ParkControl: Tweak Core Parking and CPU Frequency Scaling settings in Windows

Modern CPUs are becoming immensely powerful because they are powered by a number of cores. These multiple cores can certainly make the CPU reach a very high overall clock frequency, but all these cores together actually consume a lot of power and there is more heat generation. Windows has a solution to this issue. It resolves it by putting all the unused cores in the parking or standby mode so that power can be saved.

However, Windows does not allow you to set the CPU frequency scaling. Besides, it also doesn’t allow any control over how many cores when they are put in the parking mode. Luckily, ParkControl can help you out. ParkControl is a small freeware utility that can be used to tweak core parking and CPU frequency scaling settings of Windows power plans.

Let me explain first what is Core Parking and CPU Frequency Scaling?

Basically, CPU Parking is a low-power sleep state (C6) supported by most modern processors and operating systems. It dynamically disables CPU cores in an effort to conserve power when your system is idle, and further, it can be turned back on as the individual resumes work on the system.

CPU Frequency Scaling is a feature that enables the operating system to scale the CPU frequency up or down in order to save power. CPU frequencies can be scaled automatically depending on the system load, in response to ACPI events, or manually by using some programs.

In this post, we will show you how to control the CPU frequency scaling setting with ParkControl.

How to use ParkControl?

To get started with this free application, you just need to download and run an executable.

ParkControl, the free application to control CPU frequency scaling setting and Core parking, is a small freeware utility; with the size of just 1.44 megabytes. It has no installer. It is a live EXE.

Main Features of ParkControl:

– Pre-configured power plan for ultimate performance
– Automatically switch power plans when your PC enters and leaves the idle state
– Notifications of when and what process changed your active power plan
– The tool also has options featured to enable parking AC, frequency scaling AC, parking DC, frequency scaling DC.

Once the tool is launch, you will see that the interface of the application is easy to understand. The interface of the tool is divided into two panels:

  • CPU frequency scaling settings for power profile: This part of the panel can be used to enable a power profile.
  • Current system power status: This part of the panel shows the CPU’s number of cores, frequency, and usage/parking status.

With ParkControl you can easily turn off some of the unused cores on your system when it’s loading slowly. This will heat dissipation from the system and also reduce energy consumption.

ParkControl lets you change how many CPU cores are actually put in the parking mode by Windows. It can also help you find the most suitable configuration for your PC which will help you squeeze out the maximum from your CPU. There are many benefits to using this application, improves CPU performance, and save the power consumption by different cores of the processor.

You can download ParkControl from this source.