Satellite A200-17O - CPU too slow?

Hi all,

I seem to have a problem with my Satelitte A200. I had a feeling that the speed of my notebook was not the way it is supposed to be, as various actions always seemed to be a bit sluggish, but didn't have the time to investigate this further. Now I'm at a point, where it just is a bit frustrating. I executed various benchmarks and compared the results with other notebooks working with the same CPU, which is a T7100 1.8GHz btw.

Using Cinebench R10 for example i get 783 for single CPU and 1365 for multiple CPU (2 in this case). Now when i compare these results with the results from the following site

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Mobile-Prozessoren-Benchmarkliste.1809.0.html (You have to choose T7100 -> Einschränkungen)

the result is a bit disappointing, as here the result for single cpu is 1817 and for multiple cpu is 3419. Thats more than twice the points i could acquire.

Normally i don't care much about benchmarks, but as i said, the whole system does not seem to work the way it is supposed to be. I tried the same settings with XP SP3 and with Windows 7 (RC1 as well as RTM). CPU-Z shows me the correct clock settings in realtime, which is 1.785 Ghz (should be o.k.). I have the feeling that somehow the L2 Cache is disabled, but this is just an assumption. BIOS Version is 2.6. Couldn't find any older bios versions, so i don't know if this could be solved with a bios downgrade. Apart from that, i can't really change anything speed related in the bios.

I would really appreciate any insight into this.

What i have changed since i bought the device 2 years ago :

Upgraded to 4 GB of Ram (2x 2GB A-Data PC6400)
Installed a SSD-Drive (Supertalent 64 GB (rocks btw!!))

To clarify i'll add this screenshot of SuperPI having executed the 1M test with the result, which is not what it should be (should take around 30 seconds to complete this test). The screenshot has been taken directly after superPI was finished, hence the clock frequency which is at 1,6 GHz. During the benchmark the clock frequency was at 1.8GHz.






I also tested the speed of the notebook booting into a linux-liveCD as well as booting into WindowsPE(sort of live-CD for Windows), just to make sure that the os is not the culprit in this case.


Next step would be to exchange the cpu, but maybe there is something else...I also can't seem to find an older bios version prior to 2.5 for this notebook. If anyone could point me to an older bios version it would be very much appreciated. Thanks for your time!

Ati

 

get a t7700

 

I already acquired a T7300, but wanted to sort of confirm that the cpu is borked, before i open up the notebook. Then again, i can only test this theory by changing the cpu...

 

if you're interested about how well the T7300 undervolts see my post here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5304106&postcount=47

 

Thanks, will have a look at it once i changed the cpu. Really looking forward to disassembling . I just hope i don't screw up.

 

what kind of paste will you use?

 

The only reason that i said t7700 was because it was listed as the fastest processor option on the only A200 I could find with BIOS 2.5 on Toshiba USA site. it appears that yours is probably a EURO or Canadian model but it shouldn't matter since it has the same BIOS.

Could be that you could upgrade all the way to an x9000, not sure about that though. It would be an expensive gamble.

 

I still have this paste left over from my Noctua NH-12P. But also have some Arctic Silver 5 lying around. Probably will use AS5 though...

 

any chance you could post your max temp after you change it?

 

Of course! Which program do you use to really heat up the cpu? Up Until now i have always used OCCT.

I really hope that the T7100 is the culprit. Everything seems to be stable, but it is just plain slow.

@sgilmore62

I do have the european version (Germany) and i think that the T7300 will suffice. I mean even the T7100 would have been enough for my taste, just not in this condition.

 

What ever you have should be fine.
Personally I use ORTHOS (with small FFTs), I tried intel burn test but it gave me the same temps as ORTHOS so I just use good old ORTHOS.

I might have to check out OCCT, it looks good.

 

To be on the safe side, i will tax the T7300 with every tool available . Sad thing is, that i'm still waiting for the processor. Did not arrive yet. Best case scenario would be sunday, otherwise next sunday. Have to go now, as i have a three hour train ride ahead. But thanks for participating

This is my notebook. Tried to find it on the international page, but it seems this was a model exclusively for customers in germany.