CPU won't go over 1.2GHz Help!!!

[OWEN10578]

So I installed WIndows 8 on my early 2008 25" Macbook Pro without boot camp and it worked! I even installed MSI Afterburner to overclock the graphics card. Then I tried to overclock the CPU using ClockGen, there it shows the CPU is at aroung 2390MHz (fluctuating a bit). But I downloaded CPU-Z to show the clocks and multiplier, when I opened it it shows the CPU is at 1195MHz (fluctuating a bit) with a 6x-12x multiplier and is now on 6x, which is way different than ClockGen. Then I thought, meh maybe clockgen is wrong and the cpu must be in desktop mode so I tried each and every one of the PLL options but none of it worked. So I deleted ClockGen. Then I just fired up F@H with my GPU. GPU-Z Shows full GPU Utilization and at the clock speeds I set it on MSIAfterburner. I checked CPU-Z and it still shows the CPU at around 1.2GHz with the 6x multiplier, so I felt something is wrong. I opened up task manager finding it shows only 49% CPU utilization with a 1.18-1.19GHz cpu clock and showed a mzx clock of 2.4GHz. So I checked F@H if I set it to use 100% CPU and I did set it to that. So I downloaded and opened Prime95, I run the torture test with the maximum heat output setting and still saw the CPUs at 49% utilization with a 1.18-1.19GHz clock speed! Then I tried to check with coretemp, it shows the same reading with the CPU at around the low 70s degrees C so it wasnt overheating. I tried loading minecraft to load the CPU, same results. So anyone know what's the reason for this? And how to fix it? Please Help! It's causing some slowdown at certain points!!!

 

[jammy12789]

Well, You can try going down to the bottom right corner of the screen and looking for a icon that shows a battery and click on it. Chances are it is set to Power Saver. If that is on it will turn you clock speed down to around that speed and then saving power(Hence the name). So when you are on it look for one called "High Performance mode". If it is not there click on, "More Power Plans". And click on an arrow that will allow you to click on that power plan. Therefore that will boost your clock speed. Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
-James

 

[OWEN10578]

Well, You can try going down to the bottom right corner of the screen and looking for a icon that shows a battery and click on it. Chances are it is set to Power Saver. If that is on it will turn you clock speed down to around that speed and then saving power(Hence the name). So when you are on it look for one called "High Performance mode". If it is not there click on, "More Power Plans". And click on an arrow that will allow you to click on that power plan. Therefore that will boost your clock speed. Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
-James

Yea I put it on high performance since the beginning, but it still shows 1.2ghz in windows and as i found out also in osx. (i used coolbook to check)

 

[Heinrich17]

I noticed something like this with my laptop as well. I have an i7 3610qm (2.4GHz), however it runs at 1200MHz. I believe that there is some type of thermal throttling going on. I have seen my CPU get to 2.4GHz momentarily, however it throttles down to 1200 rather quickly. What you have to consider is that laptops are small and have almost no room for airflow. You will not get good thermal performance unless you have a massive laptop (the ones that are like 3" thick). Odds are that whatever throttling is going on is programmed in the BIOS.

Something you can try is cleaning the air intakes and the heatsink. 70 degrees at 1200MHz is actually rather hot! At 2.4 you are probably getting to 100 degrees. My laptop was having issues with crashing. I took it apart and removed a ton of dust that was basically blocking all airflow. I still don't get full speed for longer than a few seconds, but it no longer crashes.

Oh, also, the CPU idling at 1200 is normal. You don't want it at full speed all the time unless you are constantly plugged in. Also, I believe some laptops will override your power settings when running on battery. Try doing some tests while plugged in.

 

[jammy12789]

Well, You can try going down to the bottom right corner of the screen and looking for a icon that shows a battery and click on it. Chances are it is set to Power Saver. If that is on it will turn you clock speed down to around that speed and then saving power(Hence the name). So when you are on it look for one called "High Performance mode". If it is not there click on, "More Power Plans". And click on an arrow that will allow you to click on that power plan. Therefore that will boost your clock speed. Hope it helps.

Kind regards,
-James

Yea I put it on high performance since the beginning, but it still shows 1.2ghz in windows and as i found out also in osx. (i used coolbook to check)

Well, Did you try checking what GHz your CPU is running using Task Manager. You can check it under the performance tab. This is good just to make sure your CPU is running at a decent clock speed. Also as Heinrich17 said, "There may be some thermal throttling going on.", This may be true.

