CPU core clock speak problem

[Jooyoung88]

Recently, my laptop has been slow. So I checked all components of my laptop with CPU-Z and it says that my core clock speed is at 1600 MHz. I have a T7700 core 2 duo centrino that is rated at a 2.4 GHz but it shows up as 1590 MHz on CPU-Z. What should I do to fix this problem?

[Justin_W@XoticPC]

Have you tried checking in the bios to see what your CPU's clock speed is listed as?

[Jooyoung88]

Yes I have. But the BIOS will not let me check any processor info. I thought it was clevo's way of making the customer not be able to over clock and I could not find a BIOS update.

[Justin_W@XoticPC]

The detailed specs for your CPU will be listed here (http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLA43). Are you running XP or Vista? What is windows listing the CPU clock speed at?

[Jooyoung88]

I have checked intel's website also. They rate the processor speed at 2.4 ghz and windows also rates it at 2.4 ghz. I am running windows xp.

[Jooyoung88]

I also just noticed that it is telling me there is a 8x multiplier but I believe (I'm not positive) that T7700 has a 12x multiplier.

[Zatara214]

I had this problem in my REALLY old Dell Inspiron 8600 one time. The processor was rated at 1400 Mhz and was being displayed at 800 (yeah that was fun). The only thing that I could solve it with was a fresh Windows installation. If you have a 'reset to default' option in your BIOS, try that, as I didn't have one in my Dell. Other than that, I believe it is a Windows problem.

To make sure it is, try booting into a Linux live CD and see if it still runs at the same speed. If it does, it's the BIOS, if not, it's Windows.

[Justin_W@XoticPC]

I don't think it's windows reporting the CPU speed incorrectly as he says windows also rates it at 2.4 ghz. It just sounds like CPU-Z isn't reporting the correct data. As for your computer running slow, that could be from numerous different things. Such as spyware, viruses, anti-virus program corruption, not enough memory, etc.....

I would first try as Zatara mentioned try booting into a Linux live CD and see if it still runs at the same speed. or else back up your data and try reloading windows.

[Woody]

Oh wow....all these posts.

I'm pretty sure this is normal.

Try leaving CPUz open then running a program in a window that will stress the CPU like Orthos. CPUz has a 5-10 second refresh time but you should see the CPU speed jump up along with the multiplier and the voltage. The CPU should automatically throttle down when not being stressed so what you are reading is the normal throttled setting of the CPU, not the maximum setting.

Ok checked....this is normal. This is exactly what the CPU should be doing since it has what Intel calls "Speedstep Technology." Normally the multiplier will be 8x giving you a CPU speed of 1600MHz actual which is why you see that in CPUz. When the demand calls for it the CPU will jump to 12x automatically and boost the voltage a little giving you a CPU speed of 2400MHz but you will only be able to observe that if the CPU is heavily loaded when CPUz refreshes.

On battery the CPU should stay at 1600MHz even when loaded to prolong battery life depending on how you have the power options set up in the control panel. I made another post about this to someone else a few minutes ago. If when plugged in and the CPU doesn't bump up when under load it's probably because the power option control panel is set to "power savings" instead of "plugged in." I recommend using the default power schemes and tweaking only things like display sleep time to suit your tastes.

NVidia graphics cards do exactly the same thing even on desktops. You can turn the feature off but there's no practical reason to do so unless you are experimenting with overclocking but it's designed to reduce heat, noise, and power usage.

In other words don't worry about it.

[Woody]

You think this is confusing wait until those Nehalem CPUs come out that automatically overclock one core at a time on demand. ;-)