Intel Speedstep

Has anyone on here gone into the Bios and disabled Intel Speedstep? Or even know what it is. I have a dell and went into my Bios to set my boot order and found this Intel Speedstep setting. Ok, what it says is "If you disable it , it places your processor into the highest performance state and prevents the Intel Speedstep applet or native operating system driverfrom adjusting the processors performance". So as you would guess if you enable it it adjusts your processor speed. It didn't tell me much more but I went ahead and disabled it and my PC is running like a Banji! My only concern because I don't know a lot about this Speedstep is, I hope it doesn't hurt my processor. I have a Dell Inspiron 9th generation intel core I5-9400. Does anyone on here know anything about this and any precautions I should use. I've always come to Major Geeks anytime I have any technical questions OK, don't let me down now because its really given my PC a sot in the arm. Give me some feedback ok. Thanks.

 

Having them on lets CPU clock and voltage downscale when it's idling thus reducing its power consumption.Having these features off leaves your CPU running at a constantly set frequency.

Leave it on unless it's causing you trouble.If you are not use to overclocking i would just leave it be.

 

Yeah, I think i might go back there and enable it. I'm a little concerned about the temperature. I hate to do it though, its running like it never has before, but like I said, I have temperature concerns. Hey thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. Stay safe.

 

If this is for a laptop then yes leave it on.Higher Temps for a laptop will lesson the length of it's lifespan.Reason being laptops hardly have any type of air flow.

 

No its a desktop and I have an extra fan in there that i installed, which gives it three small exhaust fans. Thank you for your feedback.

 

You really shouldn't "see" any performance difference. As wile e stated, it toggles down speed (and power consumption and heat generation) when YOU decrease the tasks you are performing on the computer. So when you go idle, so does the CPU. But when you demand full performance, you got it. And it is near instantaneous too so it is not like you'll be waiting around for it to kick in. It happens in 1 or 2 clock cycles, and the i5-9400 - when goofing off taking it easy - runs at 2.9 Billion clock cycles per second!

As far as your temps, you are wise to be concerned. Everyone should be. So I recommend the use of a good hardware monitor and I use and recommend Core Temp to monitor CPU temps in real time. I have CoreTemp Options Settings, Notification Area set show the highest temperature at all times. When I see my temps rise and hold above normal for more than a few seconds, that usually tells me it is time to clean my air filters.

 

I don't know about that. There is definitely a noticeable difference. I did a couple of tests and my scores had risen a little too. You know, and i've always wondered this, that when they tell us their throttling us down in various ways, how do we really know that it will be instantaneous as they say? I've kind of always believed what they say about throttling down, but since I've done this, It really makes me wonder. Anyone who see's this and has that Intel Speedstep, disable it and try it for yourself. This is why i did a couple of test, just to see if it was in my head and the results say not. I have passmark and have their performance tests which also go online. My results had gone up on them. Also , I too have a temp monitor. I use HD sentinel disk management. If anyone else tries this, please get back to me and let me know how it has worked for you. Thank you for the response. My appreciated.

 

I didn't say you "won't" see a difference. I said you "shouldn't". If you do, something else is wrong because typically, the feature works just fine. You might want to see if there is an updated BIOS. Or perhaps there is a setting in your BIOS menu - perhaps related to temperature thresholds, assuming your temps are fine.

 

The Max cpu temp limit of a I5-9400 is around 100c converted to F it's around 210.Tells us what your current cpu temps are.

 

While it may be 100°C, that does not mean any settings in the BIOS are set there. They could be at 65°C or even lower.

 

I have just updated my bios. Thats when I found this intel speedstep. It was in the bios setting. I've also added more ram and I'm at 32 GB. Also have installed the Samsung 970 evo plus SSD. So maybe its just the upgrades that I'm feeling. My Temps are good too. Right now 100 F. but the thing is, I noticed it immediately after disabling it.

 

My current temp is 100F. Since I put in the Samsung 970 evo SSD, my Temps have raised a little bit but I think that was to be expected with that SSD. I've gone as high as 140 but haven't gotten any higher. Yet

 

I've also added an exhaust fan out the back. Its a small one but it does help

 

Unless you went from 4 - 8GB of RAM to 32GB, I doubt adding RAM did anything. If you started with 16GB (which is already a huge amount), going to 32GB typically is only noticeable on paper (benchmarks) or in some rare extreme cases. Usually, we (as normal humans) just think we see better performance going from 16 to 32 or more.

If you replaced a hard drive with that SSD, that surely would yield some very noticeable performance gains. But SSDs don't normally run hotter than drives. They might have some hot spots but since a SSD is physically much smaller than a hard drive, to amount of heat added to the case interior will still be significantly less than a hard drive.

Note that in the electronics industry (which includes computer electronics) temps are normally stated in Celsius, not Fahrenheit - even in countries where Fahrenheit is normally used for house and weather temps, and when measuring fevers during illnesses - like where I am in the US. So it can cause confusion when you say 140.

There's nothing wrong with 60°C for a CPU temp, as long as it does not sit above that for more than a few seconds at a time, and it drops considerably lower when idle.