All regards,
-James

 

[OWEN10578]

I noticed something like this with my laptop as well. I have an i7 3610qm (2.4GHz), however it runs at 1200MHz. I believe that there is some type of thermal throttling going on. I have seen my CPU get to 2.4GHz momentarily, however it throttles down to 1200 rather quickly. What you have to consider is that laptops are small and have almost no room for airflow. You will not get good thermal performance unless you have a massive laptop (the ones that are like 3" thick). Odds are that whatever throttling is going on is programmed in the BIOS.

Something you can try is cleaning the air intakes and the heatsink. 70 degrees at 1200MHz is actually rather hot! At 2.4 you are probably getting to 100 degrees. My laptop was having issues with crashing. I took it apart and removed a ton of dust that was basically blocking all airflow. I still don't get full speed for longer than a few seconds, but it no longer crashes.

Oh, also, the CPU idling at 1200 is normal. You don't want it at full speed all the time unless you are constantly plugged in. Also, I believe some laptops will override your power settings when running on battery. Try doing some tests while plugged in.

Throttling could be the cause but I'm on a macbook pro early 2008 and with 2 fans on 6600rpm i think it should be sufficient for 2.4ghz. Plus it stays at 1.2ghz even on full load at 50*c just after startup. I'm using the high performance power plan and it is plugged in all the time since the battery broke. So what do you think is the cause now??? I'm really confused too...

 

[OWEN10578]

@jammy12789 yes i checked. In task manager on idle it's 1.1ghz and full load (mind you its just started up so its still cold) it's 1.2ghz.

 

[OWEN10578]

If anyone knows please share! Thanks everyone!

 

[jammy12789]

I noticed something like this with my laptop as well. I have an i7 3610qm (2.4GHz), however it runs at 1200MHz. I believe that there is some type of thermal throttling going on. I have seen my CPU get to 2.4GHz momentarily, however it throttles down to 1200 rather quickly. What you have to consider is that laptops are small and have almost no room for airflow. You will not get good thermal performance unless you have a massive laptop (the ones that are like 3" thick). Odds are that whatever throttling is going on is programmed in the BIOS.

Something you can try is cleaning the air intakes and the heatsink. 70 degrees at 1200MHz is actually rather hot! At 2.4 you are probably getting to 100 degrees. My laptop was having issues with crashing. I took it apart and removed a ton of dust that was basically blocking all airflow. I still don't get full speed for longer than a few seconds, but it no longer crashes.

Oh, also, the CPU idling at 1200 is normal. You don't want it at full speed all the time unless you are constantly plugged in. Also, I believe some laptops will override your power settings when running on battery. Try doing some tests while plugged in.

Throttling could be the cause but I'm on a macbook pro early 2008 and with 2 fans on 6600rpm i think it should be sufficient for 2.4ghz. Plus it stays at 1.2ghz even on full load at 50*c just after startup. I'm using the high performance power plan and it is plugged in all the time since the battery broke. So what do you think is the cause now??? I'm really confused too...

Hmmm, Well you could try SpeedFan. If you have not already used it. It can then speed up your fans. And then that should iron out any chances of thermal throttling.

SpeedFan download if you don't have it already: http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

 

[Heinrich17]

Make sure that the fans can actually get airflow to your system. If there is dust, it could be blocking your intakes and vents. It takes less than a second for temps to jump when a system is stressed even without dust. Like if I run prime 95, my temps jump from 29 to 58 instantly with an h100i. If the CPU is getting above its "safety" temp, then it will automatically throttle. Try testing prime 95 and use only 1 core. Have your monitoring software running before you start the test and see what happens to core speed and temps.

Try feeling your exit vent while stressing your CPU. If the air is very hot, then there is an airflow problem. My laptop used to get really hot until I cleaned it. Now, it gets how, but not nearly as hot as before. Then there is always the possibility that there are some chipset drivers missing, a BIOS that needs to be flashed, BIOS settings which limit your CPU speed, etc...

Even as as jammy12789 suggested, maybe speedfan will help. There is a chance that your fans are set at low rpm limit. My laptop gets pretty loud when I stress it. Much louder than my desktop, which has 7 fans and a windforce cooler on the GPU.

 

[OWEN10578]

Make sure that the fans can actually get airflow to your system. If there is dust, it could be blocking your intakes and vents. It takes less than a second for temps to jump when a system is stressed even without dust. Like if I run prime 95, my temps jump from 29 to 58 instantly with an h100i. If the CPU is getting above its "safety" temp, then it will automatically throttle. Try testing prime 95 and use only 1 core. Have your monitoring software running before you start the test and see what happens to core speed and temps.

