I have disabled Speedstep, only to have it drop from 2.499 Ghz to about 1.5 Ghz.
I re-enabled it and then went to Windows Power Management, in the Advanced section, to ensure I had the processor set for 100% and, indeed, I did.
Then I downloaded Throttlestop and CPU-Z and in "monitor" mode they both confirmed I am running at a consistent 2.499 Ghz.
I will check "disable core park" and of course I am going to Dell's site to get drivers for everything to make sure all is good.
If this fails I am going to wipe the drive and do a new install of Win7 32 Bit, as my 2008 Dell is actually only supported by Dell as a 32 Bit machine.
Before I do this I will go to Dell and download all the drivers for my machine on their support page for my service tag or machine I.D. onto a thumb drive. Another forum said I should get Dell's Win7 drivers, but that confused me, as I don't know what that means exactly. If the Vista drivers that may have been loaded on my machine during the Vista load years ago aren't working, then why would Win7 drivers work.
Please explain what drivers I should really be downloading, thanks.