X220 works CONSTANTLY on 800 MHz from AC adapter - is it normal?

To those who own X220:

Have you noticed your processor constantly working at the lowest frequency (800 MHz in my case) when you use AC power adapter only (without battery)? Or did I get a defective unit?

I just want to check whether it is a defect or normal behavior of my laptop, prior to contacting Lenovo support. Thanks for your responses!

 

did you check if the settings in power manager are messed up?
did you reinstall windows or is it the stock install that came with the laptop

 

It is a defect of the bios, please post in this thread to push for an update:

X220 cpu throttling problem - Lenovo Community

 

It is always the same, 800 MHz on any Power Manager Profile. I have made clean install after my upgrade to Intel SSD.

 

the part highlighted in bold red is your problem.   either plug in the battery or use a 90W adapter.   notebooks aren't designed to be used without the battery.

welcome to the forum, btw.

 

Yes, I've read about this. But:
1) In my case it is not just performance drop that everyone writes about, processor is constantly in lowest possible state.
2) Also I have read posts from people, whose x220 runs on 3.2 Ghz successfully WITHOUT the battery using just 65 Watt adapter.
Probably, my power adapter is defective?

 

i highly doubt your system is defective.

removing the battery with the factory BIOS settings is likely to pin your processor speed at 800MHz.   that's just how it is.   you've essentially removed part of the system (ie: the battery) that provides power to the CPU when i needs it.

after trying to test this myself, the best i can get my X220 to run without a battery on the 65W adapter is 2.5 GHz by disabling speedstep in the BIOS.   i can reach full speed without a battery only by using a 90W adapter.

 

Are you doing anything to load the system at all?

If you're just sitting at idle, there's no reason for the CPU to speed up. Run superPI or something like that to get the CPU to go faster.

Mine is at 800Mhz most of the time for web browsing as it doesn't need to go any faster, but it does speed up for intensive tasks.

 

It is not defective. Mine stays at 800 no matter what I do when the battery is out while on AC. I actually was dumbfounded by it and created a thread only to find out the battery being out was the problem. I always liked to take out the battery when it is fully charged.

My dell laptop performs the exact same with or without the battery.

 

Wait with the i5 and Intel GPU, the x220 prefers a 90 watt adapter?

Did you also check if your Intel Management Engine Interface is installed?

 

no.   the X220 was designed around the 65W adapter.   my example was without a battery installed (a key point mentioned many times in my post) and tested purely for academic purposes.

 

What program do you use to monitor the CPU speed? CPU-Z?

Petrov.

 

The battery of my T61p is dead (3 years old...), I used the laptop without the battery and it runs perfectly.

 

Using CPU-z, I've noticed that my x220 spends most of its time at c.800mhz, even when the AC Adapter AND the battery (6 cell) are BOTH plugged in at the same time, AND it's set to Maximum Performance.

Can people please chip in and tell me if this is normal?

Many thanks,
Petrov.

 

Your CPU should normally be running at its lowest speed to avoid creating lots of continuous heat and noise while doing very little. That said, selecting Maximum Turbo in Power Manager on my T420s appears to keep the CPU running at full speed while doing very little.

Run a CPU benchmark such as wPrime and see what happens. I use HWiNFO32 for my hardware monitoring. In addition to showing the CPU speed as a nice graphical display, the Sensors tab shows data such as temperature anbd estimated CPU power consumption.

John

 

Mine works when on battery using the HWiNF032 and changing between max and battery save

 

Thanks John, HWInfo32 seems a great monitoring program. Interestingly, HWInfo32 was showing both cores running at >3ghz even when CPUZ was showing them running at 800mhz (both programs were running simultaneously). I then ran prime95 (wPrime wouldnt work for some reason - is it 64bit compatible??), and under prime95 conditions, both hwinfo and cpuz showed the cores running at >3ghz.

Not sure which monitoring program to believe really!

Thanks for the tips.

Petrov.

PS: For those interested, the cpu is in the mid to high 80s (C) when running prime95 torture test.

 

This has aways been the issue as erik pointed out. Without the battery in the system, it will lock the CPU at the lowest frequency. This is so the CPU doesn't tax the ac adapter too much that could cause a fire or something like that.

