Slow render/high temp with Win 10 & Extreme 4

I've been trying to figure out what is exactly happening but here's the scenario...

I built this PC around last summer/fall ...Extreme 4, i7 4790k, 8gb Dominator 1600, Win 7 home. I render videos with Sony Vegas and everything seems to work well, my render times are decent and can average slightly above real-time rendering with no FX added.

I just recently upgraded to Win 10, I didn't change anything except for the upgade. My render times were doubled and my CPU throttled back due to excessive heat....98-99 deg C.

I didn't really check the temps beforehand, but I did monitor the drop in CPU performance with the temp rise and they go hand in hand with Win 10 upgrade.

I updated pretty much all the drivers for the mobo, including Ver 2.3 for the BIOS. The BIOS update did keep the CPU working near 100% which was an improvement but the temps are still high on Turbo mode @ around 4.3-4.3 Ghz and the big issue I see is the CPU fan doesn't really speed up anymore.

I disabled Turbo and it will stay at 4 Ghz and 68 deg but the fan is still quiet.

Before it would spin up the fan quickly and have no issues with rendering, any thoughts on this? Also my v-core volts are 1.03-1.04 and this seems low, same volts under load as idle.

I updated the BIOS as well as:

XFast Lan
Smart Connect
A-Tuning
3TB Unlocker
Rapid Storage
MEI
INF

Tried VGA but it said my system didn't meet requirements....?

All thoughts appreciated.

I did check the temps and they didn't do anything to alarm me. Anytime the CPU worked the fan would spin up a little, never did the CPU throttle down to keep temps low, always ran 100% at render with no issues.

With Win 10, the CPU would throttle down during a render to keep temps under 98ish deg. The CPU fan is spinning but nothing spins up any faster than when it's at idle...fan speed is set at full.

I ran Vegas in Win 7 compatibility mode with no changes. Could be the fact Vegas doesn't pair well with Win 10 but I'm curious about the CPU temps and the fact the fan doesn't speed up. I do have another cooler coming but I didn't have this problem with Win 7.

I'm sure it's something simple, just need to figure it out.

Your CPU should never ever throttle under the heaviest of applications if your cooling is adequate under the voltage being supplied. NEVER use turbo/ auto OC modes as they tend to over volt under load. OC manually or don't at all. You should be able to find someone with settings from a similar setup that you could use as a starting point. 

Edited by GripS - 15 Feb 2016 at 11:56am

Max speed for the stock intel cooler is 2500 rpm for your chip. At stock clock speeds with turbo disabled I would expect the voltages you are showing. As far as the load and volts being 'all over the place' this is normal with CPU States and Intel Speedstep Technology enabled (which is default). When the CPU is not under load, it will reduce clock speed to conserve energy by reducing the multiplier and decreasing the vcore automatically. When the CPU is called to do an intensive task, it will increase voltage and multiplier to the max stock value (with turbo/Auto OC disabled). Hopefully I'm making sense. You may want to read up on it more if not.

dka56 wrote: I've been trying to figure out what is exactly happening but here's the scenario... I built this PC around last summer/fall ...Extreme 4, i7 4790k, 8gb Dominator 1600, Win 7 home. I render videos with Sony Vegas and everything seems to work well, my render times are decent and can average slightly above real-time rendering with no FX added. I just recently upgraded to Win 10, I didn't change anything except for the upgade. My render times were doubled and my CPU throttled back due to excessive heat....98-99 deg C. I didn't really check the temps beforehand, but I did monitor the drop in CPU performance with the temp rise and they go hand in hand with Win 10 upgrade. I updated pretty much all the drivers for the mobo, including Ver 2.3 for the BIOS. The BIOS update did keep the CPU working near 100% which was an improvement but the temps are still high on Turbo mode @ around 4.3-4.3 Ghz and the big issue I see is the CPU fan doesn't really speed up anymore. I disabled Turbo and it will stay at 4 Ghz and 68 deg but the fan is still quiet. Before it would spin up the fan quickly and have no issues with rendering, any thoughts on this? Also my v-core volts are 1.03-1.04 and this seems low, same volts under load as idle. I updated the BIOS as well as: XFast Lan Smart Connect A-Tuning 3TB Unlocker Rapid Storage MEI INF Tried VGA but it said my system didn't meet requirements....? All thoughts appreciated.

ASRock has many Extreme4 model boards. Since you are using an i7-4790K, I assume you may have either a Z87 Extreme4 or Z97 Extreme4 board. There are a few variants of Extreme4 boards for both chipsets, the Z87M Extreme4 for example. What board are you using? Most likely the Z97 Extreme4.

All of the following assumes the software being used is running in a compatible environment. You went from Win 7 to Win 10, while using the same version of Sony Vegas? Do you know the software is compatible with Win 10?

Don't forget what you did when you updated the drivers for Win 10. You also updated to UEFI/BIOS version 2.30. That sets all the options in the UEFI/BIOS to there default values, including fan speed control.

We have no idea if you initially adjusted the CPU coolers fan profile, or chose a different one. That could explain your fan speed situation, although once the CPU reaches 80C, the CPU fan should run at full speed regardless of the profile being used.

You said in another post you set the CPU cooler's fan to full speed, but wondered why it does not spin faster when the CPU is hotter? If the fan is always at full speed, how can it go faster?

All Haswell processors like yours run hot, the stock Intel CPU cooler is woefully inadequate for use with rendering software that has the CPU load at 100% for any length of time, or much less than 100%. If your idle CPU temperature is 68C, that leaves very little headroom for heavy CPU usage.

The CPU cooler alone is not responsible for cooling the CPU. Your PC case must provide cool air to the CPU cooler so it can do its job more efficiently.

Your VCore with Auto settings and no Turbo in the UEFI and no OC will stay at near stock values and not increase substantially on its own. If you are throttling the CPU and reach 100% CPU usage with your current VCore settings, the LAST thing you want to do is increase the voltage. That will only increase your CPU temperature and cause throttling to occur earlier.

You mentioned "only 40% CPU usage" when rendering an MP4 file. Only two things can cause a limit to the CPU usage when using specific software for a task; either the software's load on the CPU is only 40%, or the CPU is throttling to 40%.

I suppose the speed of the media source of the data being rendered could affect the load on the CPU, such as a USB flash drive vs a SSD, but again that is not related to the CPU.

The idea that something allows software to run the CPU at 100% usage, or limits CPU usage to a lower amount can only be related to throttling or the lack of throttling of the CPU.

While there are multiple things that can cause processor throttling, such as Thermal, Power, and Current limits being exceeded, and even the CPU VRMs throttling themselves due to over heating, they are all related to the CPU, or the CPU's power source. This is not a driver or software limitation, except as I stated above.

I've only touched on a few of the things that are affecting your current situation, many of them related to UEFI/BIOS option settings. We have almost no idea what you have done with the UEFI options, besides being at default settings.