Power management and CPU frequancy

[Ozpa]

Hellow,

I've bought a HP Compaq nx9005 a few days ago.
(2400+(1.79Ghz) XP-M, 256MB, 30Gb, ATI IGP 320(need to share memory *not happy*)

I'm not really familiar with notebooks btw

I made a clean WinXP+SP1+all SP2 patches that were avaible yesterday.
I don't like installing all the software from the CDs that went with the notebook, so only the touchpad, some utils and the onboard drivers are installed.

The thing is, when I perform Sandra CPU benchmarks, the CPU runs at 795Mhz. Sometimes it really goes on 1.79ghz(and the benches are twice as better ofcourse). But how come the notebook changes the Mhz by itself?

Questions:
1) Does the frequancy change when the AC power is plugged/unplugged? Or it's done automaticaly? Or when you change the Power modes? (or give the correct answer if those all are not)

2) How to make it constantly work on max Mhz? (I don't care if I only work in Notepad but I need to use all the 1.79Ghz)

3) Is there any way to change the the mhz manualy? (any software or option that goes with WinXP?) How about the aditional software that to change mhz? Cause I just need to control this stuff

4) How does W-LAN work? I have this adapter in it and what do I need in my desktop in order to connect them?

[ua549]

In Control Panel, Power Options select the always on power scheme. Your CPU will run at full speed all the time.

[SkyDog]

There's also a utility called SpeedSwitchXP that you can use to more precisely control when your processor throttles up or down. You can download it HERE.

[Ozpa]

ua549: I have changed the cheme to Always On and restarted, then in Sandra CPU bench it again gave me ~half of the power it has(the cpu). Seems not to work for me

SkyDog: looks a like a pretty cool little proggie (checked the webie) I'll be downloading and installing that to see if it gets better.

standby..

[ua549]

Originally posted by Ozpa
ua549: I have changed the cheme to Always On and restarted, then in Sandra CPU bench it again gave me ~half of the power it has(the cpu). Seems not to work for me

SkyDog: looks a like a pretty cool little proggie (checked the webie) I'll be downloading and installing that to see if it gets better.

standby..

It works on my Compaq Evo N610c with a 2 GHz P4-M processor

[Ozpa]

Hmmm.. strange ****.

1) Even with SSXP, when I set both types of power to 'Max Performance' the scores I get with Sandra 2004 are around 700-900Mhz.

2) Same with 'Always On' scheme. (now I know it uses max mhz all the time, even the Home/Office scheme doesn't do that(H/O releases mhz whenever there's a need but doesn't work on max all the time))

3) Max CPU detected (by both modes) of SSXP is 1791mhz and 'current CPU' is always around that number, ok. But now when I try 'Max Battery' or other modes which decrease mhz in any way - the current mhz is still shown around 1.79Ghz, slowing down the CPU doesn't work, or at least it's not shown.
AND even then Sandra gives me poor CPU bench results!

Maybe Sandra is a bad way to test CPU and whether I have decreased the mhz? Oh and I rebooted each time I made a change in schemes, btw. What is wrong here? Maybe I need to update something? Now I'm using the battery drivers/software that go with WinXP.
I'm starting to think that some software here is wrongdoing or I'm missing stuff here.

[Ozpa]

Hmmm.. when I plug in the AC adapter to charge the battery I get good results in Sandra(as they should be) and games run really better. What the hell..

All I want is a way to control how much Mhz my CPU runs(battery power saving that way) so when I play games I want it to run max (and not half) and when I type in Notepad I want it to decrease.

[ua549]

Intel has a frequency ID utility on their download site.
It reports current and max frequencies.
The drawbackis that it does not update as you make changes.

[Ozpa]

Seems like I can't find a way to control the frequancy of my CPU on the notebook :\

[SkyDog]

If Windows or SpeedSwitchXP aren't controlling the CPU speed like they're supposed to, check to see if there's a BIOS update available for your notebook. I don't know about your particular laptop, but I have come across a few different ones where power management glitches were corrected by a BIOS update.

[Ozpa]

As soon as I bought the nbook I downloaded and flashed to the latest version.

Here are the drivers for my nx9005: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/fi...e/64_5600.html

Currently on 'KA.M1.52', flashed with WinFlash, no errors.
But since you mentioned it then I guess I'll try flashing back to 'KA.M1.50' since it's also avaible for download there.

("1.52 - Adds battery information in F2 Setup", maybe that's what screwed the thing, adding a new buggy feature)

[Ozpa]

oops forgot to reply with news.

Well the older BIOS didn't help as well :\
However it works to the max when the AC power is connected (as before).

Oh, I have another question.
When it's best to recharge the battery? When it's all discharged or I can plug in AC whenever I want? (or how/when to use the AC so it serves longer)