Rescued a Pentium D 945 system from the dumpster. Never seen such a filty system before as the dirt on the cpu fan & heatsink was actually solid. After cleaning everything out, I now have a system that works fine except the 945 uses too much power & runs too hot.
Right now, SpeedStep is set in the BIOS for minimum which means the 945 will run at 2.4ghz instead of 3.4ghz. Of course, the system is much cooler. I read that you can disable a core within Windows. Does disabling the core affect the power usage & temperature much? Would I even notice a speed difference with only one core?
The computer will be hooked up to a tv and only used to view websites and maybe watch some streaming content. Should I stay with SpeedStep, disable one core, or even do both? I would prefer not adding more fans or purchasing another processor.
Right now, SpeedStep is set in the BIOS for minimum which means the 945 will run at 2.4ghz instead of 3.4ghz. Of course, the system is much cooler. I read that you can disable a core within Windows. Does disabling the core affect the power usage & temperature much? Would I even notice a speed difference with only one core?
The computer will be hooked up to a tv and only used to view websites and maybe watch some streaming content. Should I stay with SpeedStep, disable one core, or even do both? I would prefer not adding more fans or purchasing another processor.