Huge success undervolting the Air!

Works quite well under OSX... what about Boot Camp?

Hey guys,

I've bought the CoolBook and it works quite well. My laptop remains quite cool now and stutterings seem to have decreased a lot.

However, I'm using Boot Camp (Windows XP) a lot. It seems like the the CPU settings (undervolt) are not carried over when booting in Windows. Is there any similar way to undervolt the CPU in Windows? Thanks in advance!

masterpace said:

However, I'm using Boot Camp (Windows XP) a lot. It seems like the the CPU settings (undervolt) are not carried over when booting in Windows. Is there any similar way to undervolt the CPU in Windows? Thanks in advance!

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Re-read this comment:

Adam Ierymenko said:

But one more point I thought of: CoolBook's tuning is done by a kernel extension and a daemon called CoolBookSwitcher. These start after the mach kernel and the core extensions boot, so when the machine is turned on it's running it's factory default settings until then.

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CoolBook applies the new settings after boot from within OS X.

Any similar solution for Windows?

Hmm, that's what I could understand: CoolBook works during OSX startup so it doesn't work under Windows (via Boot Camp). Is there a similar way to undervolt the CPU under Windows?

So the need for this explains why my Air is sometimes slower in some everyday officey-duties than my 10-hour-battery, same-weight TZ?

Sesshi said:

So the need for this explains why my Air is sometimes slower in some everyday officey-duties than my 10-hour-battery, same-weight TZ?

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If your MBA is slowing down doing basic office apps then you have issues that require more than software.

wow! this seems to work really well, sort of unbelievable.

After i regisitered, the default was just 800MHZ ,only , so I figured I'd try that for a while.

I fired up VMware and it is running fine. Thing is, the temps and fan have stayed the same (52C and 2400rpm)

before Coolbook the whole system would tax out.

Amazing! This may actually be the solution to our thermal problems.

Of course, I JUST installed it like 5 minutes ago so it's a bit early

I'd like to thank the person who posted this. Really is nice going.

Note: I'm not undervolting anything, I'm just running it at 800Mhz max with medium throttle. As the original poster said, at 800MHZ it runs ok. But this is not supprising as I have a Samsung Q1U that runs at 800MHZ max , and it's fine with XP. But Vista will not run well at all at that speed no matter the RAM installed.

Anyway,there's all sorts of combinations, this is the first one i've tried and it is working very well indeed.

I'm dying to hear other's experiences with this....should be interesting.

duffyanneal said:

If your MBA is slowing down doing basic office apps then you have issues that require more than software.

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Well - obviously the Sony might be doing the usual stuff which gives me no problems under Vista, such as playing back a video podcast at half size while I type. By no means is my normal use just cranking up Word (although interestingly this is also faster on even my slowest SSD'd Vista notebook).

cant install

Any one have any difficulty installing the program? It prompts me for an install of a subcomponent but it doesnt seem to work. The program starts but I dont have any options, just blank fields.

any ideas?

Coincidence...maybe? But I tweaked the voltage settings and now Photo Booth no longer runs stating that the onboard graphics card does not support the application.

Nice app - first I've seen of doing this on a mac laptop.

I'm interested in running this on my MacBook solely to extend battery life. I'm not interested in heat reduction or fan reduction, except as side-issues of extending battery life.

Has anybody got any figures on how much this extends battery life? 20-30% could mean an extra hour.

interesting idea. So you can lower the voltage to the processor to make it run cooler while still maintaining the same performance or did I read this wrong? If so...could I do this to my PowerBook G4 12"?

Very good results!

I registered a version of coolbook and applied the settings given by the threadstarter. My temps plunged. MBA was able to throttle up to do heavy tasks. Tried youtube for 10 mins, no stuttering But then again, my week 6 had just a few episodes of stuttering with youtube, not always.

OK... questions.

1. How come the settings on the menu bar are grayed out? I want to display other stuff besides the temp.

2. When I reg coolbook, only the 800MHz setting came up. I inpu tthe rest of them. When I want to get rid of the settings and return to default, there is no "default" option. Anyone know the default values?

A Great find!

Sesshi said:

Well - obviously the Sony might be doing the usual stuff which gives me no problems under Vista, such as playing back a video podcast at half size while I type. By no means is my normal use just cranking up Word (although interestingly this is also faster on even my slowest SSD'd Vista notebook).

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i have no problems with playing back a video...and word mac is slower as the word pc version. (opening word on a macbook and air takes the same time!!)
i had the dell xps m1330..by all means the air does not feel any slower in doing usual stuff!!
why not sell your air...solves all your problems lol

Still no tool for Boot Camp (Win XP)?

