clariyfing cpu speed

[pcourterelle]

hi...using a Dell Inspiron 8600 with Intel Pentium M processor rated at 1.8Ghz...1 gig of DDR1 Ram (333 Mhz)...Windows XP Pro SP3...

Although the processor is rated at 1,8Ghz system info says processor speed is only 598Mhz.

Is this the top speed of this processor?

Power settings are currently set to Always On and the laptop is plugged into AC.

thanks

pc

[KaiHallarn111]

It could be possible that your CPU is overheating, and that is causing it to throttle. Does it run at this speed after a while or does it run like this from the start

[Aaron_8015]

Run a program and check the speed while it loads up... Chances are power saving/speedstep is enabled which will lower the CPU multiplyer and v-core making it run at a slower speed. It should go back to normal whenever you put load on it.

[pcourterelle]

Thanks for the replies...

The speed remains the same from start up to shut down and doesn't vary when applications are launched...I've booted six separate applications including Outlook, Word, Excel, Firefox, and a few more....

I was worried about overheating as the btm of the laptop became quite hot. I purchased a notebook cooling pad/fan that the computer sits on.

Could the overheating have damaged the processor permanently?

[pcourterelle]

I installed speedswitch earlier this afternoon....even when CPU load maxes out to 100% the cpu speed remains stuck at 598Mhz rather than bumping up....

[pcourterelle]

Ok...figured it out....in BIOS the speedstep function had been disabled which limited the CPU to its slowest speed. I recently had my laptop in for service and recall the tech mentioning this...which is why I went back to check. I recall telling him that the cpu was maxing out on start up and remaining maxed out for 10-20 min...he double checked the speedstep and must have made the change there...not 100% why...

Anyway, I turned the speedstep function back on and max speed is back to 1.8Ghz...currently throttling correcting as demands change.

thanks to all