Dual Core CPU

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill Martin
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Bill Martin

I just bought a computer that purports to have an AMD Athlon X2 4200 2.2GHz
dual core CPU. It has XP Media Center on it with all the fixes installed.

When I open up the System Properties applet it tells me that it is the
correct CPU, but only running at 991MHz. It seems unlikely to me that
someone would design a computer using an X2 4200 chip and then clock it so
slowly. Is there some known reason why XP would report the clock rate to be
so slow? I just wanted to ask here for a disinterested opinion before I
talk with the big name computer vendor about it.

Thanks.

Bill
 
When it boots up, does it give any BIOS info?

If not, one can usually press <del> or some other key to enter the bios.
From there you can turn off silent boot if you want to see that info.

USE CAUTION IN THE BIOS!

In the BIOS, however, you should also be able to see if the processor is
running at the correct speed. Sometimes if a boot process is interrupted
the PC will automatically clock itself lower as a failsafe in order to
successfully boot the next time.

www.FreeComputerConsultant.com
 
Good thought. The BIOS does indeed show 2.2GHz as I would have expected.
I'm amazed that XP shows such an erroneous clock speed number though.
Trolling through the Microsoft web site I see disclaimers that it may be
slightly off and show 848MHz for an 850MHz machine. They don't mention it
being off by over 50% though.

Thanks.

Bill
----------------------------------------------
 
Is Cool'n'Quiet enabled in BIOS? If so, and PowerManagement settings under
Display properties->ScreenSaver is on minimal power save, then the AMD
clocks itself down...

Bill said:
Good thought. The BIOS does indeed show 2.2GHz as I would have
expected. I'm amazed that XP shows such an erroneous clock speed
number though. Trolling through the Microsoft web site I see
disclaimers that it may be slightly off and show 848MHz for an 850MHz
machine. They don't mention it being off by over 50% though.

Thanks.

Bill
Click to expand...

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No, I've set it for the moment at "Always On" full power. And cruising
through the AMD web site I came across a little utility to measure their
clock speed. It shows it at 2.2GHz at the same time XP shows 991MHz.

Bill
--------------------------
 
might be a problem because of the dual core.
do not remember any one else posting about this problem.



(e-mail address removed)



No, I've set it for the moment at "Always On" full power. And cruising
through the AMD web site I came across a little utility to measure their
clock speed. It shows it at 2.2GHz at the same time XP shows 991MHz.

Bill
--------------------------
 
Bill said:
I just bought a computer that purports to have an AMD Athlon X2 4200
2.2GHz dual core CPU. It has XP Media Center on it with all the
fixes installed.
When I open up the System Properties applet it tells me that it is the
correct CPU, but only running at 991MHz. It seems unlikely to me that
someone would design a computer using an X2 4200 chip and then clock
it so slowly. Is there some known reason why XP would report the
clock rate to be so slow? I just wanted to ask here for a
disinterested opinion before I talk with the big name computer vendor
about it.
Click to expand...



My understanding is that AMD claims that their CPU s are faster than Intel
CPUs of the same speed, so the number they tell you is not the actual speed
but the speed of the Intel equivalent.

So my AMD 3500 shows at 2.21GHz here.
 
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