Laptop Intel 1.6ghz Pentium M

[FnP]

Hi,
I'm not sure if this is the proper place to post this or not, but here goes.

I have a laptop with a 1.6ghz Pentium M and whenever i use WCpuID, or CPU-Z to get info on the processor, it always says its running at 600mhz (same results if the laptop is plugged into the power supply or not).

I'm guessing this is some kind of power saving feature, but what does cause the CPU to kick into 1.6ghz mode? Is there any way i can control it? Should i look for a specific feature in the bios?

Thanks!

[Sterculus]

Pentium M processors have the ability to change multipliers on the fly. I know my laptop, which has the 1.6ghz Pentium M, will alternate between 600mhz and 1.6ghz when on AC power, depending on the load the CPU is under. Try running something that will max out the CPU then checking for CPU speed. Depending on your laptop manufacturer there may also be some options in BIOS relating to this.

[Kendan]

Check under display properties ( right click desktop click properties) >> screensaver >> Power (which is on the bottom of the screensavers tab)

[stmok]

WCpuID, or CPU-Z may not correctly display the speed for Pentium-M. They will automatically pick up the low speed and display that (even if the CPU is running at full speed!).

Use the "Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility" (free, download from Intel website) to correctly confirm CPU speeds. It picks up both the low speed and max speed settings of P-M CPUs.

My notebook is an IBM R40 (Pentium-M 1.4Ghz) and I set it for 2 main power saving scenarios. "Super Power Saver" (which gives 4 hours+) and "Max speed" (which gives 2 hours+).

[jenko]

FnP when the cpu is not under load the cpu has its multiplier set to 6x100=600mhz and when the cpu is under load it will raise the multiplier to 16x100=1600mhz, to the best of my knowledge which aint great on notebooks i am very impressed with the pentium-M.

[ponkan pinoy]

Hey, talking about the Banias chips.... Does anyone know of a program that offers voltage/multiplier adjustments on them? Something like RMClock (http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml), but for the Banias/Dothan processors. I know that they're multiplier-locked upwards, but I'm more interested in undervolting mine, really, see how low I can get without losing too much performance.

[Lancelot]

If nothing under windows works it probably takes a BIOS-update. This was the case with my hp Pentium-M 1.6Ghz (Banias) laptop. After a BIOS update CPU-Z recognized things perfectly well...

[jenko]

How can you tell its a Banias?wouldnt a dothan go to 600mhz aswell?

[rock92884]

jenko,

both the banias and dothan will run at 600 mhz while idling, web browsing etc...

its called speedstep technology. Pentium M's use this to increase battery life in notebooks.

Hope this helps

[Albuquerque]

Hey, talking about the Banias chips.... Does anyone know of a program that offers voltage/multiplier adjustments on them? Something like RMClock (http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml), but for the Banias/Dothan processors. I know that they're multiplier-locked upwards, but I'm more interested in undervolting mine, really, see how low I can get without losing too much performance.
You want a tool called CPUMSR. Allows any of the downwardly-unlocked multipliers to be selected and basically any voltage too. I too have a 1.4ghz Thinkpad R50 that can be adjusted from from any multiplier from 6x to 14x and from like any voltage from 0.6v to like 1.3v or something similar.

You can also force-enable the CPU throttling as to save a little more power, but any more than about 50% and the system becomes noteably "jerky" to me.

[ponkan pinoy]

Just got it, thanks Albequerque. Probably take me a few days to get it optimized right, seems a good program to play around with, s'long as you're careful....