pentium M speed step down help

hyall

so here's the skinny:
i'm having this fairly old compaq evo n610c, which refuses to die out and keeps on delivering dependable functioning.
so i thought i put it to use in my home and set it out as a server (file and wifi).

i installed xp on it, shared my broadband through a usb wifi adapter and it is delivering.
however. the thing is, as i set it out as a fixed unit somewhere in my home, i would appreciate if i made it as less consipicuous as possible. and that's impossible as it is funcitoning with the cooler at full speed (and noise).

my exact config is: pentium M 1,80 G, 512 RAM. this should be enough for a non full speed functioning for these jobs, right?

at boot up, it is quiet, once it settles in xp it starts that sound we all know, the one when you're putting your beast to work. alas! i am not putting it to any computation heavy jobs! it's just there idle, functioning as a router is all!

i get it, it's too much for its old bones, but what i would like would be to have it do this job, only acceptedly, be it considerably, slower, but with more discreteness. in other words i would happily turn on an old school "TURBO" button (aahhh, memories), if only there was one available!!
is there?

i see the touted speed step technology in BIOS yet no explanation how to use it, can it? i've installed its driver and all, maybe it can be used to tone down the computing power, can these means be put to such uses?
any idea how to do that?

speed-step, it sounds like it may be what i'm looking for . .

i reiterate: i want to slow down the computing capabilities such that the cooler does NOT get to full speed


any suggestions, input gladly welcome
thanx

 

The processor you have is not a pentium-m, it's a pentium 4 m (pentium 4 mobile) which were quite hot beast. From what I remember p4 speedstep has only two steps. Normally set at low performance on battery and high/full performance while on AC. There is usually only a few hundred MHz difference though. What you can do in your bios set AC & battery mode to always run at lowest performance. You can also try NHC (notebook hardware control) to lower the operating voltage a bit. Search forums for NHC.

 

I think ez2remember is right, that's a Pentium 4 mobile processor you have and not a Pentium M. Unfortunately SpeedStep did not do a whole lot for the Pentium 4 so the kinds of power reductions you can do are limited.

SpeedStep is automatically controlled; all you have to do is set the Power Options in the Control Panel to "Portable/Laptop" mode and the laptop and Windows will take care of the rest.

Now, do you have a cooling pad? If not, then that's something to get. The Targus Chillmat runs quietly and is worth a look. There is a review of it in the cooling guide.

 

P4-Ms do not allow for voltage tweaking unfortunately, otherwise I would have undervolted my Prescott a long time ago!