A31 Fixed slow cpu clock problem

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j.welter · #1 Post by **j.welter** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:04 pm

Hello from a forum newbie!

First of all I am overwhelmed to see that there are still so many A31 people out there! Yeah!

I have a 1.8Ghz 2652-M5G machine which I do not use that often.
I upgraded my Virusscanner on it and noticed that working with my TP is very slow. Investigating the reason I noticed that it is running at 1.2GHz and wont go up.

So I had it for repair some 2 years ago, and reinstalled from scratch some while ago too. So first guess was some driver issue, bios and so on. I tried to install NHC, various powermanagement drivers and played around in the BIOS.

No chance. NHC says external clock 1199MHZ. Clocking down is no problem.

From another threat I learned about the Intel ident utility which says something wrong because of the 1.2Ghz.

Bios and Windows System says 1.8Ghz Pentium 4M like it should be.

So does anybody have an idea???

I read about battery issues for bios upgrade. Mine is totally out of order. So could it be that?

Thanks in advance!
Juergen

Argonaught · #2 Post by **Argonaught** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:39 pm

I'm new here too I have an A30 that I've used daily for 3 years....
In the CMOS there's a section that you can use to change the CPU speed, check that its set to MAXIMUM..

Hope that this helps

Regards

Byron

ajkula66 · #3 Post by **ajkula66** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:35 pm

Welcome to the forum, first and foremost!

Have you tried this?

www.diefer.de (Speedswitch XP)

I have it on my A31p and it runs like a charm.

Let us know.

j.welter · #4 Post by **j.welter** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:37 pm

thanks for these hints, but I had it at maximum in the BIOS.

I uninstalled Notebook Hardware Control and installed SpeedSwitch, but 1.2 GHz is the max it can do for me...

Can anybody please take out his/her battery just to see, if it is a problem of my dead battery?

To the people who upgraded their cpu: Are there jumpers/dips on the mainboard for the frequency or is it adjusted automatically.

Thx!
Juergen

ajkula66 · #5 Post by **ajkula66** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:03 pm

The problem is NOT your battery. If anything, it would run at maximum all the time.

Try borrowing a "live" Linux CD and booting from it, and see what happens. You might be able to get it to work at full force there.

Or try running Photoshop along with three other programs, something to really push the CPU to its limits.

If the CPU has been the only thing replaced, this should have no bearing on the matter at all, mobo will work or it won't, and yours obviously does.

Good luck and let us know.

virge · #6 Post by **virge** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 11:16 am

I am an A31 newbie so I hate to contradict A31 guru ajkula66

.

My A31 acts like yours. It ran at 1.2ghz even when plugged in when it had a dead battery. I was never able to get it up to full speed until I got a new battery. With a working battery it now runs at 1.6ghz.

Don't know the reasoning, but thats the way it works on my machine.

Andy

SaberX · #7 Post by **SaberX** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 11:55 am

The A31P i have (P4m-2.0ghz) runs at 1.2Ghz most of the time.It only runs at the full 2.0Ghz when the CPU is realy working.

Get the program Mobilw meater.It will show your true CPU speed.
Have that running in the corner and then open say IE to about half page.Then click and hold down the tool bar so you can move around the window.Do some circles around the screen with the window and look at the mobile meeter cpu speed.It should go up to the full speed.When you stop moveing the window it should go back down.
Most of the time my A31P is pluged in with full charged battery.It runs at 1.2Ghz say 90% of the time.
On battery when it gets down under 50% the speed will drop down to under 600Mhz.

This is just the intel speed stept working.

ajkula66 · #8 Post by **ajkula66** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 11:57 am

virge wrote:

I am an A31 newbie so I hate to contradict A31 guru ajkula66

.

I don't mind being contradicted, or corrected-ever. I've learned a lot on this forum myself...however:

I've just gone to my workroom, pulled out a battery (I don't have a dead one to test with) out of A31 (2653-AU7) that I have sitting there, booted Kubuntu 7.10 from CD, switched the power mode to "performance" and guess what-it's running at 1600Mhz, which is its highest CPU speed.

My assumption would be that this whole story might have something to do with OS, and not with the machine itself...

virge · #9 Post by **virge** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:34 pm

I just tried something new right now. I put the system on hibernate with a good battery (running WinXP), took out the battery then booted up. It stays at 1.6ghz. If I shut down instead of hibernate, then the system boots to 1.2ghz and stays that way.

SaberX: Can you verify this?

Ajkulla66: This seems to show that the hardware is capable of maintaining full processor speed, so you're probably right that it's OS dependent. I know nothing outside the MS world.

SaberX · #10 Post by **SaberX** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:16 pm

What program are you useing to show the cpu speed?
I use mobile meter and that loads up when the system boot's up.

When it first boots up and it shows the full 2.0Ghz when it's loading other small programs at the start(like AVG,MSN messanger).
But soon as it's loaded the few small programs it drops back to 1.2Ghz.
I think theres a small program out there somewhere that will disable the Intel speed stept and make the CPU runn at the full speed all the time.But i would not want that,i would think the system would run to hot to fast.

