Why is my laptop not running at full CPU speed?

[Kroze]

It supposed to run @ 1.8ghz but according to cpu z it's running @ 900mhz.

I went into the power settings and set it to maximum performance instead of battery saving but it will not increase the speed of my cpu. I can't even play a youtube 720p video without it being choppy

Can someone help?

 

[mnewsham]

what's the temp? Could be downclocking for temp reasons.

 

[Binky]

Did you look here?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=153761

 

[Kroze]

I fixed the problem, i don't know how but I removed windows 7 and installed windows xp.

 

[komatta]

There was probably a low-power setting in the BIOS for when activity is low. You didn't have to change your OS!!

 

[Zap]

Enable EIST/SpeedStep in BIOS.

 

[Kroze]

Again just to update you guys, I install and reinstalled windows7 & windows xp twice.

With both times, windows xp run youtube video @ 720P so much smoother, it can even run 1080p videos on youtube.

I can't do it with windows 7. The videos 720p is just too choppy and I don't even want to tell you how 1080p feel.

 

[Brainonska511]

I can't do it with windows 7. The videos 720p is just too choppy and I don't even want to tell you how 1080p feel.

Do you have the appropriate W7 drivers installed? Do you have Aero turned off? What kind of GPU do you have?

 

[alent1234]

My core i5 does this because it's made to only use as much power as needed

 

[reallyscrued]

Again just to update you guys, I install and reinstalled windows7 & windows xp twice.

With both times, windows xp run youtube video @ 720P so much smoother, it can even run 1080p videos on youtube.

I can't do it with windows 7. The videos 720p is just too choppy and I don't even want to tell you how 1080p feel.

Can't tell you how ridiculous that sounds. The problem lies elsewhere, it's not the OS, but maybe how flash interacts with that OS, drivers for that OS, your browser, etc. I would tinker around more with a fix for Windows 7 before reverting back to a basically obsolete OS. (Yeah, I said it.)

 

[Red Hawk]

Flash-based video like Youtube uses hardware acceleration, so the problem may lie with your graphics chip rather than the processor. Intel mobile processors automatically downclock when idle to save power; my 2.26 GHz laptop processor normally downclocks to around 1.5 GHz.

So, what is your comp's graphics chip? Try disabling hardware acceleration in Flash, simply by right-clicking a video, click "settings", and un-check "Enable hardware acceleration".

 

[Kroze]

It's a laptop with integrated intel gm945 graphic card. (IBM T60)

I turned everything on maximum at the bios, set everything to maximum performance under windows 7 power management and yet it still run slower compared to windows xp.

XP is butter smooth.

 

[alent1234]

even ancient intel 'GPU" will do flash hardware acceleration

except for games and a few other tasks there is really nothing out there that needs a fraction of modern CPU power. at work half the time i even use a windows 7 VM instance i made or myself instead of my laptop