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    CPU Multiplier stuck at 3.5x?

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by rippledabs, Apr 15, 2011.

  1. rippledabs

    rippledabs Newbie

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    Hi, I just got my m11x, and I enabled the O/C in the bios, and this is what cpuz is showing.

    It's showing 931 MHz. Is there some sort of power saver option? I loaded up a game, and it still shows 931 MHz, so it's not some auto step-up function. How do I get my 6x multiplier?

    Disabling the speed step in the BIOS doesn't do anything.

    I turned speedstep back on, and O/C off, and now it's at x2.5 @498 MHz.

    Is my machine broken? Even at 500 MHz, the high speed fan is coming on all the time.
     

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    rippledabs, Apr 15, 2011
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  2. aggiekevin

    aggiekevin Notebook Consultant

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    Click on the battery icon in the bottom right toolbar.
    Select more power options.
    Select High Performance.
    Power Saver mode and Balanced mode both limit the multiplier to save power.
     
    aggiekevin, Apr 15, 2011
    #2
  3. unclewebb

    unclewebb ThrottleStop Author

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    The lowest multiplier physically possible in a Core 2 based processor is 6.0. When CPU-Z reports multipliers less than 6.0, it's often times that your CPU is being throttled by clock modulation throttling. This is a feature of Intel processors that should always be turned off but sometimes the Dell bios will accidentally turn this throttling feature on and forget to turn it off.

    To test for this download ThrottleStop in my sig. When you first run this program it will be in monitoring mode only so don't worry too much about the scary warning message.

    There are two types of Clock Modulation throttling and these will be reported in the table on the right hand side of ThrottleStop in the CMod and Chip columns. If everything is OK, these columns should both show 100.0 for both cores. If there is a problem, one of these columns will show less than 100.0 like maybe 50.0 which shows that your CPU is being throttled. If this is the case and your temperatures are OK then you might have to ask Dell why this is going on.

    You should be able to use ThrottleStop to correct this problem so your CPU can run at full speed. If the heatsink has come loose from the CPU and your CPU core temperatures are sky high and this is causing the throttling then your laptop will need to be disassembled so you can fix the problem but it's not uncommon for this type of throttling to happen randomly.
     
    unclewebb, Apr 15, 2011
    #3