Intel Speed Step + Incorrect CPU settings

Question

:smileysad:   I have a Inspiron 6000 Pentium M @ 1.86GHz – While trying to play a CPU intensive game (Half life 2 – Episode 1) I noticed my laptop having stability issues.   Before I start – I was able to run ‘Half life 2’ without issue previously   I ran the ‘Steam Performance Test’ and found my CPU speed was at 797MHz instead of 1.86GHz.   I did some research and found that my laptop has ‘Intel Enhanced Speed Step technology’ which throttles down my CPU when not in use to save battery power.   I went into the BIOS and disabled ‘Intel Enhanced Speed Step’   I also went into the ‘Power Setting’ icon in ‘Windows XP’ control panel and set my laptop to ‘Always On’ – also disabling the ‘Hibernate’ function.   I rebooted my system and retested it with ‘Steam Performance Test’ – Which again said that my CPU speed was only 797MHz.   Thinking that perhaps 'Steam’s test' wasn’t accurate, I downloaded the ‘Intel Processor ID utility’ which also confirmed that my system was running at a reported 0.78 GHZ rather then the expected 1.86GHz.   This puzzles me because I’ve both disabled this feature in the BIOS and turned off all ‘power saver’ functions within Windows XP.   Because my system is always plugged in, I’d like to totally disable ‘Intel Enhanced Speed Step’ and return my CPU speed back to 1.86GHz.   Thanks in advance :smileyhappy:   FYI – I’ve updated all device drivers, installed the latest version of direct X , and my system is fully clean of any viruses or spy wear.

caatman · Answer

Thanks starbro,   I'll give it a try and see what happens.   I think it's kinda sad that I can't easily turn this feature off.   caatman

starbro · Answer

Disabling the SpeedStep in BIOS will default your max CPU speed to the lowest settings (in your case 800Mhz). So you should change this back to ENABLED.

Are you running the Dell QuickSet app? If not, run this and select the Maximum Performance QuickSet setting.

If that doesn't work, try an app called SpeedswitchXP. Latest version 1.51. It may or may not work for you. I tried it on my Inspirion 8500 P4M 2.0Ghz running Win XP SP2 and it wasn't able to change my CPU speed. My CPU is stuck at 1.2Ghz when the max should be 2.0Ghz.

esquire · Answer

There is an application that works:  Notebook Hardware Control, http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm

bretttucson · Answer

I went to http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm#anchor_download and installed on my Dell Inspiron 6000 and it worked. You have to have .NET framework 2.0 in order to install.

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