Windows 7 power management is critically bugged

[johncage]

How do I know?

I've seen dozens of people, including myself, who have systems on both intel and amd, on various motherboards and hardware configurations, have issues with windows power management. freezing, bsod, etc

In the end we had to disable eist and turbo boost(and amd equivalents) in bios, as well as select the high performance/home desktop power management profile in windows 7(simply selecting high performance in windows doesn't work either. eist must be manually disabled). As far as I know, this is a windows issue that remains unaddressed since xp sp2. It is not an intel issue, as this also exists for amd. Basically, any kind of dynamic frequency function. c1e(dynamic voltage) does not seem to be related, however i'm also hearing issues about that.

My guess is that there is a conflict between the software in windows 7 power management and hardware eist/speed stepping. It happens on msi, gigabyte, asus boards, you name it. It also occurs on power supplies ranging from brand name high performance to no name brands.

This issue had me stumped for days, literally. i needlessly replacing the memory after numerous know-nothings advised me to do so. never again will i distrust my instinct. i knew nothing was wrong with my hardware. it's windows7's fault.

And finally, the lack of acknowledgment from microsoft truly is disgusting.

 

[Thrax]

I have five systems with Windows 7 that I personally oversee, and all of them correctly enter and exit suspend, sleep and STR. These systems also properly employ SpeedStep/Cool'n'Quiet, as well as the C3 low power state.

 

[johncage]

that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. but microsoft likes to use your implied argument. the people who get these bugs are in the minority so it doesn't matter. which is why this issue has never been addressed by microsoft. and i'm not talking about suspend/sleep. that's another issue that was way too widespread for microsoft to ignore. and i don't buy it that it's the motherboard or cpu manufacturer's job to get windows 7 power management to work.

 

[Thrax]

I remain unconvinced.

All the sleep states and power management features are ultimately outlined in the ACPI standard, which was developed by Intel, Microsoft and Toshiba. I find it incredibly hard to believe that Microsoft got its own standard wrong.

I ask you what's more likely:
Motherboard makers not complying with ACPI? (They already quietly dick around with preferential memory support), or Microsoft getting its own industry standard wrong?

 

[johncage]

gigabyte, msi, and asus are all manufacturers that have this very problem. as confirmed by me and countless others who have solved their freezing issue by turning off eist. this is the key step, so we know the culprit lies in speedstep/power management.

as far as i'm aware, it has nothing to do with acpi compliance problems, but plain shoddy software causing conflict with hardware.

btw, i'm sure it's not voltage related, but actually frequency related. in other words, sudden changes to frequency or clock, and i'm sure windows 7 isn't able to handle it.

 

[Thrax]

ACPI controls SpeedStep/CNQ.

 

[clifford_cooley]

You could try different settings for ACPI in the System BIOS.

If I understand things correctly, setting ACPI would enable or disable different levels of power management functions for Windows to control.