Dell M70 Throttles CPU t0 213 Mhz?

Does anyone here have any experience with a notebook CPU throttling itself down so much that its running only 1/10 of what it should be at: 2.13Ghz?

This is about a 4-5 year old Dell M70.

Have totally disassembled it, reapplied Arctic Silver 5 to the CPU and GPU and it will run normal for maybe 15 minutes tops, then it feels like a virus takes over - except its simply running at around 200 Mhz - oh, and of course the fans go full on right at that time too.

Any help appreciated - nothing I've searched for has any hits in Google or here.

 

Are you having any problems with the power adapter?

 

No, does this plugged in or on battery (which it charges properly, BTW).

 

So am I correct to assume it "magically" began doing this? IE- You havent changed any settings in either BIOS or windows?

Are you running any fan monitoring programs? What does your system usage graph show when the throttling begins? Have you monitored the temps when it begins to throttle?

 

Began a few weeks ago, but finally had the time to rip it apart and put it back together.

Re-installed XP Pro - thought the XP drivers were making it go wacky, so I installed Win 7 to check and that's when I thought to check with CPUz.

Saw ~200 Mhz and ????, shut it down.

After it had cooled off for an hour or more, I booted Win 7, ran CPUz and waited for about 10 minutes and Bam! Fans come on full, CPU is 200 Mhz and everything crawls of course.

This is definitely hardware, but I've never performed surgery on a notebook before... any advice on what to check next?

 

Have you checked the temps? Cleaned the fans/heatsinks?

 

Yes, totally disassembled it - even reapplied Arctic Silver to both CPU and GPU. But before and after, temps seem normal.

 

Which model cpu is it? In CPUz what FSB and multiplier does it go to? Also what voltage?

 

That will have to wait until I'm back at my studio (tomorrow).

Have to leave for a shoot pretty soon, but I really appreciate the help so far.

Off the top of my head it is a Pentium M 770 @ 2.13 Ghz if that helps you at all?

 

Bump.

Just wanted to update anyone waiting for more info from me that the computer now boots (within seconds) at around 200 Mhz (just guessing - didn't have an hour to get Win 7 and CPUz running to show me the actual speed).

Any other thoughts on this issue?

 

No idea. But, my Inspiron 600m with Pentium M 2.0 GHz used to go to 600 MHz if I played Dawn of War for too long (so it was definitely a temperature problem) and would clock back up to 2.0 GHz when the temps came down.

Yours seems to be doing it permanently.

 

Yes, unfortunately!

 

Somebody had something similar with a Vaio SZ...
A system reinstall brought it back.

Test your laptop on a Linux CD (one of those installation free ones) - if it stays downclocked you are looking at hardware/BIOS level, if it doesn't your OS is to blame.

 

DetlevCM,

Thanks, but I've already installed the original XP Pro, and thinking that the problem were drivers (I didn't check CPUz cause didn't think the CPU would be throttling down), I also installed Win 7 - same issues on both O/S's.

 

Well more like a corrupted file than a driver, but if this happens in two independant OSes then its possibly hardware

Can you try a different CPU?

 

Different CPU? Never attempted that before and I don't know of any reputable outlets here to trust for a CPU purchase anyway.

 

Well, its the only step before either a new mainboard or a new laptop...

if its a Pentium M they should be quite affordable nowadays

 

The problem is that these notebooks have many known problems and its probably not worth to spend time or money on this anymore.

I thought it might be as simple as replacing the original thermal grease with a 'better' one, but obviously that didn't work.

Thanks though for the suggestions!

 

try disabling speedstep in the bios, might be a faulty temp sensor.

 

afhstingray,

Thanks, I may try this tomorrow (but I'm sure I've tried already).

If I remember correctly, on this Dell, if you disable speedstep, then the CPU is always running at the lowest clock speed it has available (but hopefully more than 200 Mhz! ).

Even if it runs at 1Ghz, this will still make this computer usable to somebody - nothing else really wrong with it.

 

afhstingray,

Your suggestion of disabling the speedstep in the BIOS seemed to work!

I was turning things on/off in the BIOS and in one instance, I noticed Win 7 booting up almost at normal speed (less than two minutes, anyway). When I was finally able to run CPUz on the notebook, it showed 800 Mhz - it stayed like that for over an hour, but at least the computer was usable!

