What should I do?

[Aditya K]

Hi, this is my first post... Heard this place is helpful so...

I have a PC with a processor rated for 55 watts.

I used HWinfo64 to take sensor readings and HeavyLoad to stress it.

In the CPU Package Power section the readings varied from 12W to 25W.

The temp was constant at 55C.

And frequency varied from 3 to 3.3 GHz.

Questions:

1) With the CPU running at lower power, how will it affect performance?

2) Can this be a problem with the PSU?

 

PC Specs (5 yo):

CPU: i3-3220

PSU: 450W, no eff rating

HDD: 1TB

RAM: 4GB DDR3-1600

GPU: Asus EN210 silent.

Thank you

[thermalgoop]

If it's a no-name/off-brand PSU, it's probably not doing your system any favors. Having no 80+ rating is not a great start. I had a H81 4670 system on a "500W" no-name PSU and it couldn't handle one SSD, one HDD, and a GT710. But if that was the case, I doubt your mobo would clock down your CPU to compensate, you'd more likely notice instability or other devices not working. 
Make sure all your BIOS and Windows power saving settings are set to performance mode. Any power saver modes may be limiting the CPU utilization. Go into the advanced dialog in Windows power settings and make sure the max CPU & graphics usage is set to 100%. 

[kolle128]

Hi!

According to intel specs this is a 55W TDP CPU.

If it is running at 15-25W maybe the stress test is not causing enough load?

If different instructions are used maybe it will go higher. Maybe try different stress tests.

 

The wattage of the PSU most likely far exceeds the required wattage for your system.

That is good tough in this case, because questionable PSUs are not usually able to reliably provide the advertised power.

 

8 hours ago, thermalgoop said:

Windows power saving settings are set to performance mode

I wouldn't actually recommend this, because it will disables downclocking when idle.

 

Watching YouTube and the desktop at full CPU Frequency wastes quite a bit of power, but it is true it can help a few percentages.

Not really with continuous load tough, it helps when the load ramps up. Performance mode will already be at max frequency, before the load, while Balanced will be at a lower frequency, and will need a little time to react to the load and increase the clocks.

 

Not worth it in my opinion on PC. The gain is too small. On a laptop definitely not due to the battery.

[thermalgoop]

5 minutes ago, kolle128 said:

I wouldn't actually recommend this, because it will disables downclocking when idle.

 

 

Yes, but if it was set to some aggressive power saving mode this could point out the cause, and then be set properly after. It narrows the search significantly, by pointing to a misconfiguration of some power limiter or energy saving feature. If it doesn't change anything, put it back how it was, and move on. I also said only to set the max CPU state to 100%, not the min.