Latitude D600 CPU declocking

[Ryan Norton]

I am studying abroad for a year and had to take just a laptop with me. No time to build a desktop yet in the IT paradise that is Taipei

Anyway, my Dell Latitude D600 does a surprisingly good job of playing Dawn of War at min detail level at 1024x768, with its 32MB Radeon 9000 mobile VGA unit. Fine, that is, until SpeedStep (I think) decides to drop the CPU multipler to x6 and give me a 600MHz CPU instead of a 1400MHz one.

I've observed this behavior at no other time except when playing Dawn of War and maaaaaaybe a few weeks ago, NOT while playing DoW. Speedstep is enabled in BIOS (rev A16) because if it isn't, the CPU won't clock higher than 600MHz.

Once the multi drops, it sits there, everything is sluggish and awful, and eventually goes back up to normal 14x. This is a 3 week old install of XP Pro SP2, all Windows updates current, absolutely no other issues. I have the power profile set to Always On and am using AC power from the wall.

Any thoughts? Googling brought me nothing except a 3rd party applet that supposedly adds control over the CPU profile, but it didn't work. What am I missing?

 

[AmigaMan]

google speedswitch xp

 

[Ryan Norton]

Thanks, that's the applet I referred to (couldn't remember the name). I've fiddled with it for a day and it appears to have no ability to prevent the multiplier dropping. Argh.

 

[fbrdphreak]

SpeedswitchXP FTL

Download Notebook Hardware Control and set the CPU to Max Performance and it will lock the CPU at max speed.

 

[corkyg]

My laptop has a driver for Speedstep. If the driver is not installed, it doesn't work.

Q: Turning off SpeedStep in the BIOS seems to have no effect whatsoever upon the machine's ability to change the CPU rate. How do you disable SpeedStep. I am using WinXP.
A: You must have it turned off in the BIOS and in WinXP. If you go into the Power Applet in Control Panel and select the Always On option it will disable Speed Step. Right click your desktop > Click properties > Click Screen Saver > Power button > Change the Power Scheme to always on.

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
SpeedswitchXP FTL

Download Notebook Hardware Control and set the CPU to Max Performance and it will lock the CPU at max speed.

Meh...works for me on every laptop I've used. I might try out Notebook Hardware Control though since Speedswitch is a bit basic compared to what I've seen in NHC.

 

[Ryan Norton]

OK, cool, I didn't try NHC yesterday cause I didn't have .Net 2 installed, but I'm doing that now. Thanks everyone.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

NHC is a great utility from my recent experience with it. For a freeware program it has ton's of features and utilities to monitor every aspect of your notebook.

The onlt thing i don't like is that i'm weary of the temp monitor on my laptop's cpu (Core Duo T2400). I find that NHC will report the temperature at ~47 degrees (C) one second, and then like 32 C a couple seconds later. My HD seems to have valid temps though.

As for your CPU speed, you can deffinatley max it out at all times, even change the Multiplier and voltage (not higher unfortunatley )

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: corkyg
My laptop has a driver for Speedstep. If the driver is not installed, it doesn't work.

Q: Turning off SpeedStep in the BIOS seems to have no effect whatsoever upon the machine's ability to change the CPU rate. How do you disable SpeedStep. I am using WinXP.
A: You must have it turned off in the BIOS and in WinXP. If you go into the Power Applet in Control Panel and select the Always On option it will disable Speed Step. Right click your desktop > Click properties > Click Screen Saver > Power button > Change the Power Scheme to always on.

Does you run Win2000? 2000 needs the Speedstep driver, XP does not.

 

[postmortemIA]

Speedstep keeps CPU down if utilization is less than 80% on low frequency. Is that why you encouter that just with some games?

 

[bigshooter]

There should be a Dell utility called quickstep (or something like that) that works the same. Just set it for maximum performance and your screen won't dim and your processor will stay clocked as high as possible.

 

[imported_goku]

This thread is deja vous all over again... go to rightmark.org and downlaod RMCLOCK, I absolutely love this utility and would recommend it to everyone with a laptop.

 

[Ryan Norton]

So after a bit more time experimenting, I've decided that Speedstep is not causing the multi lowering -- at least, not Speedstep functioning to conserve power.

The multi only drops during 3D games -- the two I've tried somewhat extensively are Dawn of War (both full game and Dark Crusade demo) and Diablo II. This laptop has a Mobility 9000 VGA chipset instead of the Intel GMA950 one -- could it be that when the Radeon has to kick in, the laptop heats up so much that the CPU goes into thermal trouble range and declocks?

I'm completely unsure utilities will work with the i855GM chipset and accurately report CPU and VGA temps. Any advice there? Thanks again.

 

[ND40oz]

Get the Notebook Hardware Control app and use it. It used to be called Centrino Hardware Control, but they added more features to cover almost all notebooks. Set your laptop to maximum performance within the app and you'll be all set.