OVERVIEW:
This project aims to provide a temperature dependent overclock function
for AMD Phenom II black edition processors somewhat like the Turbo Boost function
on recent Intel processors.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
MSChart is _REQUIRED_, Please download and install it from
(Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=130F7986-BF49-4FE5-9CA8-910AE6EA442C&displaylang=en
The control/monitoring GUI is written in .net, and uses the Microsoft MS Chart
Component for the graphing. Until I find a version which clearly states it can
be redistributed, it won't be part of this package.
Its strongly recommended that you have the AMD processor drivers and
CoolNQuiet enabled. Even if you set the power profile in windows to
Home/Office Desk or one of the other profiles that effectively turn
it off. First, because the processors tend to run cooler when they
are downclocked during idle periods, this results in longer runtimes
when switching to higher clock rates. Secondly, I havent tested this
driver without those drivers loaded, and its distinctly possible the
BIOS, may not initialize all the P-States properly. Thirdly, saving
power is good for the planet.
OS REQUIREMENTS:
This utility has been tested under Windows XP-32 bit and Windows 2003 64-bit,
it probably will work under XP-64 or W2k3-32 bit. It may also work under 2000,
all bets are off for Vista or above.
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
This utility requires an unlocked Phenom II processor. This means it only
works with the Black Edition processors from AMD. If the driver is built
from source, its possible it may work with the original Phenom (the hardware
detection logic will need updating).
This driver has been developed and tested with an AMD 550BE, any other BE's
may require further tweaking. Please post success/failure comments to
sourceforge.
DISCLAIMER:
Copyright © 2010 Jeremy Linton
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
Now, as stated in the GPL, this software is provided as is. Use it at
your own risk. There isnt any warrantee or claims about its function.
Furthermore, as with any overclocking utility, it is completely possible,
it may destroy the machine or worse.
Finally, this program doesnt have any solid engineering basis behind it,
as the author is not privy to internal engineering documentation about
thermal envelopes, pipeline critical paths, transistor parameters, etc.
INSTALL:
Once the install completes, and you have MSChart installed, the application
may be launched. It will immediately display
"Driver is not started, please check the configuration in Control->Configure Driver."
Click Control, Configure driver. Click the "..." and select either kdbm.sys or
amd64/kbdm.sys depending on whether you are running 32-bit or 64-bit versions of
windows. Then click install, and if it says success, close the dialog.
You may then click "Control->Enable Graph". The Three settings for clockrate, voltage,
and temp threshold may then be tweaked. When the graph is enabled they take affect
immediately. Otherwise they are stored in the registry for the next driver load.
BEHAVIOR:
By default, the driver is fairly conservative, and only overclocks the
processor by 100Mhz. The temp threshold is also fairly conservative, its
possible if your cooling is poor that you may never see the clock boost.
Messages about driver behavior may be retrieved with a utility like Dbgview.
FUTURE FEATURES:
For now there are two future directions:
Multiple clock steps, the idea is that the cooler the processor the more it may overclock.
CoolNQuite tweaks, for example on XP it might be nice to have an option to lock
the cores p-states together (like Phenom MSR tweaker). Furthermore, I think it might
be nice to have operator dependent boosting (for example, if you click the mouse
its an instant temporary clock boost, to increase responsiveness).
