v2000z power mgmt problem...

It's v2405US with Sempron 3000+.
I have played installing, uninstalling many power management programs yesterday. Now, the battery life seem to be bad. The Battery Bar report only 1.5 hrs at 100% capacity (was getting 2.5 hrs before).
Anything to check? The HDD seem to be running a little hot. I have installed AMD CPU driver.

BTW, does it need 1.6GHz to play DVD?? Seems way too high for me. The CPU speed drop down to 800MHz for light internet browsing task but when I start playing DVD, it jump to 1.6GHz (when I start other high CPU-intensive task like Super PI, it jumped up to 1.8GHz as expected).

What to look?

 

I forced my CPU to 800Mhz and it played a ISO DVD rip just fine while just using maybe 20-30% of the CPU.

Use a program like notebook hardware control and do the same. Run it at max battery. If the app runs like that, then kick ass!

http://www.pbus-167.com

 

You need to install old AMD cpu driver, as new CPU driver has some problem with Turions, and causing CPU to always run at full speed. DOwnload old version of AMD driver from HP or AMD and install it.

Otherwise, we have our best friend RMClock, which also reduces lot heat and improves battery little more and does not need to have AMD driver for this.

 

The CPU was already running at low speed for less demanding application.
I actually found the problem though. The Battery Bar program is not accurate! I manually test it... it still last 2.5 hrs
Anyway, How much exactly CPU needed for DVD playback?? Force run at 800MHz but 20-30% vs lower usuage but higher clock... which one save more batt?

 

dvd playback requirements are a 300mhz cpu with 64mb's system ram and a mpg2 decoder.

I also have a V200z series. I have a 34 in mine with the 100gig of crap drive. (bah 4200) I honestly think that mine is going back though. If I can't get this chip to run @ a constant 1.8ghz then it's going back. I had things that throttle. My laptop is only moved and used for a max of an hour. and drm's can do that with ease. Otherwise mine is always on ac.

 

Have you tried setting the Power scheme to "Always On". Usually this will make the processor work at its max spped 24/7.

 

800Mhz save lot more power than higher steppings. Just increasing the clock speed itself consumes more power. So, better stay at lowest possible stepping.

 

I uninstalled the amd driver and then set the power to always on. And now it's makin' some heat If I get an 2 hours of battery at full tilt I'm happy. This was puchased to be a pda replacement. And it's doing a very nice job at it (asus a620 fs )

Once I get the 2x gskill ddr333 512's in and take out the 2x 256's and set the 128mb shared instead of the current 32mb I will probably then install the amd drivers and go back to the power saving mode. But right now with a 100gb 4200rpm hdd. and 512mb with 32mb's shared to video it's twitchy. I hate waiting At some point this lappy will have a 100gb 7200rpm hdd and 1 gig ram. and I'll use the one that is in it for mp3's or maybe even just sell it.

Kinda bothers me that the dvd burner is only 4x but that has nothing to do with the power consumption.

I'll be trying xp 64bit this weekend. I sure hope that I can run enough to at least use office and make my movie backups.

 

Why are you buying DDR333? is there any specific reason? This one supports DDR400 and you get a nice increase in overall performance by almost 12-15% including VIDEO as it is shared. Check my review to compare benches.

 

sorry about that guys. Currently it uses pc2700 (ddr333) but the gskill stuff is pc3200 (ddr400).

I did notice that currently bank 1 runs @ 166mhz and bank 2 runs @ 133mhz. Anyone else seeing this with cpuZ? There was 2x 256's in the sysem when I purchased it and they are suppose to both me pc2700. When you share it for the video card does it drop it down some?

The ati chipset (200m) that is being used is actually a dual channel chipset. It's to bad that there isn't a way to unlock that dual channel support and really open up the peformance of this system

 

Mine (the sempron) came with 256MB DDR333 (PC2700) and a 4200rpm HDD.
I swapped those out using a 5400rpm HDD and 2x512MB DDR400 (running @199MHz) now. The lappy is much, much snappier. Super PI is vastly improved with RAM upgrade (original 2:11, new config 2:02). I'm pretty happy.
I'd try to see if forcing the CPU to run at 800MHz on playing DVD would give much diff.

 

The only thing that I noticed with my ml-34 @ 800mhz was when watching a dvd it would pause sometimes, almost like the buffer was full. But I attribute this to the low amount of memory.

The 300mhz and 64mb ram and mpg2 decoder was the standard back when 95 was still out. so with 95 and 98 as an overhead you could get away with 64mb's of ram. But now with XP no way. 512mb is the minum that I would run xp with. And since I have 32mb's shared of that 512mb I need to upgrade fast

Have you people seen a huge difference in 5400 vs 7200 in the laptops? how dramatically does it affect the battery life?

 

At 800Mhz, for DVD playing you should not see more than 30% of CPU usage. I doubt if it is the memory problem, as I was able to play DVD fine with 256MB when I got mine. If you are seeing more than that or seeing pauses, most likely it is a problem with DVD Drive reading problem and/or DVD drive is running in PIO mode.

BTW, WinDVD supplied is not that good and uses more CPU for no reason( I guess some kind of BUG), so installed PowerDVD and it uses much less CPU than WinDVD and all the default Mulitmedia controls works without any software mapping.

About 5400RPM vs 7200RPM drives, Battery life should not be much different as power consumption is very similar( it is more dependent on brands than just speed of the drive).

But, IO performance improvement should be substantial., mean you can run many concurrent applications and it feels more snappy. Bandwidth wise you may not see great improvement. It reduces the latency more than anything. And last warning, I do not own 2.5" 7200 RPM drive, and all the information I gave is based on several reviews I read online( ofcourse I used several 3.5" 5400RPM as well as 7200RPM and I know the difference).

 

I just used windvd because it was on there. This weekend it's getting XP Pro 64bit installed onto it. I'll then be using power dvd.

Is anyone having a problem getting the amd drivers to work properly again after you uninstalled the inital install that came with the notebook? I uninstalled the initial installation that was on the notebook when I bought it. Then I downloaded the newest one from amd's site and installed it. It still runs at 1795. I then uninstalled that one and got the one from compaq's site, same thing. Anyone know what is up with this? Is this software the same as what intel's speedstep software does?

 

The source of the problem exists in the processor itself. Sempon's lack of cache forces it to use MHz instead. Simple fact.

 

I have the turion 1.8gh (ml-34) not a sempron.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't know this was your thread.

 

When you re-installed the cpu driver did you change back the Power setting to Portable/Laptop, because that is what controls the PowerNow( or CnQ) settings. It does not make any difference where you download the driver from they are both made by AMD. Probably the one from Compaq might be slightly older. So it is better to get the cpu driver from AMD. Also sometimes I have noticed that the installation package sometimes uninstalls the older driver and restarts the computer but does not complete the reinstallation. You will need to again click on the installation package for it to complete the installation. Check the driver version in device manager to see if this is the case.

Yes, Power or Cool n Quiet performas the same function as Speedstep.