Underclocking

[aamckay]

I have a 3 year old Fujitsu-Siemens laptop with a mobile athlon 3700+ and it runs at a fairly constant 90C when it's idle. If I try to do anything at all on it the temp shoot's up and it turns itself off with no warning. If I run it on the battery the CPU clock drops to 800Mz instead of 2400MHz it then runs at 45C. Is there any way to force it to run at the slower speed all the time as I don't really need the speed as the computer is only used on the internet and play media files. I have set the power mode in Windows XP to "Max Batery" as I was told this would help and it did a bit but not much. I have also taken the CPU cooler out and made sure it is clean and that the fan runs good, and have replaced the thermal paste.

ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Cogman]

90C! Thats crazy high temperatures! Is your fan broken? For a laptop I doubt there will be any overclocking options at all, you are pretty much stuck with what you have. If it wasn't a laptop then you could probably adjust the speed down to a reasonable level and turn off cool-and-quiet to avoid crashes.

 

[aamckay]

Mobile athlon CPU's are rated for 95C according to AMD and as I have said the fan works great pushing out very hot air but it's not enough to cool it. running on battery is the only thing that keeeps it cool enough to work. I'm fortunate enough that the battery still has enough life to give me nearly 2H per charge.

 

[magreen]

Maybe clockgen. Allows u to OC your chip from software inside windows. All depends if your mobo/chipset has a clockgen profile written and tested for it. Search for it on google and in the forums here.

 

[TridenT]

It shouldn't be running at 90C, ever. 70C is max any CPU should hit.

 

[A Hitman]

my cpu in my acer laptop was running at 90C too. I fixed this by replacing the thermal grease between the cpu and the heatsink. It now is at 70C and it runs faster as it no longer slows down the cpu.

 

[AVP]

What kind of surface is your laptop sitting on? Also what program are you using to monitor the temps? You could maybe try to download SpeedFan to set up some temperature parameters for your fans in the laptop. Sounds toasty, good luck!

 

[edplayer]

Sorry, didn't read all of your first post

Has it been that way since it was new?

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: TridenTBoy3555
It shouldn't be running at 90C, ever. 70C is max any CPU should hit.

Um, again, this is a mobile Athlon, and they do frequently run in the 70's. 90 is way excessive @ idle, though.

OP, can you get a reading on the CPU voltage? Perhaps it's over-volting...

 

[aamckay]

To answer all the questions...

It's always been hot running but it hasn't been a problem till last week.

I installed speedfan a few days ago to monitor the system temp but it did not find the fan controller, speed sensor or voltage sensor.

I have a utility supplied by AMD to monitor CPU speed and voltage and it's running at 0.95V.

It's only running at 0.95V when clocking at 800MHz, when running at 2400MHZ it's at 1.35V

When the CPU runs at 800MHz it sits at 40-45C (the fan kicks in at 45 and stops when back down to 40) and when it runs at 2400MHz it sits around 90C, there appears to be nothing in between.

I have already replaced the thermal grease and blown all the dirt from the heatsink.

Normally it just sits on my desk but occasionally I use it on my lap and that only makes it run hotter.

The laptop frequently won't even startup fully into windows unless I start it on the battery and plug it in when the battery runs low.

I have just installed coretemp and it is always 1C lower than speedfan on the CPU temp.

I am looking for a windows utility that will let me lock the CPU at 800MHz (200x4 according to coretemp) or is there any way to make windows believe it's always in battery mode?

All your advice and suggestions are appreciated.

Andy

 

[VirtualLarry]

See if you can force power states with RMclock.

 

[deamer44]

put a hoover over the fan hole, there's probably loads of dust collected. This is what happened to my laptop.

 

[aatf510]

SpeedswitchXP

I am 100% it'll allow you locked your CPU speed @ battery mode speed.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: TridenTBoy3555
It shouldn't be running at 90C, ever. 70C is max any CPU should hit.

ORLY? You know this better than the engineers who designed them?

aamckay, use some compressed air to blow out the vents and fan to see if that helps. Also, if it is primarily used on a desk, perhaps use one of those fan cooling pads.

 

[aamckay]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
See if you can force power states with RMclock.

I have downloaded RMClock and once I figured out how to set it up it does exactly what I needed to do.

To all who suggested cleaning the fan/heatsink/vents, I have access to an industrial compressor at work and that was the first thing I tried, but thank you for your suggestions.

The CPU is now running at 1/4 of it's maximum speed and at the lowest allowed voltage and it's now stable.

It's entirely possible that the years of running at high temp has finally overcooked the CPU, but this will do until I can find a suitable replacement.

PS.. anybody know where to find a replacement S754 Mobile CPU?