Inspiron 8200 spontaneous slowdown, expert thoughts wanted

Question

I've had this inspiron 8200 for a few years now and it's given me pretty good reliability and such, and I recently replaced the fan since the old one was dying and making a lot of noise. All was going well and happy until someone logged off MSN and the temperature spiked and the speedstep thing kicked in, slowing me to 1200mhz (from 1900mhz). I've had this happen before and it was never a big deal before...photoshop would load just a little slower but it didn't really hinder my ability to use the machine. This time, however, my computer started doing everything incredibly slowly. I closed all potentially offending programs and processes, cpu utilization was taken up by system idle processes, but the machine was still extremely slow in doing everything. Speedstep of course does not allow my computer to go back up to 1900mhz or the previous speed, so a reboot did. I did some registry cleaning, adware/spyware/virus checks, the works...and this phenomenon continued to occur. I realized it could be related to overheating of GPU/CPU but running a 'little' hot was never a problem (55-60C under load, now it gets to 65-70C under load but that's because of poor contact of heat sink and processor, soon to be remedied a bit by thermal compound I hope). Anyway I found that most of my normal use did not affect the 'top, it would run from 48-60C and the cpu utilization was not major and it'd stay nice and fast and responsive. Then in Firefox I would encounter the occasional webpage, and there must be a script or some kind of code in the page that messes with my cpu. Please see the following image: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~maro0049/slowdown2.jpg The first jump in CPU utilization was when following a link to a slashdot page, then the second jump was in following the slashdot link to another page. As you can see, the speedstep kicks in, the cpu utilization maxes out, and the fan kicks in high to cool it off. However, after closing firefox and the cpu utilization going back down, everything is still very slow, and even the most minor task takes up a significant part of the cpu usage (taskmgr takes 20-40% cpu when on in the foreground). I've reinstalled firefox and have tried some alternatives but this phenomenon keeps happening. I partially attribute it to overheating (probably why it happens on boot if I don't let it cool for a few seconds), but this is a SUDDEN occurrance. No major software changes, no major hardware changes, no viruses to blame, no spyware/adware/whatever. No RAM bottlenecking or HDD issues. I'm adding all this explanation because I don't need to be told to open taskmgr or process explorer to see what's using up cpu utilization...once this steps down with speedstep (ironically I set this to 'maximum performance' in bios and also turned speedstep off, and this phenomenon still seems to occur), everything gets slower and slower, even after all but essential system processes have been killed off. I've gone and reinstalled video drivers, cpu drivers, installed the supposed Dell fix for speedstep, none of which have resolved this issue. I've got some education and experience with computers and maintenance but this is a bit baffling to me. For side information... Inspiron 8200 P4 1.9ghz 512mb ram ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Windows XP SP2 (which has worked FINE for a long time) Processes typically running at occurrance of problem: System Idle Process Interrupts DPCs System smss.exe csrss.exe winlogon.exe services.exe ati2evxx.exe svchost.exe svchost.exe svchost.exe svchost.exe svchost.exe spoolsv.exe svchost.exe Tablet.exe wdfmgr.exe alg.exe svchost.exe Adobelmsvc.exe lsass.exe ati2evxx.exe explorer.exe msmsgs.exe I8kfanGUI.exe ctfmon.exe TabUserW.exe msnmsgr.exe gaim.exe firefox.exe (this is pretty extensive from process explorer, a bit more comprehensive than taskmgr) Any help would be appreciated... Robert. Message Edited by Tierdaen on 04-01-2006 05:35 PM

jocase · Answer

Sorry, I cannot help but am posting here so I will be notified when someone solves it.
You amount of detail is unusual. The problem is extremely interesting. Who will be the one to step up and solve it? Rick, where are you?

Tierdaen · Answer

Still no thoughts from anyone...hmm...

OK well an insight. I've tried using speedswitch XP to override the speedstep change. No luck. It seems that the speedstep jump is a hardware one and cannot be controlled via software, which explains why it does not return to normal until a reboot and why speedswitch xp normally states the max cpu speed is 1897mhz even when speedstep is disabled and the machine runs at 1195mhz or so, UNTIL the hardware switch, where the MAX cpu speed changes to 1190 or so and cannot be changed.

It has been happening around 60-62C now, so I don't think it's just a result of overheating, but rather some script running somewhere to mess with the processor. Still no spyware/adware/viruses found, no major file problems. Driver and settings rollbacks have been unsuccessful too. I am about to do a wipe/reformat and hope for the best, but am worried that this is a hardware issue and cannot be resolved through software (though it doesn't seem random enough to be JUST hardware).

The machine isn't under warranty and I'm not about to pay a lot of money to send it to Dell. Just isn't gonna happen, but it'd be nice to know what the heck is going on with this thing.

It'd be nice if there was a jumper on the Mobo that I could use to disable speedstep, because BIOS disabling does not work.

hgd · Answer

I have the exact same issue going on with my Dell Inspiron 8200. I have replaced the CPU heatsink and the CPU. I have used silver thermal compound between the heat sink and the CPU. Each tiime I try something, the comuter seems to run fine for a few hours, maybe a day, then it kicks back into the slow mode: fans running full speed and very slow performance.

Is there a special heat sink compound required for this CPU and heat sink combination?

I hate to through the computer away for this issue.

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