Pentium M - Speed dropping to 600 mhz - Heat prob

Hi everyone,

I have a Dell Inspiron 600m equiped with a Pentium M 1.5 Ghz. I setted the power scheme to "Always on" (Windows XP). According to Microsoft documentation (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/powermgmt/ProcPerfCtrl.mspx), that scheme have the following policy : "This policy always runs the processor at the highest performance state currently available" (page 5)

Now, when I play a game, my cpu is utilized most of the time at 95 %, after 10 minutes, its speed drop to 600 mhz (instead of the normal 1497 mhz). I'm suspecting that the cpu is heating ("When using this policy, the only reason that Windows will lower the performance of the processor is in response to a thermal event" - Same document, page 5).

My problem is the following: how can I check my cpu temperature ? I don't have any monitor item in the bios. I tried Speedfan and that program found only two sensors :
---------
Found TOSHIBA MK4026GAX (40.0GB)
Found ACPI temperature (58.5C)
End of detection
----------

Is "ACPI temperature" the actual cpu temperature or it's not related ?

Does anybody know a better tool to do that ?

Also, does anybody ever try to explain a problem like that to Dell's 1800 tech support ? I'm afraid that they will not understand...

Thank you very much

First try leaving the speedstep settings at default as it won't effect performace at all.

If you really want to disable it, you might need to disable it in the BIOS.

If all else fails, then it may be heat related.

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