Then I noticed that the wireless card could not connect - I had disabled it in the BIOS. The minute I turned on the Wireless card, the computer was taking 10 minutes to boot (but, at least it was booting now...) CPUz showed the speed a little higher about 220 Mhz, but still basically not usable.

Leaving the computer to cool off for about 1/2 an hour, I again disabled the wireless card and the computer seems to run no problem at 800 Mhz.

Finally, I had to plug in the charger and decided to see if the WEI score for the CPU would show higher than 1.5 - but in less than a minute running the assessment the computer just shut itself off suddenly - Bam!

So, does this help anyone for any more suggestions?

Next, I'm going to try removing the wireless card completely, but that will have to be much later - too busy now.

 

Wow, this is not only for older products?

See:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=16986

Update coming soon on my M70 problems - the issue seem almost like the link above.

 

Faulty ac adapter? I had an ac adapter go bad on my M170 that forced the computer to run at about 600MHZ due to the lack of power, If I ran it on a fully charged battery it would pop back up to the default speed step of 800MHz, this was on the 2.0GHz Pentium M. Have you tried playing with the power settings ie- High performance setting in windows?

 

did you try using another power adaptor, just in case

 

Thanks guys, for the suggestions, but no the power adaptor is fine (when the computer is cool it works fine - how cool? Is -20 celsius cool enough? hehe).

Also, the power settings are not the issue either. The CPU throttles to 200 Mhz and it seems like it is crawling with viruses - just like the article I linked above, but unlike the current batch of Dell's, this one doesn't recover.

 

Okay, this will probably be the last post unless some miracle happens to this Dell M70.

I turned off the wireless card in the BIOS and tried using the system with speed step disabled. Depending on what program I ran (for example, a MSE quick scan) the computer would shut itself off - not elegantly either.

I decided to remove the wireless card, left speed step disabled (enabling it would allow it to eventually hit 200 Mhz again) and I could do anything I want with the computer - except run the WEI assessment which shows the CPU score at 1.5! I could run the battery down like this without any real issues except that with speed step disabled, the speed is locked at 800 Mhz, which is pretty slow. But how slow? I was about to find out on this Single Core Single Threaded CPU running at 800 Mhz.

(Remember, this is a clean Win 7 install with nothing installed except MSE, CPUz and all available Windows Updates).

Digging in my spare parts filing cabinets, I found an old Netgear WAG511 wireless CardBus card. Win 7 couldn't load these drivers.

Digging around some more, I found a Linksys Wireless G Cardbus card and this works!

The good news? This computer can last around 2 hours wirelessly connected and browsing the web. And, it doesn't shut down, nor throttle the CPU lower than 800 Mhz.

The bad news? Scrolling the posts on this forum peg the CPU to 100% lol and, it has cooked my legs pretty good too - definitely more than medium rare.

At least this is usable for someone, maybe I'll throw a copy of Office 2003 on this and donate it.

hahaha, lol - sorry, I'm not laughing about donating it - I was just about to type that I don't know if it'll hibernate properly and the battery died right then - Hibernation works!

So, I may not have fixed it, but it is not totally garbage either.

Thanks to all who tried to help, but I think that the link two or three posts above shows that this issue in this late 2004 model is still a problem in 2009 for Dell.

That's too bad, as the 1920x1200 screen, the dual pointing devices and the 2 hour battery are still nothing to be ashamed of... if only the CPU worked as it should.

Question; would anyone try the 'baking' process on this almost working notebook?

 

it sounds like a faulty thermal sensor-or if it really is hot, faulty CPU. if i was u i;d just replace the CPU.

where are you based? i have a spare 1.4ghz pentium M (banias) that i have no use for. welcome to have it if it'd be any use to u

 

Thanks for the offer!

But I'm not into working to fix up computers anymore. I need them to work for me.

If I don't find an appropriate home for this now 'toy' before Christmas, I may have some time to try to bake it and see how that goes.

 

you wont achieve anything by baking it. its better to donate it in its current state rather than destroy it completely.

or you could ebay the parts, especially the screen might fetch a decent price

 

Yeah, I think you're right - don't want to destroy it for no reason.