I'm not sure if this is what you guys are talking about.I'll have to go back and read all the posts ....

Oh ya my system is the same with a good battery in it or if i take the battery out and just have it on ac power.

virge · #11 Post by **virge** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:27 pm

SaberX: I'm using Mobilemeter and running WinXP SP2. So your system doesn't stick at the lower speed even without the battery installed? I use mine as a desktop replacement so I don't even need the battery. The only reason I bought a battery was to get it to run at 1.6ghz. Without a working battery it was stuck at 1.2Ghz even with 100% CPU utilization. I'll definitely have to look into this further... I like my A31 so much I'm thinking of getting another.

SaberX · #12 Post by **SaberX** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:05 pm

OK
I have mobile meter staying on top of the page so i can see it all the time.
I just took out the battery and started up the system.It's showing 1.2Ghz no mater what i try to open.Cant get it to go higher.
I always thought without the battery it would run at the higher speed when needed.But i dont see it going higher.
BUT i dont feel the system being any slower.Most of the time my system runs at the 1.2Ghz anyway.It's only when opening a big program like MS word or Photoshop 7 that i see it go to 2.0Ghz.
I guess having 2 gigs of ram in it helps out alot also.

I never checked any BIOS settings yet or windows settings.The BIOS is set to default and i never changed anything in windows XP Pro(SP2) since clean install.
Another thing i did find out is the temp of the cpu.
When i got this A31P,the mobile meter cpu temp would go upto 50C to 60C all the time.Even higher when used alot.The fan would come on all the time.
I took of the keyboard and the CPU heatsink and fan.I cleaned off the pasted and cleaned out the fan with air.
Then put a thin layer of new Artic silver past and put it all back together.
My cpu temp now reads 30C to a high of 38C when used alot opening big programs.
Thats a big drop in temp.
Back to the CPU speed.I'll now go into the BIOS and see what settings are there.I'll keep the battery out to see if i find out how to get it to run higher.

SaberX · #13 Post by **SaberX** » Sun Feb 17, 2008 12:09 pm

I just tested something and thought it might be of intress....
On my A31P l have a "good" battery(about 27Wh's left) and full charge will last about 1 hr playing a DVD.
So today i let the battery run dow to the system cuts out.(all alarms disabled so it runs the battery till gone).
After it runs out i plug it back in and turn on the system.
I open mobile metet to look at the CPU speed. At first when the battery is at 0% the speed is 1.2Ghz,wont go any higher.
Then when the battery charges back to around 15% the cpu speed goes to the full 2.0Ghz.And it's staying there at 2.0Ghz even when the system is at idel,nothing running.

just thought i would share this info.
So it would lead me to think that the system , even pluged in with a battery under 15% will only run at the low speed.

tbartold · #14 Post by **tbartold** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:27 pm

The Thinkpad is designed this way. Without a battery, or with a dead battery, the system will not run at full CPU speed. I have read that this is by design: that the system, when running at full speed, could draw more power than the AC can provide, and must rely on extra battery power. Therefore, without battery the system refuses to run at full speed, to avoid power problems.

ajkula66 · #15 Post by **ajkula66** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 11:44 pm

tbartold wrote:

The Thinkpad is designed this way. Without a battery, or with a dead battery, the system will not run at full CPU speed. I have read that this is by design: that the system, when running at full speed, could draw more power than the AC can provide, and must rely on extra battery power. Therefore, without battery the system refuses to run at full speed, to avoid power problems.

So by booting Kubuntu from CD I'm able to override the very design of an A31? There's got to be a little more to that story, IMHO...

tbartold · #16 Post by **tbartold** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:01 am

ajkula66 wrote:tbartold wrote:
So by booting Kubuntu from CD I'm able to override the very design of an A31? There's got to be a little more to that story, IMHO...

I don't know the full story. My guess is that it's a design with ACPI in mind. If Kubuntu is not enabling ACPI then the CPU would only run at max speed. Is that maybe what's happening? I seem to recall other versions of linux a few years ago not working well in battery mode (dying quickly) because they couldn't slow down the CPU. I wonder if turning of ACPI in Windows (or the BIOS, I'm not sure where you'd do that) would allow the system to run full speed in Windows even without a battery?

ajkula66 · #17 Post by **ajkula66** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:08 am

Well, if you choose "dynamic switching' it will run at 1.2Ghz in Kubuntu. However, when you switch to 'performance", it shoots up to the top CPU speed (1.6 for the machine I've tested it on), even with the battery physically removed. So it's not like it's not enabling ACPI...

