Laptop CPU Frequency, Changing itself.

[smithmr8]

Hi,
I have an Acer 5536744G.

RM-74 (2.2ghz)
4GB Ram

Ever since I first got it, I felt it was slow for the specification. Much slower than a previous laptop with a third of the power.

Opened up coretemp, and it seems the frequency of the CPU changes.

You can see what I mean via the two screen captures below.





Any idea why it might be doing this ? Would make sense of the appauling performance.

It is insured, so if its a technical issue, will go and get it repaired / replaced.

Cheers.

[smithmr8]

Also, that load% is just me using Chrome. Nothing else is running. :/

[smithmr8]

Screenshot from CPU-z, showing the clock speed at 500mhz..

[watercooled]

It's normal for the clock speed to throttle down when the CPU isn't loaded. It saves power and lets the CPU run cooler, it will have no impact on performance. Intel call it Speedstep, AMD call it Cool n Quiet.

[Domestic_Ginger]

It is probaly power saving options. Is there a difference between AC and battery?

Check in windows at the power saving options.

It may be hardware downclocking itself under light load. CnQ on the AMD desktops but I'm not very good with portables. The muliplier going so low would lead me to believe this is whats happening. Can you stress it a little and then check the numbers?

[smithmr8]

I did some googling, and came to the same conclusion. Once I start running more applications, it returns to top clock speed.

Any idea why the CPU load gets so high ? When all I'm running is an internet browser and AVG Free. Always baffled me.

[DDY]

Head to the task manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) or type taskmgr on the start menu. Click on the processes tab and then "Show processes from all users". Arrange the images by "CPU" and have a look at what's taking up the CPU load percentage.

On another note, I find the majority of laptops are sluggish due to slow hard drives, is the HDD activity light flashing when you notice poor performance?

[Domestic_Ginger]

MSCONFIG is the next step carrying on from DDY. You can stop all the rubbish loading at startup and turn some services off (wrt services In XP its advisable, not sure on vista and no one seems to think it makes any difference in W7).

A clean install is lways the way to go imo. Partition for OS programs and storage and then you're away! I need to do the wifes at some point.....

[watercooled]

Also some laptop MFRs are very bad for installing tons of crapware on your system, slowing it right down before you even open the box. Ideally you could install a fresh retail copy of Windows or go about removing the crapware but it's often dug well in to the system so can take some time to remove.

[[GSV]Trig]

MSCONFIG is the next step carrying on from DDY. You can stop all the rubbish loading at startup and turn some services off (wrt services In XP its advisable, not sure on vista and no one seems to think it makes any difference in W7).

A clean install is lways the way to go imo. Partition for OS programs and storage and then you're away! I need to do the wifes at some point.....

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH MSCONFIG.
While a good suggestion in general, for someone not to know why the CPU is changing clock frequencies suggesting that sort of system tool without excplicit instructions is a short way to get them an unusable system...

If your running Win7 look at the toolbar near the clock, there should be a battery icon, click that and see what performance opion is it set to and if actuall needed change it to "performance" and see how the system responds..

[watercooled]

Doesn't the performance option just suck more power and disable the standby/screen off/CPU throttling options without actually increasing performance though? That's all it looks like it does to me but I could be wrong.

[Rob_B]

Well yes, but that's the idea really. No waiting for it to throttle up will be a noticeable 'performance' enhancement for most people.

[watercooled]

Throttling up only takes a few CPU cycles. I mean it might have a different effect depending on the system so it's not something I could argue about really.

[[GSV]Trig]

Depends on the system, my N220 for instance is really bloody slow (even for a netbook) when its on the "Samsung Optimized" setting when its unplugged it's set for max battery life but at the cost of performance...
I tend to just leave most machines on "Balanced" but on a few set them so that they dont goto sleep for remote access reasons.

[jim]

Some of them set a maximum CPU usage of 50% or whatever to save power and don't necessarily disable it properly on AC - I think Zak had trouble with that before.