Anyone know anything about Intel Speedstep?

[JimmyCracksCorn]

I have a PIII laptop with speedstep technology with 190MB of Ram, 8MB ATI vid card.

Every 5 minutes or so, especially in graphics intensive programs, I'll hear what sounds like the fan is going on and everything will slow to crap. This will last about one and a half minutes and then be fine again... and about 5 minutes later it will do it again.

Its so annoying. Even on games like simcity3k or Red Alert 2, which a pIII 600MHz 200MB RAM should handle easily (my friends pII and same video card can blaze through it) this thing slows to crap consistently.

I've tried everything and I'm certain its the speedstep ****ing up since its designed to slow the processor speed down when its not plugged in. But, it is plugged in and I've told windows that its always on and a desktop (I use windows XP). I also tried buggering with the BIOS, but every setting in Speedstep seems to make no difference... even when I turn Speedstep off.

I'm at my wits end, and my warranty has long since expired. I don't have money to bring it into the shop either.

Any ideas? Asher?? Anyone?

[Urban Ranger]

Sounds like your computer is thrashing the paging file.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Sounds like your computer is thrashing the paging file.

Paging file? Explain...

[Ari Rahikkala]

(very short explanation) All the data that your computer fiddles with can't fit into the memory, so some of it is temporarily written to the hard disk when the computer knows it won't be needed. This is called paging or swapping. If your computer doesn't handle the paging file efficiently, it might have to spend a lot of time fiddling around with the hard disk to get anything done.

The solution is to tune your virtual memory settings so that the size of the swap file is locked (i.e. its minimum and maximum size are the same) to some senseful size (128 megabytes should be enough, if you're doing very memory-hungry stuff you might need 256) or to just buy more memory. I'll see if I can Google for a clearer explanation of this tweak...

[Zylka]

If I know one thing about the internet, it's that the goatse site can fix any problem - especially this

[Ari Rahikkala]

Wait a sec... I'm not sure if UR's diagnosis is correct. You should have enough memory for what you're doing (except if you're running something heavy in the background) and you sound like someone who can tell the sound of a CPU fan and a HD apart... still, I can't figure out anything better myself.

Anyway, see the first tweak at http://www.renaghan.com/pcr/win.html if you want to tune your VM settings.

[Zopperoni]

If you want to speed up your computer without buying extra RAM:

1) Switch off your Virtual Memory (Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced > under Performance, click Settings > go to the Advanced tab > under Virtual Memory, click Change > set the settings to No Paging File)
2) Restart
3) Defragment your harddisk (My Computer > right-click your C-drive > click on Properties > go to the Tools tab > click on Defragment Now *** Or if you have Norton SystemWorks, do it via that)
4) When done with defragmentation, turn your Virtual Memory back on (same steps as above, except now you put in values for the Virtual Memory)
5) Restart
6) Defragment your C-drive again


The performance improvement should be noticable.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Zylka
If I know one thing about the internet, it's that the goatse site can fix any problem - especially this

Man, you suck... I actually went and looked that up and found what I'm sure you wanted me to find. Ha, good one though.

Actually though, I don't think its the pagefile... the sound sounds more like a CPU fan, in fact I'm sure it is. And there is a kind of high pitched sound along with it, so it seems like a CPU problem to me...

[Urban Ranger]

Okay, you have a PIII notebook, the CPU probably don't have a fan. There are two reasons I can think of - either the OS is thrashing the paging file, or the CPU is overheating. I don't think it is Speedstep because we have a bunch of OEM Wintel boxes with that program and it appears to do nothing. ::shrug::

Quick question: is your CPU a regular PIII or a mobile PIII?

Ari: I don't know if that it right either, but that is the most common cause AFAIK.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Okay, you have a PIII notebook, the CPU probably don't have a fan. There are two reasons I can think of - either the OS is thrashing the paging file, or the CPU is overheating. I don't think it is Speedstep because we have a bunch of OEM Wintel boxes with that program and it appears to do nothing. ::shrug::

Quick question: is your CPU a regular PIII or a mobile PIII?

Ari: I don't know if that it right either, but that is the most common cause AFAIK.

Its a mobile PIII. And I know there is some kind of fan in there spinning around... maybe its for the graphics card though. I don't know.

And Speedstep is more than a program, its a component of the processesor.

I've tried most of the stuff listed here, but no luck... every few minutes the thing slows to a crawl, and a 20 seconds later, its back to normal. And the cycle repeats.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The cyclic crawling is more symptomatic of chronic CPU overheating.

[Urban Ranger]

Jimmy,

In that case, have the computer examined. I agree with MtG that the most probable cause is CPU overheating. See why there isn't sufficient cooling.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Jimmy,

In that case, have the computer examined. I agree with MtG that the most probable cause is CPU overheating. See why there isn't sufficient cooling.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense actually...

Do you know if there's anyway I can seriously reduce the speed of my CPU so it won't overheat? I mean, a PIII 300mhz or something (its 650 now) would be more than enough power to run anything I have... I'd rather it be slightly slower consistently than have it overheating and crawling all the time.

[monolith94]

Put it on dry ice?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Yeah, that makes perfect sense actually...

Do you know if there's anyway I can seriously reduce the speed of my CPU so it won't overheat? I mean, a PIII 300mhz or something (its 650 now) would be more than enough power to run anything I have... I'd rather it be slightly slower consistently than have it overheating and crawling all the time.

You may be able to underclock it from the BIOS. Still, the notebook should be designed that it wouldn't overheat under normal conditions, so I still think you should have a tech take a look at it.