Processor speed problems

Question

I've been having a few problems with my Inspiron 5150 over the past few weeks. Its a p4 3.06ghz, with 512mb ram and a 60gb hd, and an nvidia geforce gofx5200. When I play games, such as Halo, which used to run fine, I experience massive slowdown. Thinking it may have been the graphics card, I've spent ages trying to ge the best performance from it, but regardless of settings, the performance hasn't improved. I've been running a processor speed observing program, and have noticed that everytime I do anything that will push the system at all, the clock speed drops from 3.06 to 1.59ghz. The graph shows the speed to going up and down all the time, indicating why a game runs fine and then stops momentarily. Is there anything I can do to lock the processor speed on full? And does it seem like my processor is dying? Any suggestions? Thanks

spiked_martini · Answer

Try running a forum search on 'speedstep'... that should answer your questions.

lukekarts · Answer

Judging by what that implies, my processor doesn't need to be used - but it blatently does as whenever the clock speed decreases everything slows down. Is there any way of getting around this?

cobra_2004 · Answer

I agree with RRule. I have the same system as you. When I play the latest Counter-strike games (Source beta, etc.) if used to slow down. I changed the setting to always on and it went away. It's caused by the processor changing speeds, it lags the system for the second. Also, check the temperature your system is running at, mine NEVER goes above 60 degrees C. You might be on the verge of an overheat. The dust problem on these machines is well documented. You can use the fourm search to find how to get some of the dust out. Hope that helps.

RRules · Answer

Single click the battery/ac plug icon on the windows taskbar. Select always on in the menu that pops up. This will force it to run at 3.06GHz all the time.

HMKrieps · Answer

Definately sound like CPU overheating. Follow cobra_2004's recommendation and search the forum for "5150 overheating".
A simple air blow (even with your mouth) in the rear vents can already help a lot. You will see dust come out.

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Processor speed problems

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