Hi again! CoolBook is a great tool for Mac OS X. Now, what about Windows (through Boot Camp)? I'm trying to find a similar tool to under Windows XP?

Indeed, I've installed a few old (4-5 years old) games on My Boot Camp partition. Most of them are stuttering badly randomly. It seems like the CPU is hotter (around 75 C) but not that much either. Surprisingly, some games can run smooth for a few minutes before experiencing a sudden stutter. Any explanation? Would the X3100 throttle as well?

What a great utility. I installed it this morning and have been tinkering all day.
Easy to use and with CPUtest it is easy to test the settings.

The UI does leave much to be desired. For 10 bucks I am not going to do a lot of complaining. The people who write these great little programs deserve or support without criticism.

I am interested in the feedback of other users. Keep the posts coming!

Install issues

Any one else have any install issues with this program?

dyerucf said:

Any one else have any install issues with this program?

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Nope. I bought this program for my old macbook also. Its one of the best programs used for a laptop, PC or Mac. (of course for PC, its RMClock)

Thank You!!

I've been reading these forums for a while now but felt compelled to submit my first post.

Thank you! I did as you suggested and got the CoolBook software. I played around with it and the settings for a while (you are right...horrible interface...not intuitive....print out the manual before attempting to change your settings).

Amazingly (I guess) my MBA is now running fine with all of the clock speeds set at .9000V. No panics, no crashes....

RUNS MUCH COOLER!!
NO STUTTERING VIDEO!!
NO CORE SHUTDOWNS!!

Try it...you'll like it.

Thanks again for the work you did to come up with this solution. I will now NOT return my MBA, as I had been contemplating.

wow cool i used to do this on my old amd athlon processor with great results. didn't know there was a program for the mac

DavidFL said:

Amazingly (I guess) my MBA is now running fine with all of the clock speeds set at .9000V. No panics, no crashes....

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I'm surprised you managed to get it down to .9v on all levels. I had to set 1.6 @ .9125 and 1.8 @ .925 else my machine would KP when it heated up past 70. At these settings though, and a few short tests, it seems stable. I'll have to run more to see what happens, though, since there could be some intensive things that could cause it to bite the dust easily.

DavidFL said:

I've been reading these forums for a while now but felt compelled to submit my first post.

Thank you! I did as you suggested and got the CoolBook software. I played around with it and the settings for a while (you are right...horrible interface...not intuitive....print out the manual before attempting to change your settings).

Amazingly (I guess) my MBA is now running fine with all of the clock speeds set at .9000V. No panics, no crashes....

RUNS MUCH COOLER!!
NO STUTTERING VIDEO!!
NO CORE SHUTDOWNS!!

Try it...you'll like it.

Thanks again for the work you did to come up with this solution. I will now NOT return my MBA, as I had been contemplating.

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Wow. Thats amazing. I'm using 0.9Volts for all 600MHz to 1600MHz and it runs stable with no crashes. I'll leave a load test on tonight but so far, its amazing.

masterpace said:

Hi again! CoolBook is a great tool for Mac OS X. Now, what about Windows (through Boot Camp)? I'm trying to find a similar tool to under Windows XP?

Indeed, I've installed a few old (4-5 years old) games on My Boot Camp partition. Most of them are stuttering badly randomly. It seems like the CPU is hotter (around 75 C) but not that much either. Surprisingly, some games can run smooth for a few minutes before experiencing a sudden stutter. Any explanation? Would the X3100 throttle as well?

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RMClock is the windows alternative. Its mentioned in several of these posts if you bothered to read them.

Video card won't be throttled since its not the same chip as the CPU.

isdereks said:

Coincidence...maybe? But I tweaked the voltage settings and now Photo Booth no longer runs stating that the onboard graphics card does not support the application.

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Ok, after returning the settings to their default rather than the settings mentioned in the OP, Photo Booth began to work again.

Just an FYI.

Before I am loading this app, can anyone please confirm that it enables our MBAs to run youtube videos for a longer period on low fan speed around 2500rpm?
And second question: let’s suppose a task like watching flash or quicktime videos takes about 40 to 50 percent of cpu load at 1.6GHz. Will we be able to run this task on a “cooler level” when the unit is just manually set to .8 or 1.2GHz? I am still a bit afraid of doing this undervolting thing, but just lowering the cpu speed should definitely be a no risk, should it? Thanks!!