Laptop CPU capable of 2 GHz never runs above 800 MHz

[i_hate_flying]

Hi, I have a Samsung Series 7 Ultra that I bought 2 years ago for travelling. It has an Ivy Bridge Core i7 3537U @ 2.0 GHz (up to 2.5 GHz with Turbo Boost), 6 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD and Windows 8.1. It's always run slower than what I expect, but it hasn't been an issue as I use my desktop for most things. I finally got some time to look more closely at it and try to understand why it takes Chrome or Firefox 30-60 sec to start and bring up the first webpage, why it stutters under any game playing whatsoever and why it generally feels sluggish. On the other hand, booting is always lightning-fast.

I ran Prime 95's torture test and Task Manager Performance Monitor shows the CPU never going above 0.78 GHz. CPU-Z confirms this. Utilisation is never over 31%. The bottom of the laptop never gets hot. The laptop is always plugged in.

I have:
-no bloatware on the laptop
-run CCleaner several times
-installed all Windows updates
-power options and power profile all reflect high performance
-turned off any power saving features in Samsung's software
-force-enabled all 4 logical processors (msconfig->boot->advanced)
-stopped and disabled the Samsung IntelliMemory service (read about it online)
-turned off any power saving features in the BIOS (Samsung's BIOS is very lame and doesn't give you access to much. There is, for example, no obvious Speed Step option.)

I'm not sure if there is some option I'm not seeing, a hidden BIOS option, something in Windows 8.1 (hate it!), some sort of conflict between Samsung software and Windows... What else can I do to force the CPU to run at full speed? Many thanks for your help.

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

Try using throttlestop to rejig the core frequency values of the CPU. Here's a link to a guide as to how to use it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

 

[Moonstick2]

It certainly sounds like the ultrabook is throttling the processor speed down to the minimum.

Throttlestop is one way. Before that, you can also try pressing Fn+F11 to toggle Silent Mode. It may be that it's the only way to toggle that feature rather than the power management settings you've looked through, and I can imagine that the safest way for it to render the ultrabook silent is to pin the CPU to its lowest speed.

 

[Moonstick2]

From this review:

If you activate the Silent Mode, integrated by Samsung, the CPU throttles down to 800 MHz. This is enough for most operations or watching a movie, but causes significant delays in application start-up. On the other hand, the ultrabook becomes completely silent, because the fans are turned off.

The Fn+F11 may have been turned on by accident at some point, it may not show in any of the BIOS/Windows settings, and it may remember it's state between reboots...! Try it, at least.

 

[i_hate_flying]

What the... That was it! Fn+F11! Now I hear a fan and it's running at 2.5 GHz, boosting up to 3! Haha, no i7 should run without a fan 😛

I really appreciate the help!

 

[Moonstick2]

You're welcome, just glad it was something so simple!