Core Duo Problems??

[harvardale]

My dell e1505 with the core duo t2500 has recently been really slow. It runs slow even with no programs open. Even as I am writing this.....the letters are lagging behind my typing. I checked the performance of the CPUs and the FSB speed is at 173 MHz. 173 MHz!?!?! What the...?? What is wrong??

 

[ADE]

FSB x Multiplier give you the speed of you CPU. not the FSB alone. how much RAM do you have and are you on XP or Vista?

 

[harvardale]

i have 1gb of ddr2-533 RAM.....im running on XP.

the multiplier used to be at 12x....its at 11.50x now.

 

[chupacabra]

Hmm kinda weird maybe it downclocked due to heat

 

[harvardale]

do CPUs automatically downclock....

it has been like this for about 4 or 5 days now.

 

[chupacabra]

Newer models do, not sure if yours do thou

 

[addle_brains]

Check your bios. Some mobos can downclock CPU automatically under a variety of conditions, including heat, voltage, fan speed etc.

 

[hermeslyre]

That small of a downclock would not cause your letters to lag. and even if it went further using whatever the C2d uses to conserve power it still shouldn't cause that large a problem.

Have you done a spyware\virus check yet?

or open the task manager and check out the CPU usage. if it's high check the processes tab to find the process that's eating it all up.

 

[harvardale]

a couple days ago i ran a full virus scan, a full spyware scan, and i did defraged the C drive.....none of that helped.

the only process that was eating up CPU usage was the System Idle.....

 

[oscaryu1]

what % at idle?

 

[harvardale]

93%-100%

 

[newatit27]

93%-100%

WHOA! are you sure theres absoulty nothing running in the backround???

 

[harvardale]

absolutely nothing running in the background....i have checked a million times...

 

[chupacabra]

check the svchost, if you have a variant of it then it's a virus

 

[WestC07]

I thought it's normal for multiple processes of svchost.exe to be running?

 

[harvardale]

hahaha.....there are 8 of them!! the virus scan didnt pick it up....

does that mean reinstalling XP for me?!?!?

if so that excites me....lol

 

[chupacabra]

When i meant a variation of svchost, is like scvhost that one is a virus, try reformating/installing xp