptive voltage:
Scroll down to CPU core voltage. Disable fully manual mode and set CPU core voltage to adaptive mode.
Set additional turbo mode CPU core voltage to whatever it took for stability in manual mode. (in your case 1.23 volts)
No need to set an offset.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

oczdude8 :

Using adaptive voltage, the voltage only goes past what is it set in the BIOS when using certain stress tests (Prime95 and AIDA64 being examples of this). When doing real world tasks such as video encoding, image editing, ect. the voltage will not go past what it is set in the BIOS.

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

When I set the adaptive voltage through the BIOS, and then relaunch the BIOS it works and the voltage is ~1.07. But when I launch into windows the voltage automatically goes to 1.29. I also tried doing this with Intel XTU and the same thing happened.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

Strange that it would increase like that.
What are you monitoring the voltage with?

Also what are you using for a stress test? Just Intel XTU?

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

I didn't even stress test. I only used the stress test when the voltage was on manual to find a stable voltage. The 1.29 V was just in idle in windows.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

ShakedG :

What program did you use to monitor the voltage with?
Is it staying at 1.29 volts or did it drop down like it should wth adaptive?

Also, did you get rid of the .05 volts offset?

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

I used CPUID CPU-Z, AIDA64, Intel XTU, and CPUID HWMonitor. They all read ~1.29 V. it does go down a bit to ~1.28, but no further. About the offset, the BIOS forces me to choose an offset so I left it at negative and auto (There is no option for 0). However in Intel XTU it lets me set the offset to 0, but the results are the same.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

I just tried to set an offset, and then set it back to auto. It would not let me. I had to clear the CMOS, and then redial in my overclock settings for it to reset back to "auto".

Try clearing the CMOS and re-entering the overclock settings in. Don't change the offset to anything, just leave it at "auto".
Looking forward to hearing the results.

Edit: Another way to reset everything without clearing CMOS would be to load the default settings (F5 while in BIOS) and then re-entering overclock settings.

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

I loaded the defaults and then redialed in my overclock. Once again, it runs at low voltages in the BIOS (~1.07) but very high voltages in the OS while idle (~2.9)

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

ShakedG :

Very strange, as it should stay at or below what it is set at in the BIOS.

Have you updated to the latest drivers? Latest BIOS came out 4/7/2015
http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_HERO/HelpDesk_Download/

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

Have a few more quick questions, didn't want to edit my previous post just in case you were responding to it already.

What OS are you running?
What are your Power Options set to?

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

Windows 7, all drivers updated, I flashed the BIOS yesterday. Power options set to auto, though as for that I tried enabling the C-states and still it would stay at 4.6 ghz and wouldn't go down.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

I should have been more specific. The power options within Windows 7 is what i was referring to.

It should be set to "balanced"

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

Ohhhhhh right I had this issue in the past, silly me! I put it on preformance for stress testing and forgot to put it back, gonna try it now!

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

It kind of worked. Now my Cstates work and the frequency goes down, also my voltage goes down to 1.06 at idle, but it does go to 1.29 under load (even without testing, just when the OS needs a little power to start up some programs).

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

1.06 volts is the lowest it hits when at idle? Im very suprised that it is not dropping even lower.

For example my i7-4770k at idle (800mhz) will have voltage as low as 0.718 volts.

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

One last update: I set it to adaptive with an offset of -0.06 V, so now the maximum is 2.3 V (and not 2.9 which was the maximum before for some reason). Now even with the Intel XTU stress test it doesn't go over 1.23 V!! Thanks a lot for all the help Skyler

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

ShakedG :

Glad to hear that setting the offset lowered the voltage down to where it needs to be =)

In my case, when setting my overclock and voltage settings, the only things i changed within the BIOS was CPU multiplier, enabled XMP for my DRAM, and changed CPU voltage to adaptive and the known voltage needed for my overclock.

Is there anything else besides those settings that you changed? (Other than the offset)

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

I set the timings and rate for my DRAM manually, also I set my cache ratio to 43 (as high as I could after stress testing). Also it sounds to me like you didn't find the right voltage for yourself, but looked it up on the internet which is highly not recommended.

SkylerJacobs · Apr 12, 2015

Nope =).
I myself did the testing with manual voltage just as you did, and then set adaptive for the power savings at idle/low loads.

Just wanted to see if there is anything else you had changed, as I like to learn from others experiences =)

ShakedG · Apr 12, 2015

SkylerJacobs :

Oh OK

well the only other thing I did, once everything was set, I started getting the cache ratio up as it's recommended for better performance to have the cache ratio match the CPU ratio. To do this you do the same thing as overclocking your CPU ratio, you go by increments and stress test every time. The difference is you don't raise any voltage (you could but it doesn't help by much) instead you try with the existing voltages to go as high as possible. I got as high as 4.3 ghz cache while my CPU is 4.6 ghz.

How Do I Set Adaptive Voltage

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