Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 11, 2003 Report Share Posted November 11, 2003 (edited) I just bought this laptop and it is suposed to have a 2.3 MHz Intel processor, but it is reported as 1400. I've looked in the BIOS and don't see anything I can change related to this. Any ideas? /proc/cpuinfo: processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 2 model name : Genuine Intel(R) CPU 2.30GHz stepping : 9 cpu MHz : 1594.782 cache size : 512 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe cid bogomips : 3178.49 Edited November 13, 2003 by Steve Scrimpshire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted November 11, 2003 Report Share Posted November 11, 2003 Well.. I know that Intel is doing ghz inflation for their P4 line but this is ridiculous Anyway, it may be that since it is a P4-M, it is somehow put into the low power cpu mode. Are you going from battery or from powersupply? Do you enable ACPI? What kind of linux are you using? Anyway, just for one linux laptop user to another, I found a way to put my toshiba laptop into low power mode by enabling ACPI and editing the /proc/acpi/processor/cpu0/performance file. Try enabling ACPI, install the acpi and acpid packages if you are using mandrake, then muck around the /proc/acpi heirarchy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2003 Well, when I saw the speed there, I believe I was on AC power. At the time, I hadn't edited lilo.conf, so acpi=ht was still in effect. I'm about to power on now and test again and look around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2003 (edited) Posting from my laptop now. If I remove the acpi=ht option from lilo.conf, which turns acpi on if you remove it, right? I have hard time booting. It will only boot evry 4th or 5th time I attempt to. I'm using lilo-graphic and as soon as the bar gets 3/4 of the way full on the lilo screen, I hear the sound card click like it is loading the sound module and then it reboots. This is before the BIOS data check, remember. With acpi=ht there or with acpi=off, I have no trouble booting, the acpi daemon still starts and I have a /proc/acpi directory even with acpi=off in lilo. I just booted with acpi=off added there and this is what I see as far as powersaving mode or whatever in /proc/acpi: [omar@localhost omar]$ cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/performance state count: 2 active state: P0 states: *P0: 2300 MHz, 20000 mW, 250 uS P1: 1600 MHz, 10000 mW, 250 uS [omar@localhost omar]$ cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/power active state: C2 default state: C1 bus master activity: 00000000 states: C1: promotion[C2] demotion[--] latency[000] usage[00000920] *C2: promotion[--] demotion[C1] latency[002] usage[00190314] C3: <not supported> [omar@localhost omar]$ cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/limit active limit: P0:T0 platform limit: P0:T0 user limit: P0:T0 thermal limit: P0:T0 [omar@localhost omar]$ cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/info processor id: 0 acpi id: 0 bus mastering control: yes power management: yes throttling control: no performance management: yes limit interface: yes [omar@localhost omar]$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state present: yes capacity state: ok charging state: charging present rate: 1792 mA remaining capacity: 3584 mAh present voltage: 16512 mV [root@localhost acpi]# cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature temperature: 32 C [root@localhost acpi]# cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/cooling_mode cooling mode: active [root@localhost acpi]# cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/polling_frequency <polling disabled> [root@localhost acpi]# cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/state state: ok [root@localhost acpi]# cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points critical (S5): 73 C passive: 73 C: tc1=4 tc2=3 tsp=40 devices=0xc14dc7e0 [root@localhost acpi]# cat /proc/acpi/alarm 2003-11-11 03:31:22 Edit: I should add that my /proc/cpuinfo is the same in all cases so far. I understand that the CPU speed there is guestimated from 1/2 of bogomips, which is not extremely accurate, but I've never seen it that far off. I've also read that the difference is more noticable with Intel processors than with AMD, but should it be that far off if the processor is running at the proper speed? It sure feels more like the 1600 than the 2300 it is supposed to be. There's definitely a problem here. I ran Ubench on my desktop and on my laptop. Higher numbers are better for Ubench, right? Desktop (specs in sig): Linux 2.4.22-10mdk-i686-up-4GB #1 Thu Sep 18 12:01:45 CEST 2003 i686 Ubench CPU: 91241 Ubench MEM: 12292 -------------------- Ubench AVG: 51766 Laptop (Intel 2.3 GHz/512 MB pc2100 RAM): Linux-2.4.22-10mdk #1 Thus Sep 18 12:30:58 CEST 2003 i686 Ubench CPU: 54223 Ubench MEM: 8990 -------------------- Ubench AVG: 31606 Edited November 12, 2003 by Steve