Pentium M 1.6 Laptop CPU scaling down?

[gramboh]

Hi there,

I use a Compaq nc6220 laptop for work which has a Pentium M 1.6GHz and 512mb memory using XP Pro. Performance is often very sluggish using MS Office 2003 apps, IE 6.0 etc. at first I blamed our corporate install of Mcaffe for hogging CPU/RAM but then I noticed something weird.

When I go into control panel/system it shows the CPU as a Pentium M 1.6 but below that the speed is listed sometimes at 400MHz, 800MHz, basically speeds below 1600. This is while on AC power.

Is the CPU scaling back to reduce heat/power consumption? I notice the fan is usually off, it only spins up if I am doing a lot of stuff. I can't find any setting in control panel to force full speed, is there one? I want full speed at all times during AC power and scaling during battery.

Thanks for any tips.

 

[gramboh]

A bit more info, decided to run CPU-Z and got:

Intel Pentium M 730 (Dothan 90nm)
0.988v
L2 cache: 2meg (didn't know this, not bad)
FSB: 133MHz, bus speed 533MHz (hmm? weird)

CPU-Z reports CPU at 800MHz as I type this (on AC power again), seems to scale up to 1600MHz if I open/close IE windows or Office apps. Is this just the way Dothan CPUs work?

 

[Brainonska511]

You have to go into your power settings (screen saver tab in the Display Properties). Set the power setting to Home/Home Office and your processor should stick to full speed. It wasn't like the processor was sticking to the lowest multiplier on AC power, it was just clocking back when it wasn't needed to save power and heat output.

 

[Marmion]

Completely normal for the cpu to clock down when its not being utilised. The FSB 133 is quad pumped to get 533, so thats normal.
In the BIOS in HP notebooks (well, at least my nx8220), you can go to advanced menu and disable Enhanced Speedstep, and this will force the cpu to run at 100% all the time.

You can also download Notebook Hardware Control, which will alow you to choose the cpu to go full speed whilst on AC power, or 'dynamic switching' adjusting speed based on load (as speedstep does, but you can determine the load), and whilst on battery you can keep it pegged at the lowest speed, saving battery life, or again, dynamic switching or full speed.
You can also adjust voltages (ie undervolt, save more battery life), adjust noise and performance of Hard Disk and check temps, monitor battery drain etc. Quite a usefull application imho

 

[ai42]

Go download notebook hardware control you can setup several power profiles etc and control the stepping to you liking.

 

[Hyperlite]

just as a note, don't try using notebook hardware control on a core duo lappy, max vcore supported by the program is like 1.3, 2ghz duo requires 1.4, and it wouldn't clock up to 2ghz. i thought this strange because it detected the T2500 2ghz duo just fine, but doesn't really seem to support it...

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: Hyperlite
just as a note, don't try using notebook hardware control on a core duo lappy, max vcore supported by the program is like 1.3, 2ghz duo requires 1.4, and it wouldn't clock up to 2ghz. i thought this strange because it detected the T2500 2ghz duo just fine, but doesn't really seem to support it...

Thanks for the advice. For the OP: add RAM. The SpeedStep stuff is not what's making your machine sluggish.

 

[gramboh]

Thanks guys. I ended up using SpeedswitchXP which is working fine forcing it to 1600MHz. It has improved performance a bit but not as much as hoped. Going to try to get the IT department to give me another 512meg. That Notebook Hardware Control program sounds interesting I will give it a shot as well.