Slow performance on Battery?

Hi, When my Inspiron 6400, 2GHz, 2GB Ram, XP Media centre, is on Mains power, everything works good, but when it is running on batteries, it goes quite slow, and Notebook Hardware Control wont speed things up, even on Max Performance mode. I discovered something that might help
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-022092.htm
but i dont know how to get to that window in the very last picture on that page. Can anyone give me directions exactly how to get to it, i suspect it's somewhere in control panel, but dont know where.

Thank you
Jordan

 

whats going slow?, intels speed step is pretty seamless, if your having trouble with 3d programs I would say its your videocard if your using dedicated graphics, try adjust your power play settings if you have an ati card, or powermizer for nvidia

 

The game is running brilliantly on mains power, but on battery its pretty poor, i just need the processor turned up, but i dont know how to get to that screen in the link above

 

If you have an ATI card, open the Catalyst Control Center and find the PowerPlay option. Its default is to lower the performance of the GPU when on battery power to get the most out of your battery. You can change it to where it runs at max performance or in between. If you have the GMA950 I don't know, if you have the Geforce, NVidia has a similar feature, but I don't know where to go change it at.

 

Mr_bots thank you very much! that solved my problem, it just needed set to max performance.

Jordan

 

glad you got it sorted out, but be warned, gaming on battery will be, well, short. Its advisable to game on ac whenever possible,and when not gaming set your power settings back to max battery

 

Yeah thanks for the suggestion too, i didnt even know what The catalyst program was unfortunately so thought it was the Speedstep. It was just quite annoying when it was going slow and i didnt know why

Thanks
Jordan

 

I've been a computer tech and an overclocker for 12 years and I can't figure this one out...
I am having a similar problem on my Dell XPS Core2Duo 7200 with Geforce 7900gs on Windows XP Pro. When I unplug my laptop the CPU cuts in half from 2GHz to 1Ghz. I already have my video card set for maximum performance by disabling PowerMizer (the Nvidia control panel tool.)

The problem is with my CPU speed. The only option in BIOS is to disable speedstep which locks my CPU at 1Ghz regardless of AC Power. It doesn't let it run full blast like I hoped. It doesn't make a difference what "Power Scheme" I have selected in WinXP's control panel. It looks like the "throttle" is stuck at 1Ghz according to the CPU clock tool I am viewing the speeds with. To test the performance I am doing a multi thread memory test which pushes the CPU as fast as it will go and reports reults based on CPU speed.

I downloaded SpeedSwitch XP, and it makes the CPU appear to be running at 2Ghz, but the Throttle is stuck at 890Mhz, and the memory benchmarks I run show the the CPU is running below 1Ghz. When I plug the laptop in my memory benchmarks double.

Does anyone know how to adjust SpeedStep properties or how to adjust the setting referred to as "throttle" in several of the apps I have been trying?

Thanks in Advance,
Nate

 

natedogg, I think you should better leave speedstep on, because thats what regulates the CPU speed depending on the usage. When it comes to mobile processors, they don't need and even don't have to be run at full blast 24/7 because it cuts battery life down by a large margin and produces more heat and therefore fan noise.
If you still like to have your CPU at full blast, simply set the power scheme to "Always on" or follow my advice and set it to "Portable/laptop". Provided you turn speedstep on.

 

Hey!! I figured it out. I had to uninstall the Dell Quickset program and use windows for power management!.
Sweet. 13GB/s throughput now!

 

Thanks Natedogg999 for pointing out the right solution. Uninstalling Dell quickset finally let me watch movies on my laptop without being plugged into the wall.