Dell E520 and SpeedStep

[airernie]

I have a two year old Dell Dimension E520 running Vista Home Premium, which has been using an Intel E6320. Today I installed a used Intel E6600. I expected a core speed of 2.4 GHz, but was only getting 1.5 GHz. Through some research I learned about SpeedStep and how to disable it in the BIOS.

However, when I went into the BIOS it was already disabled. In addition, I had already set my power option to 'high performance', so there is no where to go there. The E6320 CPU always ran at full speed, so the disable option must have worked.

I am really trying to figure out why SpeedStep is still enabled. The throttling is observable in both CPU-Z and Real Temp. I thought that it might be a thermal thing, but Real Temp is only reporting around 44°/45° at about 36% load.

BTW, it seems to throttle up okay, but the fact that it still throttles down when the feature is suppose to be disabled has me bothered.

 

[jsc]

If it throttles up under load and throttles back when the load decreases, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[jitpublisher]

It apparently is not disabled.
There may be no setting in your BIOS to disable it, or the BIOS may not detect the new CPU correctly.

 

[airernie]

It apparently is not disabled.
There may be no setting in your BIOS to disable it, or the BIOS may not detect the new CPU correctly.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

The BIOS has a SpeedStep enable/disable option. It is disabled by default, which is why I'm baffled that the E6600 is still throttling down.

If the BIOS setting is 'enabled' then there are Minimum/Maximum Processor State settings in the Power Plan. With the setting 'disabled' those options are no longer available because both are automatically set to 100%.

I've even tried enabling SpeedStep and setting the Power Options to 'High Performance’ with no change in throttling.

The BIOS accurately reflects the E6600, though I had to 'uninstall' the old processor (E6320) in Device Manager to get it to recognize the new processor. According to Microsoft this is not uncommon.

 

[Beetlebox]

Maybe it's an effect of C-State transition from C0. If your BIOS has the option to disable C-States you could check but I would recommend leaving them enabled for normal use and not being too concerned at the apparent drop in speed reported by the software.

 

[joefriday]

you can use RMclock to force max speed. Not that I would recommend it. C1e and speedstep help keep the computer quiet and consumes less power with them on.

 

[airernie]

you can use RMclock to force max speed. Not that I would recommend it. C1e and speedstep help keep the computer quiet and consumes less power with them on.

Thanks..

I guess I need a lesson in CPU dynamics because I can't for the life of me see why I would want my processor to run at less than optimal speed at all times. Isn't that the purpose of having a faster processor?

If my E6600 runs at 1.5 MHz most times due to low CPU load, then my E6320 which ran unthrottled was a faster processor most of the time. The E6600 only becomes faster under a higher load.

Just makes no sense..

 

[someguy7]

It makes perfect sense. The e6600 is faster ALL of the time.

Think of sports car with a big powerful V8 that disables 4 cylinders when cruising.