reports wrong CPU speed??

[jsantang]

Greetings All,

Is it possible for the BIOS to report the wrong CPU speed? I have a 600X 2645-5FU that i got last year on eBay. The BIOS reports a PIII 650, as the IBM site says is correct for this machine. But all the CPU detection programs say it is a PIII 500. Which could be right? Could the BIOS be wrong? How can i be sure, short of taking apart the machine and reading the numbers off the chip?

Thanks

[GomJabbar]

I don't know all the particulars, but if you do a search on this forum for "600x speedstep" without quotes, and choose to "Search for all terms", I believe you will find what you are looking for.

[pkiff]

If the BIOS reports it as a PIII 650MHz, then I think you are safe to believe that it is exactly that. When you say "all the CPU detection programs say it is a PIII 500", I'm not sure what you mean by "all". Have you tried the Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility?

Which OS are you running? Many people find that XP is particularly agressive about turning down the CPU speed through SpeedStep, and internally, XP does not always report the CPU speed correctly.

Phil.

[serverbook]

IN XP ,one must change the driver and select processor instead and set power managment to high system performance and must have working battery for max speed to be attained.
that being said on cold boot there will be a hang on psu mode
just use fn+8 and the system will boot clean to desktop .
**still working out hang issue with max speed.
i beleive ibm +or microsoft havn't corrected the hang issue on 600x
full speed mode yet ,nor are likely to go out of their way to help
anyone(including myself)with their version of out dated equipment.
there fore any contributions from any software/hware engineer
or end user will be appreciated indeed.

[pkiff]

IN XP ,one must change the driver and select processor instead and set power managment to high system performance and must have working battery for max speed to be attained.

The original poster has a ThinkPad 600X that came with a PIII 650MHz SpeedStep processor originally. There should be no need to adjust the XP driver for the CPU to work correctly on their machine.

Some people have reported that with non-OEM batteries, their 600X machines will not skip up to maximum speed when they should. I am not sure if this has been properly tested, and have not been able to confirm this with my own 600X.

Many people report that XP does not display correct information about the speed of their CPU. I was under the impression that this was due to a flaw in the way XP reports that information internally, and that is why a 3rd party CPU speed identifier can be useful.

Many people report that when running ANY SpeedStep laptop under XP, they have difficulty getting their CPU to jump up to maximum speed -- hence the SpeedSwitch applet. My impression is that this is an intentional "feature" of XP, which is very aggressive about saving power and tends to use the lower speed unless it is really, really necessary.

In any case, I wouldn't recommend forcing a change to the processor driver that is installed by default with XP. I am (sometimes) running at the full 850MHz on my PIII 850MHz SpeedStep 600X and it seems to be dynamically changing speeds the way it should without freezing and without changing the processor driver.

(Of course, we still don't know which OS the original poster is using, so this discussion may be moot.)

Phil.

[Laptop_wizard]

The machine also could have been modified befor you got it.

[AlphaKilo470]

No, the machine is running fine. The person mentions his laptop as having a 650mhz PIII SpeedStep CPU and all SpeedStep PIII CPUs will dodge speed settings depending on usage and power. Ususally, they will run at full speed on AC power and/or under a high CPU load and 150mhz below top speed when running off battery and/or idle. You can download the SpeedStep app from Lenovo's support site if you want to change this and disable the SpeedStep system but I find that ususally, in most cases, that 150mhz makes much less difference than what some might expect.

[dr_st]

Try to load CPU-Z, then run a CPU-intensive application (like SuperPI) and see whether the speed jumps to 650MHz.

[Laptop_wizard]

I also know that some CPU's have 2 or 3 speed options, that can be changed from the BIOS, or a Program.

[serverbook]

with 650 cpus (earlier errata /beaut in win2k+below)you must change the driver in xp pro.even with geniune ibm battery.unless you remove the battery then it runs just low speed (always no matter what).conversely
800/850 are the latest mmc2 cpu specs ,so it bears to reason that they have the latest errata that win xp pro can correctly identify in the first place. ah ha gonna i'm gonna buy an 800/850 cpu now
not all speedstep cpus are the same (errata)
by switching the driver on a 650 machine and rebooting effectively detects as a pentium 3 cpu anyway,and runs perfectly.by reverting back to the original gives the same lock up error.natrually if xp loads the correct driver in the first place ,then great but if it doesn't?
get an 800/850cpu or change the driver(short n sweet).
irrespective of driver one doesn't need spedstep applet(as i found out later) to change cpus speeds with xp power managment features.
speedstep applet is no problem either.

[pkiff]

I've posted results of my testing and research of 600X's with upgraded CPUs in the thread:
SpeedStep Issues with XP on 600X Upgraded to PIII 850MHz

To serverbook:
Note in particular that my experiences achieving maximum speed with PIII 650MHz and 750MHz under Windows XP SP2 are different than yours. I wonder if your 600X began life with the PIII 650MHz SpeedStep CPU? If not, then perhaps that explains some of the errors or other issues in achieving maximum speed?

To jsantang:
To achieve maximum speed with a 600X with an original PIII 650MHz installed, I would recommend:
- use only an original IBM battery
- make sure you have your laptop plugged in to an outlet
- set your Power Scheme to "Always On"
- reboot
And that should do it.

Phil.