AMD Energy IN-efficient - neither Cool nor Quiet

[}TCP{Wolf]

Due to recent hardware prices I thought "okay, my next test machine is going to be an AMD again", and while not using it yet, I have assembled a test-machine based on these parts:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.40GHz AM3 6MB 125W Black Edition
Asus M4A87TD EVO 870 AM3 ATX
4x2048MB G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 CL7

As graphics card, one of my older Sapphire Radeon 3850 has been inserted, which is passively cooled and does not sap too much wattage.

Now, a Watt-o-meter added I'm getting the following (rough) values:

DOS / Bios: 180-210 Watts
Windows (Idle): 160 Watts
Pressure: 280 Watts

What I want to achieve is to save energy and thus MONEY because frankly, energy prices are going up like f*ck. I already DO run a quad core server (which I intend to rebuild from scratch and replace with the "failed" Dual Core because it's an EE CPU( - but that's a different story...

So... ACPI 2.0 + Cool And Quiet are enabled in the BIOS, and the AMD CPU driver which is SUPPOSEDLY responsible for Cool And Quiet control are installed (we are talking about a test-install with XP64), all updates up to the middle of 2009 on it, and the Asus+AMD drivers are all the latest. The "Cool & Quiet service" is also confirmed to be running.

CPU-Z tells me, however, that the CPU stays at its assigned 3.4 Ghz at all times, load or idle, no difference.

Is there a trick to Cool And Quiet actually doing its job?

I can use ASUS' clocking utility to manually UNDERCLOCK the CPU down to 800 Mhz (CPU-Z confirms the downclock), but wattage stays the same. Obviously, it only makes sense if I can reduce the core voltage while underclocking, but I could not find a reference documentation that tells me exactly how low voltage I can use on 800 Mhz for it to remain stable!

So... how can I make Cool & Quiet working? Or failing that... are there any other things I can do to get this thing to throttle down its power consumption?

Also, that particular motherboard allows to enable/disable existing cores freely. Unfortunately, disabling 3 cores made NO DIFFERENCE again, whatsoever. The operating system simply does not see them if they are disabled, but I suspect they are running anyway, since the Wattage is exactly the same. What a BS feature!!

I have found some articles in the web when googling for "underclocking" but nothing really "professional" and safe enough that I would want to try. I'd rather have AMD confirmed specifications used.

[}TCP{Coco]

Sorry, I got no experience at all with systems not running at default values for clocking and voltage.

[}TCP{Wolf]

Smirftsch found the solution.

You have to set your power options to "Max Battery Life".

Desktop idle is now 103 Watts, with that power consumption this quadcore is now faster than my Intel Quad while using less energy.

w00t !!!!

[}TCP{Coco]

Nice! Could have thought of this myself cause that's exactly what I used with my notebook. Full power while the Desktop profile is active, low cpu power when the Max Battery Life profile is active. Sorry, didn't think it's the same with real PCs...

[}TCP{Carnage]

Bit oddly named for a pc though