Hey there. I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with this question i have about my new laptop i bought last week.
It is a compaq notebook with the new AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology ML-32 processor.
Its advertised speed is 1.8Ghz
I decided to open up the system properties by right click in 'my computer'. It showed up as 1.79 which was fine. but i check every now and again and lately it comes up as 796Mhz in the system properties. I thought oh well this could just be a problem with it showing up not an actual reflection of the speed. I went to install Age of Empires 3 which has a minimum requirement of 1.4 so i thought yep thats fine. As i was installing it said i do not meet the minimum requirements and was seeing the computer as 0.8ghz. it said i could try and run the game anyway so i did and it seemed to work ok.
I only bought the computer 6 days ago and have been checking the system properties regularly. At the moment it shows up as 1.79 but last night was showing up at ~797. so it keeps changing back and fourth.
I did a bit of reading about it and someone suggested start>run>dxdiag
and it came up as the processor being ~1.8GHz
I also download the diagnostic tool called Sandra which was recommend on a help site also and the system summary in that brings up the processor @795MHz.
So as you can see i am really confused and am wondering if I have got what I really paid for. What do you guys reckon is going on. Do you have anything else i could try?
Thanks for your help

most laptops have programs that change the speed of the processor depending on the usage of the machine, e.g whilst running when its pulled in, it may run everthing at full power. however when its running of the battery is may slow it down, dim the screen and so on; so that the battery life is been saved

check the setting on there

This is normal. 

Processors designed for laptops include a feature that adjusts their actual clock speed depending on what you are doing / how busy the computer is.  This helps conserve power when running on battery (and manage heat, at all times).

Thanks all for your replies.
Although the whole time i have been testing this it has been plugged into the power and not running off battery.
Is this still correct on what your saying in that it adjusts processor speed depending on whether the computer is not running anything etc?
Where would i find the settings to adjust this?

Another question: Aside from opening up the machine is there a way of finding out how many RAM slots this motherboard has?

There's a prgram which tells you everyting about your pc. Come on people help me out here

Yes that sounds like it would help me out. Does anyone know of this program?

Also can anyone answer this bit from my post before?

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Originally posted by Dan0208
Is this still correct on what your saying in that it adjusts processor speed depending on whether the computer is not running anything etc even when it is still plugged in?
Where would i find the settings to adjust this?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Msg Plus Freak
There's a prgram which tells you everyting about your pc. Come on people help me out here

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quote:

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Originally posted by Msg Plus Freak
There's a prgram which tells you everyting about your pc. Come on people help me out here

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quote:

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Originally posted by toddy
everest home edition

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Thanks ill give that a go too.

Also, is there a way to like wake the computer up from being idle and slowing the processor speed down to, i assume, save power. When i return the computer from standby or hibernation the processor is down to 796mhz. I want to be able to bring it back up to full speed. Or even turn this option off.

Thanks for the help guys

quote:

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Originally posted by Msg Plus Freak

quote:

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Originally posted by toddy
everest home edition

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That's the one!
Thanks toddy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by toddy
its now discontinued now tho

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You can turn this feature off by selecting the "Always On" power scheme in Control Panel's Power options.  Under all other power schemes, Windows XP does what it wants.

There is also this utility that lets you control it manually:

http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html

You may want to leave it alone even if you don't care about power, though.  It also serves to reduce heat (and less heat can only be a Good Thing).  The clock changes are dynamic and demand based.  When you were running a game, the processor almost certainly was at the maximum speed; you don't need it to be at that when it is waiting on you typing something in Word.

Windows doesn't do a very good job at showing how often the speed changes and how this really works. 

quote:

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Originally posted by spokes

quote:

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Originally posted by toddy
its now discontinued now tho

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AWW, good job i got setup files for it, it is a really useful program

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Thats cool n' quiet from what i can understand..

It checks 200 times a second how busy the computer is and adjsts the frequency automatically, reducing the power consuption and as a consequence the processor runs in lower temperatures..

quote:

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Originally posted by AMD.com FAQ
AMD's Cool'n'Quiet technology is a system-level power management feature that effectively lowers power consumption of desktop PCs when maximum performance is not needed. When a system consumes less power, it runs cooler and requires less work from the fan, resulting in a quieter system.

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Thanks for all the replies guys. I got both those programs and they helped heaps in finding certain specifications on this new pc that i was unable to find.

I might as well ask this question in here too because everyone already knows the situation.
I have installed all the programs on my new laptop that i use for dvd burning on my desktop computer. (ie alcohol 120%, dvd decrypter, dvd shink, and nero that came with my other burner etc) however every time i try to burn something its fails during the process with a write error. I have already made coasters out of several cds,dvds. Does anyone know why this would be happening. The burner is same brand (pioneer) as my other one but i have never had these problems before.
Thanks

Thats really weird but.. sorry i cant help you in that one.

That error can come from a lot of stuff and it can be hard to diagnose.