After the initial possible success of disabling Speedstep, I decided to re-enable Speedstep and sure enough, the reboots were seen again. I also tried to adjust the Windows 7 power settings to 100%/Performance, but to no avail. The informal causal relationship appears to be if the CPU frequency is changing, Skyrim does not like it. Even under heavy load, with Speedstep enabled, I see frequency jumps from 1600MHz to 3700MHz varying for each core and voltage jumps from 0.966V to 1.281V. It appears Skyrim just does not like this behavior.
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| Chart showing the CPU Frequency and Voltage fluctuations under load with Speedstep enabled. |
With Speedstep disabled, we now have a steady 3700MHz for each core and
voltage at a steady 1.276V (varying slightly, but only by a few
fractions).
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| Chart showing the CPU Frequency and Voltage with Steepstep disabled. |
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| HWInfo64 showing a steady clock on all four cores even in idle |
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| CPU-Z CPU information |
If you want to try this, these are the items in the BIOS that I set to [Disabled] to turn off Speedstep:
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)
C3/C6 State Support
CPU EIST Function
Below is a screenshot of the BIOS screen where the settings are disabled marked in clumsy red arrows. Note that this was stolen from a website so the clock ratio and frequency are not mine (WOW!):
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| Change the marked items to disabled to turn off Speedstep |
Note: I also increased the memory timing from 666.7MHz to 800MHz which gives us 1600MHz on the FSB.
one.miguel Thank you so much for your testing. I am having the same problem as you do. Most of your test like memory , GPU, CPU , temperature testing i did it before and the result is same as yours. I did bought a new PSU to test my PC as well, just waiting for the PSU seller to deliver it. Glad you do the test first. ^ ^ So the conclusion show that the hardware is well functioning. Somehow, i did suspicious that the bios have something to do with this sudden restart and i just dont have the gut to touch the BIOS setting! I thought it was some kind of virus attack upon my system BIOS since my copy of Skyrim was pirated version. Thank you so much for your precious information. I will try this and reply as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you find it useful. Please let us know how your testing goes...note that I've since re-enabled speedstep, so right now I'm running default setup. I have some later posts you can read up on.
ReplyDeleteHOWEVER: I should say that you really should get a legal version of the game as soon as possible, so you don't have to worry about things like viruses coming from your games but especially because it's the right thing to do. If you can afford a new PSU, you can definitely afford a new AAA game.