Can't change CPU speed when on battery

[notebooknewbie]

Right now I'm on battery power...however, the computer only runs at 598MHz, despite the fact that I changed the battery settings so that CPU Speed would be at its maximum. Is there something that I can do or can you simply not run your computer at it's maximum speed while on battery (1.5GHz). Thanks!

[Plinkerton]

I can run mine at 1.7 on battery. I go to the power settings, and click on maximun performance, instead of maximun battery performance. It just boosts it right up.

click on the battery meter on your taskbar, and go select that profile.

[notebooknewbie]

Hmmm...now I'm back on AC power but my speed is still at 598MHz...when I click on the little battery/plug icon on the right hand side, it is on High System Performance so I still don't know why the speed is the same...any help/suggestions?

[mr_mbuna]

I noticed the same thing today and I did a Google search on the subject. The situation, as I understand it, is that the Pentium M processors automatically scale to processor demand at almost all times. If you're on battery, its probably a sure thing that its going to have a sliding processing speed.

What does this mean? You're probably checking your My Computer properties dialog while you're not doing anything else - while the processor is idle. If you were doing something that used up a lot of processing power the processor would automatically speed up - you'll never be bottlenecked by the 599 MHz speed step. Maybe you should try checking the properties while you're watching a DVD movie or ripping some MP3's off a CD-ROM... while you're doing something processor-intensive.

That's just how I understand it though.

[mr_mbuna]

I noticed the same thing today and I did a Google search on the subject. The situation, as I understand it, is that the Pentium M processors automatically scale to processor demand at almost all times. If you're on battery, its probably a sure thing that its going to have a sliding processing speed.

What does this mean? You're probably checking your My Computer properties dialog while you're not doing anything else - while the processor is idle. If you were doing something that used up a lot of processing power the processor would automatically speed up - you'll never be bottlenecked by the 599 MHz speed step. Maybe you should try checking the properties while you're watching a DVD movie or ripping some MP3's off a CD-ROM... while you're doing something processor-intensive.

That's just how I understand it though.

[notebooknewbie]

Thanks that makes sense...I didn't really know that the processor had that feature in it.

[Matt]

Nope, this is a new development. Just fired up a flight sim program that previously screamed along at ~90fps, now putting out 25fps with the processor doing only 598MHz instead of 1.7GHz. So something's changed.