Try feeling your exit vent while stressing your CPU. If the air is very hot, then there is an airflow problem. My laptop used to get really hot until I cleaned it. Now, it gets how, but not nearly as hot as before. Then there is always the possibility that there are some chipset drivers missing, a BIOS that needs to be flashed, BIOS settings which limit your CPU speed, etc...

Even as as jammy12789 suggested, maybe speedfan will help. There is a chance that your fans are set at low rpm limit. My laptop gets pretty loud when I stress it. Much louder than my desktop, which has 7 fans and a windforce cooler on the GPU.

I don't think overheating is my problem and as I've already said both the laptop's fans are at their max 6600RPM.
Maybe I need some chipset drivers like you said.
This is a macbook pro there is no bios 🙁

 

[OWEN10578]

Guys, I tried rendering a video in Premiere Pro and I opened up coretemp and task manager to see the core load. Guess what I found? Coretemp says both cores are at full 100% load at 1.2GHz 🙁 and Task manager says only 50% core load at 1.2Ghz, it also says the cpu's max speed is 2.4ghz and has 2 cores and 2 logical processors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't logical processor only on processors with hyper threading? So does windows think I have a 2 core processor with 4 threads? But it says I do have a Core 2 Duo T8300 @2.4Ghz. So is windows the problem?

 

[jammy12789]

Guys, I tried rendering a video in Premiere Pro and I opened up coretemp and task manager to see the core load. Guess what I found? Coretemp says both cores are at full 100% load at 1.2GHz 🙁 and Task manager says only 50% core load at 1.2Ghz, it also says the cpu's max speed is 2.4ghz and has 2 cores and 2 logical processors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't logical processor only on processors with hyper threading? So does windows think I have a 2 core processor with 4 threads? But it says I do have a Core 2 Duo T8300 @2.4Ghz. So is windows the problem?

Hmm, I just thought of something. I don't know if you already wrote about drivers but do you have the newest up to date drivers for your CPU. Try getting the windows ones then it may allow your CPU to receive higher GHz.

Good luck,
-James

 

[OWEN10578]

Guys, I tried rendering a video in Premiere Pro and I opened up coretemp and task manager to see the core load. Guess what I found? Coretemp says both cores are at full 100% load at 1.2GHz 🙁 and Task manager says only 50% core load at 1.2Ghz, it also says the cpu's max speed is 2.4ghz and has 2 cores and 2 logical processors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't logical processor only on processors with hyper threading? So does windows think I have a 2 core processor with 4 threads? But it says I do have a Core 2 Duo T8300 @2.4Ghz. So is windows the problem?

Hmm, I just thought of something. I don't know if you already wrote about drivers but do you have the newest up to date drivers for your CPU. Try getting the windows ones then it may allow your CPU to receive higher GHz.

Good luck,
-James

CPUs have drivers? I searched for this thing's CPU drivers but I found nothing...also I didn't use bootcamp...
But I did download Intel Processor Diagnosis Test/IPDT and ran that, the program says my CPU's expected frequency is 2.4GHz and I have my CPU at 2.49678GHz. I think Intel's app should tell the real thing, so I think Windows must be messing up the CPU speed detection on other apps.

 

[jammy12789]

Meh, I don't know man. I'm all out of Ideas. Hope someone can help you with your issue. But sorry, I'm all out of Ideas.

Hope you find a solution soon,
-James

 

[OWEN10578]

Meh, I don't know man. I'm all out of Ideas. Hope someone can help you with your issue. But sorry, I'm all out of Ideas.

Hope you find a solution soon,
-James

Well crap, I'm bummed too. But thanks for all your ideas and answers!

 

[Heinrich17]

Guys, I tried rendering a video in Premiere Pro and I opened up coretemp and task manager to see the core load. Guess what I found? Coretemp says both cores are at full 100% load at 1.2GHz 🙁 and Task manager says only 50% core load at 1.2Ghz, it also says the cpu's max speed is 2.4ghz and has 2 cores and 2 logical processors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't logical processor only on processors with hyper threading? So does windows think I have a 2 core processor with 4 threads? But it says I do have a Core 2 Duo T8300 @2.4Ghz. So is windows the problem?

2 cores and 2 logical processors means you have 2 threads. If it thought you had 4 threads, it would say, 2 cores, 4 logical processors.

As for the speed, I still think it is thermal throttling. My 3610qm does the same thing as your CPU and it is due to heat. Laptops get hot easily and your fans will not be enough to solve this issue. Think about how many fans are in a desktop and still how hot desktop cpus get with stock heat sink and you have more open space for the heat to dissipate. It is very easy for vents and openings in laptops to get clogged. Also, the heat sink can easily accumulate tons of dust and you would not see it until you take your laptop apart. Same can happen in a desktop. Dust can accumulate in between the fins of the heat sink and this would render it nearly useless as the heat will be insulated inside from the dust barrier and not get dissipated by the fans.

