Thinkpads Forum

Under my IBM ThinkPad 380Z I left click My Computer and click properties. It gives the detail of the laptop. Lenovo | Type 2635-HGU | Intel Pentium II Processor | 73MHz, 160.0MB of RAM

My ThinkPad 380Z has a Intel Pentium II 233MHz processor. Why does it say 73MHz?
I get this alot with other computers aswell. Is it a messup during the startup of reading the processors speed?

Hello ThinkPad560X,

Are you running that computer from a battery ? Or perhaps you changed the power profile of the machine (it could be done from BIOS or your OS) to something similar to "longer battery life" ? If yes, than that could be the issue - in order to stop consuming power from the battery (or if powered from an AC adapter - that could be done as well) the computer will clock down the CPU.

To be sure about the speed of your CPU I would recommend programs similar to Everest Home Edition - use this and it will give you a detailed report of your laptop - including the nominal and current speed of the CPU.

I hope that this will somewhat help you sort out the problem

in order to stop consuming power from the battery (or if powered from an AC adapter - that could be done as well) the computer will clock down the CPU.

Pentium III was the first Intel CPU to use speedstep. This is not the issue.

Harryc wrote:Pentium III was the first Intel CPU to use speedstep. This is not the issue.

Well, it may be so but in the BIOS of my ThinkPad 701c (486DX/75 MHz) I can clearly see an option that allows me to manualy choose the speed of a CPU (the values are '25/75' and 'AUTO') - I was refering more to a situation like that. Also I strongly believe that an running an app like Everest or CPUID would provide us much needed data to make a diagnose.

sb102 wrote:... in the BIOS of my ThinkPad 701c (486DX/75 MHz) I can clearly see an option that allows me to manualy choose the speed of a CPU (the values are '25/75' and 'AUTO') - I was refering more to a situation like that.

Well, if you were referring to a BIOS setting you did not say that. You said, "in order to stop consuming power from the battery ... the computer will clock down the CPU." That implies an automatic stepping down. As I stated speedstep did not exist in Intel Processors before Pentium III.

Sorry Harryc, my mistake. Either way I believe that the problem is somehow connected with the CPU clock stepping.

Not a problem, your advice to the OP about running CPUID was right on though.

I would recommend running another program that reads the clock speed such as CPU-Z(there's a variation of version 1.49 they have that runs on 98) or even DirectX Diagnostics(go to start>run>type in: dxdiag) and if they all read the same thing, then it's the BIOS set to limit the clock to that speed or a related issue as the others mentioned above.

You could use another diagnostic program like Everest as sb102 mentioned below too, but CPU-Z is quite small and simple and Dxdiag is included with Windows provided DirectX 3 or later is installed.

I'm not sure just how well Everest shows your computer's specs, can someone provide a screenshot of this program running? PM me a link of an image?

CPUID = CPU-Z
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

It is also possible that your operating system may be doing some kind of dynamic processor throttling. Windows 2000 apparently does this sometimes on some machines in certain configurations.

But as others suggest, whatever reading you may be getting from My Computer -> Properties is almost entirely unreliable, and installing CPU-Z or some other utility will help you determine the exact speed of your CPU.

Phil.

I don't know, it goes up and down on any of my computers but don't seem to affect the normal speed I'm use to.

ThinkPad560X wrote:I don't know, it goes up and down on any of my computers but don't seem to affect the normal speed I'm use to.

So why did you start this thread again?