i5 9400F 'balanced' clock speeds cause audio dropouts in Ableton Live

[HWest4]

Hi,

I just built a new system with a i5 9400F on an ASRock motherboard with a H370 chipset, running Windows 10. I updated the bios to version 3.10 so that the processor is supported.

Now, in the "balanced" power setting I notice low clocking speeds (around 700 MHz), which caused audio in my digital audio workstation (Ableton Live) to drop out a lot. I have set the power mode to "performance" which solved that problem, but now the processor is running near 4 GHz al of the time, which supposed to be the "turbo" clock speed. When I change the minimum processor state to 99% in the processor power management settings, the processor runs on the 'normal' idle state, which is around 3 GHz, but the state appears to become binary. Namely, or idle at 3 GHz, or in turbo at 4 GHz. Nothing in between. Now my question is: is this normal behaviour? And second: is there another way to make sure that Ableton Live runs smoothly with different processor state settings?

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,

Yuri

[David_V_Intel]

Hello HWest4, Thank you for posting on the Intel ® communities. To start, I would like to know which software or what you are using to measure the clock speed when changing the power plans. Also, please provide me more information of the software in question "Abelton Live", have you posted an inquiry in the software's support site? Something to try is to take the BIOS back to defaults and make sure that there aren't any speed altering technologies activated (excluding Intel ® Turbo Boost), when done, you can check the processor's frequency in the task manager in Windows. Also, you can run a diagnostic with our Intel ® Processor Diagnostic Tool, refer to the link below to download it and install it: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/19792/Intel-Processor-Diagnostic-Tool Regards, David V Intel Customer Support Technician Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[David_V_Intel]

Hello HWest4, Were you able to check my post? Please let me know if you need any more assistance. Regards, David V Intel Customer Support Technician Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[David_V_Intel]

Hello HWest4, Please contact us if you have any additional questions. Regards, David V Intel Customer Support Technician Under Contract to Intel Corporation

[HWest4]

Hi David,

Thank you for your answer and sorry for the late reply. I've been diving into it a little more and have come to understand that the speedstep technology is simply too slow for the sudden demand in processing power from Ableton Live, which is a digital audio workstation that involves a lot of digital signal processing. Also, as I understand, turbo boost technology kicks in at a demand of 100%. So that means always in the performance power plan, with minimal processing power at 100%.

So it seems the setting I've been using, namely a minimum processing power of 99% and a max of 100%, is the perfect solution for my use of processing power potential. It is not the most efficient setting, but this way the processor always ready for the demand from Ableton Live.

Oh, and I was measuring the clock speeds with Core Temp.

Thank you again for thinking along.

Sincerely,

Yuri