CPU Speed

[Pythagoras]

What is the deal with thissee Picture)

My cpu speed is 2 GHz. What is the number below it? Is that that actual speed its running at? This number was at 442 MHz this morning????

[thegreatone]

Yes, thats correct its the actual speed its running at.
With the Pentium M series it runs at lower speeds when needed to save power, i assume this is a laptop ?

[Pythagoras]

Yes it is a laptop. So its speed does increase when needed?

[thegreatone]

Yes its speed does increase as needed.

[penagate]

The Pentium M, much like mobile AMD Athlons, uses SpeedStep (AMD has a different name for it) which means that the clock speed is adjusted to balance the load. As load increases, the clock speed is increased; when the CPU is idling, the clock speed is decreased. This is for two reasons, 1 to save power, and 2 to reduce the heat output - both are critical on a laptop platform.

If you want to see this for yourself, fire up a game or a CPU benchmark, run it for a few minutes, and then quit and look at the System Properties display again.

Also, this is a reason why CPU benchmarks on mobile platforms are usually run multiple times and the first result excluded, in order to obtain a result for a stable clock speed.

[dglienna]

My laptop has a Pentium(R) @ 2.666
2.666 RAM
It doesn't change.

[penagate]

I would hope your RAM amount didn't change, but you probably have a non-mobile Pentium model (i.e. a desktop chip). Those in laptops are fairly common.

[dglienna]

It's an HP Pavillion ze5400. Great little machine, except that I may have broken the PCMIA slot. Can't plug in a card for some reason. I did drop it once. Hope that didn't break it. I'll have to take it apart to find out any other damage.

[Raedwulf]

It's an HP Pavillion ze5400. Great little machine, except that I may have broken the PCMIA slot. Can't plug in a card for some reason. I did drop it once. Hope that didn't break it. I'll have to take it apart to find out any other damage.

OUCH!!!

[VBdynamic]

Also if its running on battery, it won't run as fast as it would when its plugged in.

[RobDog888]

My laptop has a Pentium(R) @ 2.666
2.666 RAM
It doesn't change.

Look at the Pentium4 logo sticker on your laptop and see if it has the little "m" on it. If not then its not a mobile type processor.

[thegreatone]

The Pentium M, much like mobile AMD Athlons, uses SpeedStep (AMD has a different name for it) which means that the clock speed is adjusted to balance the load. As load increases, the clock speed is increased; when the CPU is idling, the clock speed is decreased. This is for two reasons, 1 to save power, and 2 to reduce the heat output - both are critical on a laptop platform.

If you want to see this for yourself, fire up a game or a CPU benchmark, run it for a few minutes, and then quit and look at the System Properties display again.

Also, this is a reason why CPU benchmarks on mobile platforms are usually run multiple times and the first result excluded, in order to obtain a result for a stable clock speed.

I believe this is called Cool&Quiet.

[dark_shadow]

It's an HP Pavillion ze5400. Great little machine, except that I may have broken the PCMIA slot. Can't plug in a card for some reason. I did drop it once. Hope that didn't break it. I'll have to take it apart to find out any other damage.

you dropped it?!? how did you manage somthing like that?

[dglienna]

I have a case that has 2 zippers on it, and one of them wasn't closed. I found out the hard way that the laptop could slip out. It only fell a few inches, onto the bench that the case was on. I noticed a slight separation at the right side, in front of the wifi switch, and thought everything was fine, until I tried to plug a pcmia card into it.

Come to think of it, I don't know if I ever have plugged anything into this laptop!
The slot is on the left side, and that isn't where it landed.

My Pentiium Tag is so worn out that I can't make out if there is an M there or not. I can barely see the logo, and the word Pentiium is in a blue section, and the 4 is in an orange section, if that helps. I've never seen Pentium M anywhere in system properties.

[dark_shadow]

lol that must suck i take the utter most care of my computer stuff

[dglienna]

That was about 6 months ago. I forgot all about it until last week when I wanted to test a PCMIA card for a client to see if it worked.