[H] Disable Intel Speedstep etc.

[SpoR]

Lately, I have been having this random issue when I play starcraft 2. 50% of the time when a match loads there will be this stuttering every 1.5 seconds. It's obviously unplayable. I tried a million things to try and fix it and haven't been able to figure it out. Several other people have the same unsolvable issue.

Anyway, I've been talking to blizzard support, and the most recent recommendation is :

"it appears this issue has to do with Intel's speedstep power saving feature. You need to shut it off in the BIOS - to do this, you'll need to do some online searches, because Im not intel support so I can't walk you through how to shut down their stuff =\

There is also a 'cool'n'quiet' feature with amd that you should look into disabling. Again, a quick online search will tell you how =)

Let us know if it still happens after these are disabled =)"

And I don't know how to do this stuff or even how it works/what it does. I don't really trust their tech support that much considering that a lot of them have been giving me useless or redundant generic advice. I found this http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100308130827AA18AEG but I don't even know if it's correct.

I'm on XP sp3, intel c2d e675, p35 ds3r mobo, 2g ram, nvidia gtx260 oc, IDE and sata drives, all drivers updated etc.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It will not fix the issue.

Your issue might be due to core swapping. Try see if you can launch SC2 with afirminity to core 0 and 1.

 

[NTMBK]

You're on XP SP3, which is probably the problem. Update to a modern OS; Windows 7 has a much better task scheduler.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Give it a shot it can't hurt to try it. While your in there overclock too. Your comrades in SC will thank you.

 

[Ajay]

I'm on XP sp3, intel c2d e675, p35 ds3r mobo, 2g ram, nvidia gtx260 oc, IDE and sata drives, all drivers updated etc.

What is your RAM utilization? 2 GB seems awfully low. If you are swapping during game play, you will get periodic stuttering.

 

[sm625]

Enter bios by pounding on the delete key after turning on your machine. Open the "Advanced BIOS features" page. See the "CPU EIST function? Set that to disabled.

As others have said it probably wont work. However you can probably overclock that e6750 by a 20% which would help shorten or eliminate the stuttering.

Also, enable the cpu time column in task manager. Make sure your game is the only thing that is consuming significant amounts of cpu time.

 

[SpoR]

I didn't do it, I think the issue went away though from something else I tried. Either changing some settings on NIC in device manager, nvidia control center edits, or maybe something I changed in modem settings. The issue seems to be gone

It will not fix the issue.

Your issue might be due to core swapping. Try see if you can launch SC2 with afirminity to core 0 and 1.

Nothing to do with core swap, I checked into that core parking stuff etc. My cores were fine.

You're on XP SP3, which is probably the problem. Update to a modern OS; Windows 7 has a much better task scheduler.

Doesn't matter, I used to play fine on this machine with SP2 and like no windows updates, streaming, while listening to music, and/or on vent. Never had an issue til this random thing.

Also, you are suggesting that I get on a OS that I do not have enough ram for.

Give it a shot it can't hurt to try it. While your in there overclock too. Your comrades in SC will thank you.

I have no idea how to OC and while it is something that I've wanted to do I don't think i NEED it.


Thanks, sm625 should I still do it even though? What exactly is the pros and cons of it?

 

[glugglug]

When dual core CPUs were first introduced, there was an issue with the QueryPerformanceCounter API getting a count that would sometimes move backwards if your thread switched from one core to another and the counters on the cores weren't in sync, resulting in about what you are seeing.

Add /USEPMTIMER to the line for your current OS in the BOOT.INI file and it will switch QueryPerformanceCounter to use a PCI timer instead of the CPU RDTSC instruction which should fix the issue.

I think this is the default in Windows 7. (Windows 8 by default has a new timer that has issues if your BCLK changes dynamically).