Scrimpshire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2003 (edited) Ok. I reinstalled WinXP home as a second OS (for testing purposes only...don't try this at home) and discovered that XP also reports the processor speed at 1594 MHz. I spent an hour or so on the phone with Compaq tech support (since I just bought this laptop yesterday) and the very helpful guy took all kinds of info from me about the problem. We tested changing the Power Mgmt setting in Control Panel to 'Always On' and still get the same speed results. He pointed me to some hotfixes for a two similar problems with Windows reporting processor speeds incorrectly. Unfortunately, they were either really old (dealing with processors of 400 MHz) or were referring to SMS server reporting, which is not applicable here and did not help. This is my first laptop and I'm definitely no hardware person, but could it possibly be some jumper on the MoBo that the assemblers of the laptop forgot to move to it's correct position after testing or something? Anyway, I'm guessing it is not a mis-reporting, but an actual slowdown and the benchmark tests support this, along with bogomips. I'll probably call them back tomorrow and see what else they suggest. I'm guessing the next step would be to attempt to upgrade the BIOS. I saw very few options I could change in the BIOS and none for power mgmt (odd for a laptop BIOS, I thought). Anyway, he agreed that it sounded to him like the processor was running in power-saving mode. Any ideas in the meantime are still appreciated. Any missing letters or misspelling in this post are solely the responsibility of a laptop keyboard that in no way resembles an ergonomic one. Edited November 12, 2003 by Steve Scrimpshire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted November 12, 2003 Report Share Posted November 12, 2003 Maybe a new bios will help. Maybe it is also a hardware problem specific to your laptop. If nothing works, you should try exchanging the laptop to a similar version. Anyway here are the stats from my toshiba (which has a P4-M 2ghz). cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 2 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 Mobile CPU 2.00GHz stepping : 4 cpu MHz : 1993.594 cache size : 512 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm bogomips : 3971.48 cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/performance state count: 2 active state: P0 states: *P0: 2000 MHz, 22000 mW, 250 uS P1: 1200 MHz, 9800 mW, 250 uS cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/power active state: C2 default state: C1 bus master activity: ffffffff states: C1: promotion[C2] demotion[--] latency[000] usage[00000010] *C2: promotion[C3] demotion[C1] latency[001] usage[03728498] C3: promotion[--] demotion[C2] latency[085] usage[00000000] The rest are the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 12, 2003 (edited) Thanks. That just leads me more to believe that either it is a problem specific to Compaq Presarios or a hardware problem with my laptop. [edit]: It looks like I'm going to have to send this laptop to them and have them diagnose this problem because we have exhausted all troubleshooting steps. Bummer. But good if they fix it. I'm thinking about just taking it back to Office Depot and telling them it is defective and get them to exchange it for me and let them deal with it. Edited November 12, 2003 by Steve Scrimpshire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted November 13, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 13, 2003 (edited) Update: I took this laptop back to Office Depot where I bought it (purchased two days ago) and exchanged it for another one. Wouldn't you know it, this one has the exact same problem. I'm waiting for a tech support person to pick up the phone right now. I've been on hold waiting to get my call taken for about 45 minutes so far. Anyway, we/I have tried every possible solution in Windows, including uninstalling and reinstalling all the ACPI stuff and installing all the WinXP updates and service packs. So, I think we have either a serious hardware issue with this model or a BIOS problem. 2 out of two with the exact same problem reporting the exact same cpu speed which happens to be the speed the laptop would throttle down to if it were running in power conservation mode (69.something% of the listed processor speed). What does everyone else think? And the exact model of this laptop is a Presario 2580US. If anyone else has this model, could you post the contents of the files that I did? To the moderators: If you think this topic should be moved to Offtopic, it's fine by me. Update: I finally decided that the Intel M-series processor just wasn't going to ever run at full speed so I exchanged this laptop for a Toshiba Satellite A25-S208 with a P4 2.66. Excellent. Install went smooth. Running nicely. Edited November 18, 2003 by Steve Scrimpshire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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