CPU Parking

Jeremy Collake · May 16, 2011, 05:31:34 PM

I plan to add a quick toggle to enable or disable CPU Parking as found in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 r2+. I wrote a blog post about this, but later deleted it. My feeling is that no matter how quick the resume is on the core (near instant), there is still some penalty to utilizing CPU Parking. In fact, I have watched Windows consistently park cores even when total CPU utilization is 50% or higher. I have not benchmarked the difference, but can theorize that the power savings is probably not worth.

TfH · May 18, 2011, 12:33:13 PM

I'm not sure, but i think this is not "included" in my AMD Phenom II X6 1090T CPU (Power Gating)?

My friend uses Intel CPU and using powercfg/REG tweak to show this hidden option he no longer sees "Parked" messages and i tried to show that power option on my CPU and i can't get this option in Power Settings :/
(i also tried REG tweak)

Please correct me if i'm wrong about this.

Jeremy Collake · May 18, 2011, 02:54:38 PM

It seems this feature is not utilized on all hardware, as my desktop PC is also and AMD Phenom II x6 and it does not have this feature enabled. That is why I never noticed it until I was playing around on my Core i5 laptop. I have not nailed down all the variables, so I hate to guess which platforms and environments utilize it, and which don't. If you do not see the 'Parked' messages in the Resource Monitor while your PC is mostly idle, then it is surely not turned on.

You will know for sure soon

petrossa · May 21, 2011, 06:19:31 AM

My asus board has a parking setting in the bios, also running a P II x6 1100T. I don't see much use for it. Why park a core? Energy? If you can afford a high end cpu you can afford the juice.

TfH · May 21, 2011, 11:19:33 AM

Quote from: petrossa on May 21, 2011, 06:19:31 AMMy asus board has a parking setting in the bios

What board you have? I have M4A785TD-V EVO and i don't see that option. But it's perfectly normal that i'm "blind"

Jeremy Collake · May 21, 2011, 09:08:13 PM

I have never seen a CPU Parking setting in the BIOS, *but* it would not surprise me to see one. Such a technology could be implemented in the hardware as easily as the software, and a BIOS setting could affect either. Whether Windows pays attention to such a setting I don't know, but one would have to assume it does.

petrossa · May 22, 2011, 12:39:55 PM

Quote from: Tinfoil Hat on May 21, 2011, 11:19:33 AM
Quote from: petrossa on May 21, 2011, 06:19:31 AMMy asus board has a parking setting in the bios

What board you have? I have M4A785TD-V EVO and i don't see that option. But it's perfectly normal that i'm "blind"

m4a89td pro usb3 with bios version 2001

It's not in the manual so i can't make a scan

Next time i reboot i'll take a picture of the bios setup screen

parkd1 · May 22, 2011, 03:46:26 PM

Can you check into this. I turned parking on and did a reboot then the icon volume for the sound system tray is missing and when I try and turn it on i is grayed out. Just saw that you put an update out so will give that a run and see what happens and go from there.

Jeremy Collake · May 22, 2011, 08:34:03 PM

There is no way that it would affect anything else. I disabled the feature for now, as I don't have time to perfect it before final release.

To undo the ONLY change it made, edit this registry value:

Key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583
Value:
MinValue=0 (0 for enabled, 100 for disabled)

The only thing that affects your volume icon is your Audio and Audio device settings.

petrossa · May 23, 2011, 04:57:33 AM

Quote from: Tinfoil Hat on May 21, 2011, 11:19:33 AM
Quote from: petrossa on May 21, 2011, 06:19:31 AMMy asus board has a parking setting in the bios

What board you have? I have M4A785TD-V EVO and i don't see that option. But it's perfectly normal that i'm "blind"

Here you go:

Jeremy Collake · May 23, 2011, 05:02:33 AM

I also have an ASUS motherboard, BIOS looks almost identical to yours - an M4A89GTD . Those options are for permanent parking, not on-demand parking.

parkd1 · May 23, 2011, 11:30:20 AM

Quote from: jeremy.collake on May 22, 2011, 08:34:03 PM
There is no way that it would affect anything else. I disabled the feature for now, as I don't have time to perfect it before final release.

To undo the ONLY change it made, edit this registry value:

Key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583
Value:
MinValue=0 (0 for enabled, 100 for disabled)

The only thing that affects your volume icon is your Audio and Audio device settings.

I have turned it off and everything seem fine now. Just odd is all.

TfH · May 23, 2011, 04:33:38 PM

@petrossa:
Ah, it's that setting. Yes i have that, but it's permanent parking.

petrossa · May 24, 2011, 04:05:30 AM

Sorry, i failed to comprehend we were talking about on demand parking. Misleading title

Jeremy Collake · May 24, 2011, 04:09:22 AM

Yea, we could easily be discussing either, I didn't even think to clarify that before you mentioned it.