need help with laptop

[Gibson486]

My g/f laptop came in today. She got a 1.6ghz dell. Here are the problems.

1. It's a 16Ghz computer, but it only runs at 1.2 Ghz. How can she make it go to max. speed.

2. This thing gets hot. Not burn hot, but I had it on my lap and I felt the heat. ANyways, I do not hear a fan, is that bad?

 

[MrBond]

Is it reporting 1.6ghz when it's booting up?

The intel mobile chips all have Speed Step technology. It can be setup in the laptop somewhere so that on battery power, it throttles down the cpu speed to save power. That might be your problem there.

The heat issue I'm unsure of. I don't own a Dell laptop. My old thinkpad got pretty warm using it in my lap, but there was a f an that would run from time to time. I am unaware about the dell laptops. What model Dell is it?

 

[Gibson486]

I tried messing with the power settings but it only throttled the CPU down. In Windows, it recognizes it as a 1.6, but below the 1.6 it states a different measurement which is probably the speed the computer is throttled at at that time. At one time, while I wa strying to throttle teh CPU up, I got all the way down to 275 MHZ! YIKES:Q

I hear no fan whatsoever.

edit: it's an Insperon 2650. pretty nice low end lappy, but makes ure you add some ram.

 

[ai42]

Well since laptops have very little space, heat is a big issue. Because of this Moble Penitum 4s are always throttling down (even on A/c power). It only runs at a clock speed nessecary to run whatever applicaitons it is running. You CAN disable this entirely within the BIOS but, it will get even hotter and running full speed all the time will make it really hot.

The fans usually run at a specified temperature. If you run 1.6 all the time it will kick in a few mins.

Honestly don't run at 1.6 all the time, it will decrease your computer's life. And it will clock up when you need the power anyway.

 

[trilks]

I have a Dell Inspiron, and it runs pretty hot. I can feel a lot of heat when it is on my lap. But I've never had any problems because of excess heat, so I think that Dells maybe just run hot. If you notice any performance problems, though, you should call them about it.

 

[Gibson486]

Well since laptops have very little space, heat is a big issue. Because of this Moble Penitum 4s are always throttling down (even on A/c power). It only runs at a clock speed nessecary to run whatever applicaitons it is running. You CAN disable this entirely within the BIOS but, it will get even hotter and running full speed all the time will make it really hot.

so if my g/f would run Unreal Tourn (not 2003), the CPU would probably run at 1.6? I'm not complaining about the 1.2 Ghz speed, but if sh epaid for 1.6 Ghz, she should get 1.6 ghz. It's gonna suck trying to explain this to her....I'm too lazy to look t the bios now, I'll do it tomorrow.

 

[Gibson486]

uh oh....the thing just crashed when coming out of sleep mode...... hopefully that was a one time thing.

 

[ai42]

so if my g/f would run Unreal Tourn (not 2003), the CPU would probably run at 1.6?

yes, you got some kick ass g/f if she frags on UT

 

[Gibson486]

yes, you got some kick ass g/f if she frags on UT

yeah, she loves video games. I really want to teach her how to play UT too. Her idea of a good FPS is Duke nukem on N64 (she never played a computer FPS) I am going to change that!

 

[Geniere]

My company provides Laptops. My latest is a Dell Latitude (800mhz I think). It runs very hot and is uncomfortable to have on your lap. Every once in a while the fan comes on. This ones about 8 mths old, never had a problem. I also leave it in the car where I think the temperature may hit 130-140 degrees. No Problem. Can't use sleep mode which works about 1/2 the time. That was true with my previous IBM laptop also. They probably use the same power management software.

Regards

 

[GremlinHater]

a girl who likes video games AND she's your girlfriend? talk about double goodness 8)
hmm, perhaps if you try stressing the cpu for a while, maybe encoding divx or something because my notebook has a desktop version 1.6GHz and encoding mp3's doesn't stress near the max of cpu usage, so far the only thing i've seen that would do something is encoding divx or possibly proggy's like @home or whatever those are called, dang it my mind went blank, GRRR

Edit: doh, forgot, yes, the cpu should be throttling, that is a good thing, and chances are she's running xp which i think has intel speedstep technology integrated natively into the OS, so the settings would probably be minimum as OEM's see it as unnecessary settings to support

laptops get hot no matter what you do, and i mean "uncomfortably" hot, i haven't seen one that i can't leave on my lap the whole time i'm using it and feel comfy

as for the fan, a possibility is that it's software controlled, the old compaq we had sometimes didn't run it's fan and the oddest of times, may ro may not be related. anyways i think i remember reading somewhere as a way to save battery the fans are controlled to slow down or stop when there not necessary i guess

 

[MWink]

First of all make sure the fan/fans are working. Get Dell's diagnostics and run the fan test. If the fans don't work that may explain why the CPU is running so slow. BTW, ai42 is correct about the CPU dynamically speeding up and slowing down.

 

[Gibson486]

where do I get dells fan software?

 

[MWink]

Go to Dell.com pick support, downloads. You get the idea. You may need the service tag to get to the downloads. You want Dell Diagnostics.