CPU not operating at full potential?

[MadMax08]

Hey all,

about a year ago I bought a Compaq laptop for my mom for mother's day. recently, it's been VERY slow. i took a look at the specs of it and it says the cpu is only operating at around 765mhz. I'm pretty sure that when i purchased it, it was a 1.6 or 1.8ghz processor. (AMD Sempron™ Processor 3000+)

any ideas on what would do this?

[Hagar]

Seem to remember that there can be a BIOS setting for the FSB that defaults to 200 MHz, when it should be 400.

[MadMax08]

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b196/maxharlan/sysprop.jpg

i checked the bios settings; it shows its a 1.79GHz. This come up in the Sytem Properties, at different times, is shows both speeds.

[classicsoftware]

I think you need to check your power settings. When running on battery power, the system slows the CPU to prolong battery life.

My Acer runs the CPU at 100% on AC power and about 5% on battery power.

[MadMax08]

ah, i had forgotten about that, classicsoftware. now, it shows this with the battery charged, and on AC power. do you think it would make a difference if i removed the battery and just ran on AC power?

[classicsoftware]

I think you need to go into the power settings and make the adjustment when needed based on how long you need the battery to last. If you are on a sixs hour flight, keep power consumption down and extend battery life. If you need it to perform at full power for one hour while on battery, juice up the CPU. You should be able to change the settings on your own.

[jlreich]

Whenever I get a laptop the first thing I do is turn off the CPU throttling. Unless you are like Classic says on a 6 hour flight or some other reason you really want the battery to last it just annoys me. I want my CPU to run full speed at all times. ;) :p

There is nothing worse than having a decent system only to have a web browser take ten seconds to come up. If the CPU would actually come up to full speed instantly I would use it to save energy. But that doesn't happen.

[MadMax08]

here's another interesting find:

i downloaded CPU-Z to monitor my cpu info....when i open cpu-z, it shows the core speed at 797.9MHz. when i open the system info, is jumps to 1789.9MHz (1.79GHz) then back to the 797.9MHz....

EDIT: duh. i just realized that that's what its supposed to do. obviously when you are opening applications, you will be using more of your processor...