Disable Speedstep in Vista on a lappy?

J

JBavousett

Gawd
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Aug 7, 2006
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So my XPS M1710 keeps dropping the multiplier in Vista, evvn though I've already changed all the performance settings. I have it on Max Performance and the CPU is set at 100% as the min and max both on battery and while plugged in. Regardless, it bounces between 6x and 12x constantly when apps are running, and it dumps to 6x when the system is idle.

This is a fully clean install, not an upgrade, and I did not install the Dell Quickset junk. It's a copy of Home Premium with the latest BIOS.
 
I have to ask, so don't take this the wrong way:

If the machine is working properly, precisely as it's designed to do, and it gives you the performance you're supposed to get in an instant by dynamically altering the clockspeed for any given moment based on the required CPU power, why disable it?
 
How are you determining the current speed? On my Vista x64 laptop it seems to always be in high performance mode since I set the option in power management. I have an Inspiron E1705. Have you tried the Dell forums? Maybe it's happened to other people.

bbz_Ghost said:
If the machine is working properly, precisely as it's designed to do, and it gives you the performance you're supposed to get in an instant by dynamically altering the clockspeed for any given moment based on the required CPU power, why disable it?
Click to expand...

#1 - This option used to cause me trouble with at least one application, the old Unreal Tournament. This game didn't understand SpeedStep, and as a result when it was active the game would constantly bounce in and out of SpeedStep mode, causing the game to stutter and have unusable controls. Disabling SpeedStep fixed this problem. Perhaps the OP has such an application.

#2 - I have yet to see any advertising or product brochures refer to a speed-adjusting CPU as a "<slower speed> that can boost to <faster speed>!" It's always "a <faster speed> processor that can slow down to <slower speed>." The slower speed is presented as the exception, not the rule. If the faster speed is what they advertise, why can't I just have that?

#3 - Your first statement is wrong. The OP said he adjusted the settings so it shouldn't clock down, but it is. Really, this could be anything. He could be pressing the "send bbz_Ghost a million dollars" button, and if THAT was the function that wasn't working, you'd probably be slightly more concerned. Regardless, the options he's choosing aren't working, so the machine is not "working properly."
 
I'm watching it with CPU-Z and with TAT.exe. Both are showing the clock dropping in half.


The problem with the Dell forums is that all the lUsers there are kids with their dad's "hand me down" desktop, or old system admins that don't understand anything that wasn't written in qbasic or pearl. :D
 
Did you install Dell Quickset? That overrides some of the Vista performance presets... it cannot be uninstalled easily - you need to download the quickset remover from support.dell.com Nevermind, I just re-read your original post. Good choice to not install quickset.

If you didn't install quickset, have you gone into the power management configuration / advanced and manually checked each individual setting? My wife has a precision M90 (similar to the 1705) and we just set it to Max Performance when on AC Power and it never clocks down according to cpu-z or the system control panel.
 
I've also had problems with some laptops not using speedstep properly. Sometimes i'm at 100% load for a few minutes and when I check my clock speed its stuck at like 600mhz. I have resulted in putting my work laptop into performance mode pretty much all the time as i'm not away from power for long periods. I've also had mixed luck with getting speedstep to shut off properly on some older notebooks. Sometimes its a BIOS setting other times you have to set the BIOS AND change your power scheme to always on.

http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm

I use notebook hardware control. It does an excellent job of managing speedstep among other things such as temps, setting voltage controls per stepped clock. Very handy program, I load it on all my intel laptops.
 
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