Don't get me wrong: I don't have the answer myself. Just trying to make sense of what I've come up with so far...

tbartold · #18 Post by **tbartold** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:26 am

I did find this about the A2x and T2x, but I was sure I had read something similar that applied to the A3x also:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4R4SC9

I know running on AC and pulling the battery out of my A31p (running Windows XPSP2) slows it down to 1.2 (and if took me a while to figure out that it was the battery). It may just be a Windows feature, or at least the Thinkpad addons to Windows, and I don't know if this happens with all Thinkpads. Anyway, no matter what settings I try, with the battery removed the system will not run at full speed. So I assumed the A3x was designed to do this, just like the A2x. It's interesting that Linux can get around the problem.

j.welter · #19 Post by **j.welter** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:57 am

Well I ordered a replacement battery and got it some days ago. After some charging the CPU clock jumped up from its darn 1.2GHZ to 1.8GHz like it should. It works for several days now without problems.

Hope I will not see the battery contents someday decorated with flames

(I could not get an original battery)
Well it seems I did not notice the 1.2GHz problem for a long time. But after upgrading to a new virscanner+firewall it seems that 1.2Ghz are not enough to surf the web.

So THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Best regards
Juergen

P.S.: I upgraded to 1.5GB Ram without a problem, but the DVD Burner upgrade failed. Please read my new thread to that problem too.

j.welter · #20 Post by **j.welter** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:03 am

Well I ordered a replacement battery and got it some days ago. After some charging the CPU clock jumped up from its darn 1.2GHZ to 1.8GHz like it should. It works for several days now without problems.

Hope I will not see the battery contents someday decorated with flames

(I could not get an original battery)
Well it seems I did not notice the 1.2GHz problem for a long time. But after upgrading to a new virscanner+firewall it seems that 1.2Ghz are not enough to surf the web.

So THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Best regards
Juergen

P.S.: I upgraded to 1.5GB Ram without a problem, but the DVD Burner upgrade failed. Please read my new thread to that problem too.

Franchute13 · #21 Post by **Franchute13** » Thu Feb 03, 2022 2:26 pm

Hello.
I have an A30 2652-33x that I bought yesterday.
It didn't have a main battery.
I had a windows xp installed but it was very slow (you touch a letter and it takes 3 seconds to do something). I thought it was a temperature problem, I cleaned it and put a new thermal paste.
The problem continued.
I tried to reinstall Windows XP, it was installing for 2 hours and it didn't finish, it said that it had 39 minutes left... it was like that for 1 hour.
I tried other OS like WIndows 98 and it worked correctly, fast.

Solution, update bios
(update without battery, read
https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Talk:BIOS_Upgrade)
I had BIOS 1.17 and updated to 1.19 and now it works fine.
I hope it is useful.

UncleJart · #22 Post by **UncleJart** » Wed Oct 04, 2023 3:34 pm

Hello!

Did anyone found the solution to use full CPU speed in Windows OS with dead battery?

I have a ThinkPad A31 with 1.8 GHz Pentium 4-M CPU, its battery fully died recenly. It was an original IBM battery which was installed in notebook at least from 2006 as far as I know. So I've faced famous 1.2 GHz (1199MHz) CPU frequency limitation problem. Using search I've found out that CPU frequency is limited by BIOS and this is done by design for many ThinkPad models when there is no/dead/not charged to some level battery. There is possibiity to workaround this in Linux by using "processor.ignore_ppc=1" kernel boot command, but no solution for Windows.

This is the list I've tried so far:
1. Various CPU freuency management tools - ClockGen, CPUFSB, RightMark CPU Clock Utility, SpeedSwitchXP, Notebook Hardware Control and others - they do operate, but the frequency can be changed only up to 1.2 Ghz, values above are not available
2. Various FSB/Clock generator tools like SetFSB, CrystalCPUID, CPUMSR, CPUSB etc. My ThinkPad A31 motherboard has CY28346ZC clock generator, but even tool which claim to support it can not see it, so it is probably hardware locked somehow.
3. Looking for modded A31 BIOS - unfortunately I have nothing found. I was able to decompress latest BIOS with Phoenix BIOS tool with some errors/warnings on the way and found hidden CPU frequency options in settings, so it looks like BIOS mod could solve this problem, but I'm not 100% sure about that
4. Using of 90+ W power adapters did not change a thing, but thi was expected as notebook does not have any power measurement mechanisms

So maybe someone had more luck than me and found some solution/wokaround for this except bying chinese replacement batteries of questionable quality for 20+ years notebook?

ajkula66 · #23 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:25 am

Welcome to the forum!

UncleJart wrote: ↑
Wed Oct 04, 2023 3:34 pm
Hello!

Did anyone found the solution to use full CPU speed in Windows OS with dead battery?

Not in the Windows working environment, AFAIK and no clue how recent *nix distros behave either.

So maybe someone had more luck than me and found some solution/wokaround for this except bying chinese replacement batteries of questionable quality for 20+ years notebook?

Sadly, my own A31p is about 5500 miles away from me at the moment, so there's no suggestion I could try out. A third-party battery may be your only choice at the moment...

Good luck.

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A31 Fixed slow cpu clock problem

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