Thinkpads Forum

Hello everyone,

So, I finally had a few hours to play arounf with my new T-60. Quite nice so far! I ran into some issues with hooking it up to my network which turned out to be a problem with all the Symantec stuff it comes with. Once that was gone, everything worked so good that I decided to keep the out-of-the-box XP pretty much as it is instead of spending the extra time on a clean installation.

Linux (native) dual-boot still looks like a big deal right now, so I decided to run different distributions in VMware first to get a little more familiar with some of the issues involved.

There is where I noticed something else: VMware Workstation complained about conflicting information on processor speed after the installation. It stated that it only measures 339Mhz while Windows reported to VMware almost the full 2Ghz that it should have (dual core 2Ghz).
I thought that it is just a bug in VMware or just the nature of a virtual machine, but then I checked the system information in Windows. There it correctly says that it is a dual core 2Ghz processor, but that it is running at 997MHz. Each?? I am confused.

Note: all this happened while the machine's power cord is plugged in and I do not see any power saving settings that may reduce processor speed, which it should not do anyway while plugged in, right?

Hi

Maybe its the speedstep technology, although I also would think that it would run on full speed when the power cord is connected.

What is Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology with Multiple Voltage / Frequency Operating Points?

Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor-M supports Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® technology allowing the processor to switch between only two core performance frequencies.

Intel Pentium M processors add new capabilities to Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology with multiple voltage / frequency operating points. This means that dynamic transitions will happen at smaller intervals between the Battery-Optimized mode (lowest voltage / frequency) and the Performance-Optimized mode (highest voltage / frequency), enabling higher performance and lower power for each workload. With dynamic switching capability mobile systems can switch between the multiple operating points based on CPU utilization, without user intervention. The result is that the user observes higher performance and extended battery-life automatically. Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology with multiple voltage / frequency operating points enables optimum performance at the lowest power whether connected to AC or Battery Power, resulting in a better user experience with no battery life degradation.

Source: http://www.intel.com/support/processors ... 022131.htm

Actually, the "Thinkpad default" power setting (Fn+F3) sets the maximum CPU speed to Adaptive when the power cord is plugged in. In many cases, this means it'll clock down to 997Mhz.

If you really want to use the full 2Ghz all the time (I personally have never had a problem with the Adaptive setting), then change your power setting to "Maximum Performance."

When VMware starts, the CPU should jump up to Max right away and then go back down. When you start a VM, the CPU should jump up again. I haven't had a case of VMware not knowing how fast the machine was in a recent ThinkPad. I just use the ThinkPad Default power setting. Maybe try uninstalling and re-installing VMware. ... JD Hurst

jdhurst wrote:When VMware starts, the CPU should jump up to Max right away and then go back down. When you start a VM, the CPU should jump up again. I haven't had a case of VMware not knowing how fast the machine was in a recent ThinkPad. I just use the ThinkPad Default power setting. Maybe try uninstalling and re-installing VMware. ... JD Hurst

Thanks. I guess I have to try the reinstallation. I adjusted all power settings that I could find and I still get that same error message. However, I was able to install Ubuntu and it seems to work...