My 700m has a 1.6Ghz processor in it.  It is only 1 week old.  If I click on start, control panel, system is usually shows ~598Mhz whether it is running on AC or DC.  If I plug in the AC though and remove battery and shut it down and restart it I can get it to show 1.59Ghz.  I reinstall battery, max processor out at 100% and the reading is still ~598Mhz.  Odd....  So - I downloaded and istalled the XP SP2 patch from Dell - no difference.  I downloaded and installed SpeedSwitch XP and that allows you to see real time what your processor is running at and that seems like it is working correctly - I can see the processor increasing in speed as necessary, even to the max 1.59Ghz.  Is this program trustworthy, meaning that is it reporting true info.  Dell offered to have me send it in to replace the processor and motherboard but eveything else is great - the mouse keys are even correct!!  If I click on start, accessories, system tools and system information the processor shows up at ~598Mhz on battery but at ~1.59Ghz on AC and according to Microsoft and Dell that is correct.

 

Any help from someone with a 700m or at least a more solid background in the "speedstep world" and XP- I'd really appreciate it.  I hate to replace this if it's working right.  My battery live's are as stated for the 4 and 8 cell.  I've seen may article where windows xp reports the speed of the CPU incorrectly. 

 

Thanks all...

 

orion6192