Speeding up Laptop w/XP?

[niceguy]

Hey guys, I have a 2yr old HP Pavilion laptop w/the AMD Athalon 64 3200 processor and 512mb of ram...IIRC, it's a 1.8-2.0ghz chip but I noticed that under the system specs, it's listed as ~498mhz....I remember that speeds can vary depending on power options,etc but am I forgetting something basic? Is the processor not running nearly as fast as advertised or is running on an 8cell battery really minimizing its performance?

Note: I don't have much loaded on this unit (wireless Internet, photo editor and prepackaged XP,etc) so it runs pretty smoothly but I'd like to squeeze as much as possible out of it to do more graphic intensive work....Already considering buying a 12cell battery and I did remove some things from startup (via msconfig)..

Thanks

Jeremy

[jrichardson20]

Try going changing the power options in the control panel. Change it to "home/office desk" and then recheck your system specs. It should be running at max speed after doing so. If not, then something else is going on, maybe some BIOS setting. I would try that first, as AMD CPUs have "Cool N' Quiet" which throttles the CPU down when not doing intensive work. It will speed up to max when you need it though.

[kimokalihi]

I bet it's the bios. It's probably set at the default lowest safe settings. This has happened to me before and it puts everything including the ram at the lowest multiplier.

My ram is supposed to run at 400mhz but it was at 200mhz and all I had to do was go into the bios and used the "use optimized settings" option. Most montherboards don't have this option though. So you'd have to go into your chipset settings I think and change the multiplier yourself. Or the FSB. I'm a little rusty on this.

Have you reset the bios settings before? That would place the settings at the lowest.

Make sure you know how fast it's supposed to be running at so you don't push it too far or it will overheat and fry itself. AMD processors will burn up easily. Intel processors will not because they were designed to run slower and slower the hotter they get to prevent damage from heat. AMDs don't do that, they keep on truckin til they catch on fire. I watched a video where they pulled the coolers off the processors of several AMD and intel processors while playing a video game and the AMDs started smoking in a matter of seconds while the intels were fine but ran very poorly.

Running XP would probably yield slower performance speeds but I doubt anything you'd notice.

[Cypher07]

good luck man xp sucks!

[yermolovd]

Originally Posted by jrichardson20

Try going changing the power options in the control panel. Change it to "home/office desk" and then recheck your system specs. It should be running at max speed after doing so. If not, then something else is going on, maybe some BIOS setting. I would try that first, as AMD CPUs have "Cool N' Quiet" which throttles the CPU down when not doing intensive work. It will speed up to max when you need it though.

x2 on cool n quiet stuff. have you tried running an intensive task and checking the cpu speed? it most likely bumps it up.
i haven't personally used anything after athlons xp cpus, but I had built my friends A64 system last summer, and I know it downclocks them.

lowering cpu speed might be actually good on battery, but if you use it on the socket at home, turn that thing off.

[niceguy]

Thanks guys.....I remember now that I did change the power option settings on my old omnibook and that nearly doubled it's speed...Just couldn't remember what I did.

Right now I'm barely getting 1.5-2hrs out of the battery using the portable/laptop power setting and with about 30-40% left, the brightview screen dims automatically.

I'll also check the BIOS settings as well....I read about messing w/prefetch but don't want to screw up the registry settings before I make any fatal mistakes.....

I bet using the desktop power settings will give me a solid half hour before the laptop battery crashes

[bobditts]

Originally Posted by Cypher07

good luck man xp sucks!

oh come on now cypher. XP is good if you know how to tweak it.

Try this if you havent already niceguy;

Right click on MyComputer
Click on Properties
Click on the Advanced Tab
Under the Performance section, click on Settings
Select the bubble that says "adjust for best performance"

This option will make the operating system less demanding on your videocard and processor.

[MIAaron]

If your laptop uses the standard 939 chip and not the mobile version, newegg is clearing out the opteron chips for cheap. That should help a bit as well.

Also, downloading cpu-z will also help you check your cpu, fsb, and ram speeds to make sure things are running properly.