Power Management Problem

I have a HP zt3000 laptop running XP Home with a Pentium M chip. The problem I'm having is every time I use the laptop on battery power the CPU goes full power (1.5 Mhz). But when I go to AC power the CPU drops to 598 Mhz.

The Power Management is not working right. The power profile is set to Laptop.

I'm using Wcpuid to check the cpu clock speed.

 

That's a pretty weird problem. Windows should normally stay at the same speed whether or not your on AC. It depends on what setting you have for your PM settings. But this issue may not be related to that (might not), it could be a problem with the utility you're using.

Try using CPUZ from http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php and see if this helps. Some older programs may not recognize the CPU speeds correctly. If this works, then it's just your software, if not, then it could be your OS or something your're running in the background that's conflicting.

I'd personally wipe the system and reload from scratch, but that may be a bit too drastic for you at this point. You can try running MSCONFIG (Start -> Run -> MSCONFIG) and disable all from the Startup Tab. After you boot up, try running CPUZ again and see if it works. If it does, it's one of those things you disabled in the Startup that's causing the problem, if not, it's something else (drivers/OS/software).

If you do decide to reload your OS, I'd get everything backed up before wiping as you will loose everything if you don't.

-Vb-

 

Yeah this is weird. If I set the power profile to Home/Desktop the cpu goes down 598 Mhz on battery, 1.5 Mhz on AC. The thing is I've always used the laptop profile, and I never had this problem before. I think one of windows updates messed up the Power Management.

Thanks for the tips, I check them out.

 

What happens if you use the Notebook/Laptop setting now? This is where it should be operating at because a desktop is not really supposed to be mobile. That could explain why it drops in CPU speed when on battery.

-Vb-

 

As soon as I change the profile to Notebook/Laptop the cpu goes to full power 1.5 Mhz on battery. I'm using cpuz and I get the same readings as wcpuid.
I think it's the OS. I really don't want to reinstall.

 

What happens when you run CPUZ? After the change in Power Management settings, check CPUZ, close and pull from AC/connect AC and re-run CPUZ and see what happens (might not detect 100% correctly during a switch). If this program doesn't report the correct info, then you might want to try updating your BIOS. If this doesn't help, try my other sugggestions above. If that doesn't help, reload your OS. If you don't want to do that, contact HP and see if they can help. If not, you're not really left with a lot of options. Sorry.

-Vb-

 

Weird. As soon as I use plug i the AC the speed drops. And when I pull it out the speed goes up.

Well I guess I'll set it to home/desktop and live with it. It wouldn't be the first time a windows update broke something in the OS. Maybe MS will fix it someday.

Update: Now using "Minimal Power Management" power profile and now everything works as before.