Processor speed changed?

Question

I have a Dell C400 with Windows XP professional and 512 MB of RAM installed. I use it to play games a lot. Recently it had been overheating and shutting down on its own a lot, so I opened the casing to investigate the fan. Sure enough it was very dusty and there was a big dust curl clogging it. I cleaned it out, but the casing back together, and started the laptop up. Things were very slow to start up, so I figured I might have bumped my RAM card out of its seat and would have to reseat it. I looked in the system properties window, and there was still 512 MB of RAM, but my processor speed had gone from 1.5 GHz to 732 MHz. Obviously this could have been caused by me damaging the laptop when I opened the casing, but I was extremely careful when doing it, and think that it might be caused by something else. I hope so at least!

Does anyone have any suggestions for things I could try to resolve this issue? I would greatly appreciate it!

shaglund1 · Answer

plug it in and see if that changes your processor back to full speed.

shaglund1 · Answer

could have just been speedstep clocking down your processor when on battary power.

Psycho Robot · Answer

So how could I fix it to get it back to 1.2 GHz?

shaglund1 · Answer

is it on the 'maximum performance' power scheme with dells quickset?

Psycho Robot · Answer

It's already plugged in, and I checked the battery settings: it says that it knows its plugged in.

shaglund1 · Answer

if you have a program that refreshes your cpu speed constantly (like cpuid) try opening a program and watch if it goes back to 1.2GHz then back down to the slower speed. this will happen as fast as it takes to open the program so keep the cpuid window open where you can see it.

i am hoping that is is speedstep and not your cpu, but im pretty sure it is just speedstep. if you want, you can go into BIOS and disable it, but this will kill your battery faster and make the processor run a little hotter.

Psycho Robot · Answer

The user's Dell C400 laptop was overheating and shutting down frequently. After cleaning the fan and putting the casing back together, the laptop started up slowly and the processor speed had decreased from 1.5 GHz to 732 MHz. The user is unsure if this was caused by the cleaning or something else. They are seeking suggestions to resolve the issue.

shaglund1 · Answer

what about under the control pannel in power management?

Psycho Robot · Answer

The user has a Dell C400 laptop with Windows XP professional and 512 MB of RAM. After cleaning the fan due to overheating issues, the laptop started up slowly and the processor speed decreased from 1.5 GHz to 732 MHz. The user is unsure if this is caused by the cleaning or something else. They are seeking suggestions to resolve the issue.

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi Open a lot of programs like IE and some of the other software you have to put a heavy load on it then open cpuz and see if it is running at the faster speed !

Psycho Robot · Answer

The user's Dell C400 laptop was overheating and shutting down frequently. After cleaning the fan, they noticed that the processor speed had decreased from 1.5 GHz to 732 MHz. They suspect that something else might be causing the issue and are seeking suggestions to resolve it.

Psycho Robot · Answer

I looked around the BIOS for the C400 and I found an option that said 'CPU on AC' and set it to 'Maximum Performance'. There's no noticable difference. I did see, however, that the BIOS said I still had 1.2 GHz, whereas the system properties window still says I have the lower number.

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi

Your CPU is working like it should when you

do not put a load on the CPU it will go to the lower speed

if you put a heavy load on it will speed up

to the higher speeds !

It is normal if your computer is doing that !!

Bit if it never gets over 732 mhz there may well be a problem with

it , if you see it change speeds from 732 to 1.5 it working right!

Good Luck

shaglund1 · Answer

that should be in bios again... under power management or cpu

if you did knock out a ram chip that would slow down the system aswell... try to reseat both of the ram chips...

Message Edited by shaglund1 on 07-27-2008 05:16 PM

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Processor speed changed?

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