HELP !!! My processor speed decreased dramatically

[ludacris]

Hey guys, i just experienced one of the weirdest things in my computer experience. I own a Thinkpad a22e (whose prosessor is supposed to be Pentium III 900 Mhz). One time i felt that my laptop was so heavy in processing, (the cpu usage in the task manager showed 100%), then when i looked up at the system information, the prosessor was indeed only 293 Mhz !!! I was shocked and couldnt believe what i saw. I thought i got virus or whatsoever but when i boot with knoppix, the prosessor was still 293 Mhz. and another problem, for some reason, i could not enter the BIOS setup menu, it ignored the keyboard input when the IBM logo appeared, in addition that text "press f1 to enter .... " also didnt show up. Right now, it is back to normal, but do you guys know what i should do if i encounter this problem again ??
Thanks for your help

[agarza]

Download SpeedSwitch XP and set it to mode of Max Performance. It concerns the SpeedStep acting reducing the CPu speed