is my rig crippled?

[misfitsfiend]

cpu-z screens:


review screens:



so i started up cpu-z today, and i thought my core speed looked awfully low. all settings in bios are set to auto. the multi is supposedly locked, and i can't figure out how to OC it anyway. windows 7 will randomly hard-lock. programs aren't nearly as responsive as i imagine a quad core should be. (dota takes 10 seconds to load? my 5000+ could do it faster it seemed)

specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX All Solid Capacitor Motherboard
OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
SAPPHIRE 100269SR Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP

thanks!

 

[AMD_Gamer]

check device manager and make sure all drivers are installed?

 

[misfitsfiend]

check device manager and make sure all drivers are installed?

only device missing is a "pci input device." the only pci card installed is my wireless card and sound blaster card which DO have the drivers installed.

 

[LGabrielPhoto]

Looks like one of those Throttling features is at work.
Check for something like Cool 'n' Quiet in the BIOS and disable it.
If you were to run SuperPi or Prim95 or any program, the speed should be increasing automatically.

 

[colinstu]

AMD's cool'n'quite is my only guess (bumps down the multiplier during low processor use).

 

[misfitsfiend]

AMD's cool'n'quite is my only guess (bumps down the multiplier during low processor use).

this was exactly it. cool n quiet was set to auto, throttling the performance. thanks so much

 

[LGabrielPhoto]

Great news...yeah, I always disable that stuff.

 

[misfitsfiend]

Great news...yeah, I always disable that stuff.

thanks again...you guys are why i still come to the [H] after all these years.

 

[engiNURD]

Great news...yeah, I always disable that stuff.

No need to. The ramp up to full speed does not affect performance at all, so you'd be making your chip less power efficient by disabling Cool n Quiet (EIST for Intel chips). Its best to leave these power saving features enabled. If you're OC'ing, disable it while in the process of finding a stable OC speed, but once found, you can re-enable it without affecting the OC, in most cases.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

No need to. The ramp up to full speed does not affect performance at all, so you'd be making your chip less power efficient by disabling Cool n Quiet (EIST for Intel chips). Its best to leave these power saving features enabled. If you're OC'ing, disable it while in the process of finding a stable OC speed, but once found, you can re-enable it without affecting the OC, in most cases.

on amd systems you can only enable cool 'n quiet if you overclock with the FSB.. if using the multi it wont work.. theres a few boards out there that do.. but its hit and miss if you get the right one..

 

[engiNURD]

on amd systems you can only enable cool 'n quiet if you overclock with the FSB.. if using the multi it wont work.. theres a few boards out there that do.. but its hit and miss if you get the right one..

Yah, there's some Gigabyte boards that won't let you re-enable EIST, too. Not sure about the unlocked multiplier on the extreme chips, though, hehe.