Motherboard Automatically Underclocks CPU?

[Naf456]

Hello-
recently i tried to overclock my PC- it's a 2.7 GHz AMD athlon BE (7750 (Kuma))- and my MOBO is a Gigabyte
GA-m61pme-s2 (Not all that great).

Many people recommended the software CPU-Z so i downloaded it. i overclocked my Cpu to 2.9GHz (201 FSB, 14.5x multiplayer) everything was fine and dandy- went onto CPU-Z (First time i used the program) and i checked the core speed- it equalled 2.9Ghz... everything was fine- for about 30 seconds... when the core speed dropped to 1421.6 MHz (1.4GHz) why? (I thought i pushed it too far and my PC under clocked itself) so i went back into my BIOS and changed the multiplier back to "Automatic"

I Went back into windows- went onto CPU-Z and guess what? same again- the core speed fell to 1421.6 MHz? i don't know why... and when i think about it- my 1.86Ghz Compaq NC4200 laptop transfers files to my flash drive Kickass faster then my computer... is my CPU really running at 1.4 GHz? or is it just an "Energy save" schematic? if so- how would i get the most out of my machine?

 

[someguynamedmatt]

I'm assuming that it's Cool N' Quiet at work, or something similar. Put it under load and see what it does. Typically, there's something somewhere that will downclock the CPU when it's idling (or close to doing so) in order to save power. I know that my Phenom II x4 965 runs at 800Mhz while I'm listening to music or something little...

That 30 seconds you saw was probably your CPU processing CPU-Z's load, and the readings it takes once it's called upon...
I had my Cool N' Quiet disabled for a while, but I re-enabled it when I saw that it made absolutely no difference whatsoever, short of my security system that scans during system idle time.

 

[jprahman]

matt's correct. What you're experiencing is AMD's Cool N' Quiet technology downclocking your CPU at idle to save energy and reduce heat. This is completely normal and I highly recommend leaving it enabled. When the CPU load picks up your CPU speed will automatically be increased back up to 2.9GHz. You can see this for yourself by running a CPU intensive program in the background with CPU-Z up, CPU-Z should show your normal 2.9GHz.

Cool N' Quiet doesn't affect performance at all.