Case cooling is absolutely critical and sadly, often overlooked. You generally want a good front-to-back "flow" of cool air through the case. And if possible a slight over or "positive" pressure. That is, a little more air being pushed in than pulled out. This is especially true if the case has air filters. A slight positive pressure forces cool incoming through the filters - a good thing. It also forces a tiny bit of air "out" all the other cracks and crevices, and ports. If there is a slight under or negative pressure, dusty air can be pulled in through USB and other ports, into an optical drive. Not good.

 

Yeah yeah yeah. I know all about that celsius reading but I do believe I marked my numbers with an F. As in fahrenheit, not to be misunderstood about that other meaning of F , mine was fahrenheit. You know my take on all that metric, volume and the rest of that B.S. Well I'm almost 60 and we never learned any of that in school. I do remember them starting to try and teach us it because they said it was the future. All the other countries were using it. You know what I said? Good for the OTHER countries but I'm a red blooded American boy and America is where I'll stay and American is what I am. Boy, here we go......Anyways, yeah I kinda like walking my own path, if you know what i mean. And yes, I have learned Celsius , MB 's GB's, Etc. I guess it depends my mood. Sometimes I'll use celsius, other times not. Anywho right now my temp is running 45 Celsius. Pleasure to have met all you guys on here. You've been a big help when i need it.

 

My point is, since nearly every helper on every computer tech site in the whole wide world uses Celsius for their CPU and other computer component temps, that is the scale we are immediately used to and understand. When you use Fahrenheit, most of us don't know how to convert that in our heads to understand if your temps are good or not. So we have to use a converter. Yes, we are here to help you, but you need to help us help you.

It is not about liking or opposing the metric system. If is just going with industry standards and common practices.

Oh? Well, I'm almost 70, born and lived most of my life in the US. And we sure learned the metric system when I was in school. I guess it depend on the math and science classes you took in Jr and Sr high, and if applicable, tech schools and college.

You don't have to "learn" Celsius to use it when monitoring your computer temps. Monitoring programs let you select it (though usually it is selected by default). And of course, motherboard makers have BIOS temperature settings, by default, set to Celsius. Even your Intel i5-9400 CPU, made by an American company, lists temps in Celsius.

Well, I can get a sense of your take. And believe me, I sure don't want to see the US go to kilometers and KPH instead of miles and MPH. I want to see houses and carpet sold and listed by square footage. And I don't want our meteorologists forecasting today's temps in Celsius. And when I'm slow cooking my baby backs this weekend, I want to see 225°F, not 107°C on my grill's thermometer. And no more than 37°F for my beer's fridge.

 

It might have a little to do with what part of the country you was schooled in . I've pretty much lived up in the woods in Oregon. I might be what you all would call a redneck, eh? but that's ok, I like where I'm from and who I am and Old America. That's my two cents worth.

 

Not really because my dad was career Air Force (as was I). So I went to school in Ohio, Alabama, California, Virginia, Arizona, Mississippi, Arizona (again), New Mexico, England, Germany, and Nebraska. Some places were urban, some rural.

BTW, did you know in England, they still use miles and MPH, and not meters or KPH? They also use miles per gallon and not liters per kilometers. Though they use Imperial gallon and we use US gallon, which is a little bigger. And they often express people's weight in stones, where 1 stone - 14 pounds. Note that is pound and not kilogram.

And again, you say "Old American" but again, I'm older than you. I'm so old, when I first learned electronics, it was with vacuum tubes, not transistors. And regardless, it does not matter your schooling or even what you are used to. What matters is complying with industry standards for the sake of avoiding confusion when communicating with others.

I am sure you can read a scale. Do you know what is considered too hot for a CPU? Or what is considered a safe temperature? Does it matter if the scale is graduated in Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, Green/Yellow/Red or whatever? No. What matters is everyone is on the same page so they can avoid misunderstandings, multi-million dollar mistakes, or even an event that could have ended in dozens of deaths.

And for the record, Celsius is NOT a metric system method for measuring or expressing temps. You don't have kilodegrees, or megadegrees, or gigacelsius. Celsius simply is based on a scale where 0°C is the freezing point of water and 100°C is the boiling point of water. So balking using the excuse you are not into the metric system just does not make sense.

So I am not giving you an "inch" so you can't take a "mile"! See what I did there?

 

All I did was ask anybody if they ever heard of intel Speedstep and what they thought about it. Sorry if I offended you, that wasn't my intentions. In the future , I'll be more careful about phrasing my questions. And yes, I hear you loud and clear. Have a good day sir.

 

You certainly did not offend me. Sorry if my bullheadedness made it seem that way, or if I offended you. That was not my intention either. I have just seen in these forums where simple miscommunications due to something as simple as a poster stating temps in Fahrenheit resulted in a bunch of wrong advice being given - from telling the OPs to reseat CPUs and replace thermal paste (risking damage due to mishandling or ESD), to expensive mistakes like telling posters to spend money on new CPU coolers and more case fans - when none of that was necessary because in reality, the temps were fine.

I note you did say you were concerned about heat - but in your defense, I note you also did stipulate "F". So again, it was me being a stickler about using proper terminology. Sorry again.

Looking back, it was wile e coyote who first mentioned temps in "F" so clearly, this mess is all his fault!

 

It's all good. Have a good day