First Laptop owned

[jdelrio22]

I am a fairly new member to Anandtech though I have been always reading the articles posted on the website. I had a question for the community in general. I am fairly knowledgeable in computers but I don't specifically understand how laptops work. Sometimes I notice the system will report a slower speed for the CPU than what the core actually is. The other problem is I just recently moved in to a place that is particularly dry. It is causing me to send off a lot of static discharges. My poor laptop has been the subject of a few shocks lately. I am curious if anyone knows if that is particularly damaging to a laptop. I know that when I used to work on my tower that electrostatic discharges to the components could be particularly devastating. Any advice would help with regards to at least getting a good start with this new machine for me.

 

[natto fire]

The processor speed thing is a feature laptops have to save battery life. While on battery power they slow the processor down to conserve energy. They are supposed to clock the core back up if more processor power is needed however. As far as the ESD, I am not very knowledgeable in laptops, but I would imagine they are designed to safely take the shock. I am curious how you are even making a shock jump to your laptop, any of them I have seen have been clad in plastic everywhere, which is a lousy conductor.

 

[jdelrio22]

The laptop is a Dell 9300. I have been getting the charge coming from 3 spots that I have felt this happen at. First one was at the opening for the two front speakers, the second one was at the keyboard(no idea how that happened), and the last one was at the power button on the laptop. I believe the power button is some kind of metal but I'm not sure which type it could be. Anyways though I hope no damage is being done to the laptop at this point. Thanks for the advice on how the processor operates.