I have been using an excellent little utility called http://www.stargaz0…"]S2kControl[/]="http://www.stargaz0…"]S2kControl[/] on my house computer. This plus a Nexus AXP3200 CPU cooler and Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound has allowed me to achieve an idle CPU temperature of 86° F on my Athlon XP 1800+. Undoubtedly, this utility is a great idea, but I was wondering if there's any reason I should refrain from using it with my DAW. Do any of the experts out there have opinions on this?
The following text is from the program's information window.
This program written by Serge Galkin (StarGaz0r)
Copyleft © 2003-2004 TwinSSoft Co.Significant power savings of the AMD Athlon processor
only occur if the processor is disconnected from the system
bus by the Northbridge while in the Halt or Stop Grant state.
The Northbridge can optionally initiate a bus disconnect
upon the receipt of a Halt or Stop Grant special cycle.
The option of disconnecting is controlled by an enable bits
in the Northbridge.Program key features:
Enables bus disconnect bit in the Northbridge.
Full control under Clock Control (CLK_CTL) MSR
that determine the internal clock divisor when
Athlon system (S2k) bus is disconnectedSupported processors:
AMD Duron, Athlon Processors Model 2,3,4 (w/ limitations)
AMD Duron, Athlon, Athlon XP/MP Processors Model 6 &
upperSupported chipsets:
VIA KT133, KT133A, KLE133, KX133, KM266
KT266, KT266A, KT333, KT333 CF, KT400, KM400,
KT600
nVidia nForce series, nForce2
SIS 730, 733, 735, 740, 745, 755, 746, 748
AMD 751, 760, 761, 76
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Comments
All I know is what the program writer tells me, and that is in t
All I know is what the program writer tells me, and that is in the box above. This seems like it would be pretty self explanatory, if you understand all the terms involved, which I don't. If I understand correctly, the program detects when the CPU has an idle cycle and turns it off in order to save power/heat. It is not a sleep mode. It runs in the background always and causes no interruption whatsoever. My only question is if this could interfere with audio applications in any way, aside from the miniscule ammount of resources it uses. Anybody care to venture a guess? Also, is anybody but me interested in this app? I can't see why everyone wouldn't be, since it can save you 20+ degrees in idle.
I understood what the program was doing from the desription I ju
I understood what the program was doing from the desription I just didn't understand why it was doing it. Thanks for clearing that up. I don't see a problem with it as long as it doesn't interfere with a wait state and from what I see it doesn't. You should have no problems with it on your DAW, but to be safe I would make a copy of some tracks you have, run the utility and mix away. Run lots of effects etc. to see if it causes problems. It's the only way to know for sure.
Not everyone can run this little app as it's only for AMD with VIA or nVidia chipsets (at the bottom of the description). I have all Intel CPU's.
Well, i've been using it on my DAW for about a week now and it h
Well, i've been using it on my DAW for about a week now and it hasn't caused any problems. It only uses about 1MB of memory which is lower than most Windows system processes. My idle CPU temp is about 96 degrees Fahrenheit on an XP 3200 Barton core - cooler than body temperature! My idle temps before using the app were about 120 - that's a 24 degree drop! I always knew this was a great idea for plain old computers, but after this testing period I HIGHLY reccommend this app for ANY computer that it's compatible with.
Hey David, I'm not sure what your using this utility for, is it
Hey David, I'm not sure what your using this utility for, is it so you can put your PC in a psuedo sleep mode. If you can tell me more about it or tell me what you'd like to use it for I might be able to help. I have not used this utility but I'll see what I can dig up.