Launch a monitoring software and then launch something that will not stress the system too much like a word doc. See if there is a small spike in frequency. Your CPU will always idle at 1.2ghz, but it should increase when you try to do something. Launching software or documents shouldn't cause enough stress to overheat, but should require enough to make the CPU frequency spike at least for a moment.

Alternately, you can try and modify the BIOS (if possible). Turn off all power saving states and set multiplier at 12x. Boot the laptop and see if it reads 2.4ghz using coretemp or cpuz. I've never tried messing with laptop bios, so I have no idea what settings are available...

I got a huge performance boost in my laptop simply by cleaning the dust from inside. It used to freeze all the time when it would do tasks that utilized the CPU too much. Ever since I cleaned it, it has not done this and it can maintain 2.4ghz for some time before throttling down (depends on the task intensity).

 

[OWEN10578]

Guys, I tried rendering a video in Premiere Pro and I opened up coretemp and task manager to see the core load. Guess what I found? Coretemp says both cores are at full 100% load at 1.2GHz 🙁 and Task manager says only 50% core load at 1.2Ghz, it also says the cpu's max speed is 2.4ghz and has 2 cores and 2 logical processors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't logical processor only on processors with hyper threading? So does windows think I have a 2 core processor with 4 threads? But it says I do have a Core 2 Duo T8300 @2.4Ghz. So is windows the problem?

2 cores and 2 logical processors means you have 2 threads. If it thought you had 4 threads, it would say, 2 cores, 4 logical processors.

As for the speed, I still think it is thermal throttling. My 3610qm does the same thing as your CPU and it is due to heat. Laptops get hot easily and your fans will not be enough to solve this issue. Think about how many fans are in a desktop and still how hot desktop cpus get with stock heat sink and you have more open space for the heat to dissipate. It is very easy for vents and openings in laptops to get clogged. Also, the heat sink can easily accumulate tons of dust and you would not see it until you take your laptop apart. Same can happen in a desktop. Dust can accumulate in between the fins of the heat sink and this would render it nearly useless as the heat will be insulated inside from the dust barrier and not get dissipated by the fans.

Launch a monitoring software and then launch something that will not stress the system too much like a word doc. See if there is a small spike in frequency. Your CPU will always idle at 1.2ghz, but it should increase when you try to do something. Launching software or documents shouldn't cause enough stress to overheat, but should require enough to make the CPU frequency spike at least for a moment.

Alternately, you can try and modify the BIOS (if possible). Turn off all power saving states and set multiplier at 12x. Boot the laptop and see if it reads 2.4ghz using coretemp or cpuz. I've never tried messing with laptop bios, so I have no idea what settings are available...

I got a huge performance boost in my laptop simply by cleaning the dust from inside. It used to freeze all the time when it would do tasks that utilized the CPU too much. Ever since I cleaned it, it has not done this and it can maintain 2.4ghz for some time before throttling down (depends on the task intensity).

You know it's a macbook pro I'm talking about here right? No bioses. No it never goes tto 2.4ghz even for a split second. But I think it's just windows 8 that's messed up. Thanks anyway!

 

[Robert Eastwood]

I opened up task manager finding it shows only 49% CPU utilization ... Please Help! It's causing some slowdown at certain points!!!

My cpu utilization would not go above 50%

How I fixed that.

I was playing some game, it was showing GPU utilization at 50% and then task manager resource page showed non of my cores were using over 50%.

So I went to Processes tab of task manager, right clicked on the game 'gamename.exe' in the list and set the process priority to high. Now when the game runs it uses around 80-100% of two of the cores, other cores lower but that is expected since that is about allocation of tasks to different threads.

Although GPU utilization is still low(but a little higher), I was able to deduce the bottleneck was CPU, and setting process priority higher on my system increased the results in the resource monitor, showing higher CPU usage.

Either a normal thread is somehow limited to 50% on this Windows 7.1 configuration,
or it could be different on different systems.

However that action did increased CPU usage on my system for the process that had its priority raised(and for what was reported in resource monitor). (could also be that some processes are not reporting all the cycles that are used by some services in resource manager(they wouldn't want your computer reporting 20-40% cpu usage when it is only grinding various undocumented services), and bumping priority moved more CPU cycles to the game thread that does report all cycles used in resource monitor)