 

Not sure who you were replying to, but if it was to my observations above, then those were made with both the battery pack and the ac adapter plugged in simultaneously (ie NOT running the ac adaptery without a battery pack) - which I think I noted in my post?

Thanks,
Petrov.

 

I agree exactly with what erik said. This is NOT specific to X220. My Alienware M17x will also draw way less power if you take out the battery. I am puzzled why would one ever want to do that, though. Laptop battery IS supposed to stay in (as much as any other part) when you hook it up to AC.

Maybe Apple's strategy of having non-removeable battery is exactly to prevent this kind of silly things occuring.

 

It's definitely one of the benefits of having a non-removable battery.

Apple MacBooks with removable batteries do lower their processor speed when the battery is removed while on AC.

 

of course.   you can run a car, motorcycle, or jet ski without a battery, too, once they have been started.   they weren't designed to be run this way though.

my point was about design, not function.

 

Battery will die sooner if it is subjected to heat, as in a running laptop. So, if you have your AC adapter constantly plugged into your laptop and want to make the battery last longer, it could make sense to remove it.

I hear that some people even store their spare batteries in the fridge.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "superfluous" the correct english word to describe that use scenario?

I mean, if you're stashing your batteries in the fridge like some sort of laptop serial killer, and treat your battery like Keanu Reeves treats the bus in Speed...

It's operating maybe 90 degrees F with it plugged in, and room temp is 72. Even over years of use, I've got to think robbing your system of its expected soruce could cause more damage than just keeping your battery in.

This sounds like something my grandmother would do if someone told her viruses come from your laptop battery.

 

If you set the battery to charge between certain charge threshold, there is very little reason to use your laptop with the battery pulled out.

Battery also acts as UPS, which may help you in case of brown out or black out or if someone pulls the power plug whilst you are using the pc.

 

I have a somewhat related question. My x220 (ir-2520) maxes out at 2.9 ghz when running Prime95 (even with a single thread running) instead of the rated maximum speed of 3.2 ghz. This speed limit occurs regardless of whether the laptop is running on battery or AC (with the battery in). Does anyone know how I can unlock my laptop's full speed?

 

@cletus_cassidy, settings in power manager can limit your CPU speed such as "optimize fan control to" and "maximum CPU speed" settings.

 

@petrov, try to test more CPU monitoring programs since one gives you 3GHz and the other just 0.8GHz such as Intel Turbo Boost Monitor or tpcontrol.

 

In Power Manager I've got "maximize CPU speed" set to "Maximize Turbo" and "optimize fan control to" set to "maximize performance" when running on AC. Is there another setting I am missing?

Thanks for your help.

 

Speedstep and Turbo boost is enabled on Bios?

 

Yes, these are both enabled as well.

 

*Nvm, actually read through the thread and issue was resolved by like the 3rd post

How do you set the charge threshold and what percentage should I set it to?

 

Power Manager > Advanced > Battery > Battery Maintenance > Custom Charge Threshold. Then select at what level you want the battery to start and stop charging. The wider the range then the fewer charge cycles but full depletion isn't good for a battery. Perhaps 30% to 80% but you will need to remember to temporarily change the settings if you do plan to run on battery so that you start off with it full or near-full.

John

 

Does all this mean that the fan doesn't speed up even when you do something like CPU intensive works ?

 

No, the fan definitely fires up when running Prime95 (in fact, my temps get up to 89 degrees, which is a bit worrisome), but CPU-Z shows that the processor reaches only 2.9 ghz even under full load in Prime 95 (4 or 1 threads), while the processor should reach up to 3.2 ghz with turbo boost.

 

As far as I know, you CPU will turbo to 2.9, but one core can further reach to 3.2. So you might need a program or situation that only utilizes single core to reach 3.2.

 

This correct. The i7 is 3.2ghz with all cores active, and 3.4ghz if only a single core is active.

 

The i5-2520M in my T420s will run at 3GHz with all cores loaded but any speed above 3GHz is very sporadic and only happens when the computer is almost idle. Setting wPrime to run on one thread doesn't seem to give much of a speed boost.

John

 

Ok, it sounds like my machine is working properly then. Thanks to everyone for your responses, much appreciated.