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Processor Throttling In Windows XP

Posted by kdawson on from the why-are-they-doing-that dept.

TomSlick writes "Michael Chu, a former Intel employee, has written up a fairly interesting and readable summary of Windows XP power schemes as they relate to Intel processor throttling. An old topic, but one still relevant as many business notebooks still use XP."

4 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. I couldn't get my desktop machine to be stable ... by antdude · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    ... with AMD Cool'n'Quiet in Windows XP Pro. SP2 even with the latest drivers on my Athlon 64 4600+ (939 dual core) system. It seems like I would get rare random blue screens of deaths (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL) when playing videos. One time, I had a corrupted SB Audigy 2 ZS driver and I had to reinstall it. I don't have this problem if I don't use the power management (Cool'n'Quiet).

    No one was able to figure out why I get them according to this newsgroup thread. Maybe it is because of all my hardware devices I have in this case (Audigy2 ZS, an old ASUS TV tuner, HDTV tuner card, five drives, etc.).

    I have not tried to clean install OS (XP installation has been used since 2002 or so), or try Linux. I will try that later on when I have lots of free time. My older Athlon 64 3200+ (754 single core) has no problems in Debian/Linux with powernow-k7 (Kernel 2.6.22-K7), but it is a simple box (only one PCI card for ethernet card [Intel brand].

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  2. linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    my ubuntu laptop does this intelligently by default. each core runs at about 30-45% clock speed until i launch an intensive application. even in the equivalent mode on XP with the same machine, theres quite a noticeable difference in clock speed reduction and battery life.

  3. Transmeta Efficeon does it in any OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I have a Sharp mm20 with a Transmeta Efficeon 1GHZ. It has no fan. I recently replaced the hard disk with a ssd drive and now it has no moving parts at all. It runs kubuntu 7.04. Since it has no fan, the power management is based on CPU throttling.

    Some people see CPU throttling as a drawback, 2-3 years ago people complained that mm20 performs poorly because of it. This is stupid. If you want performance you dont buy a 1.9 pound mm20 laptop but a 10 pound monster with a 120W AC adapter.

    Transmeta CPUs were great, more powerful than VIA yet they did not need fans. Try find an ultralight fanless laptop these days! A friend has a UX280P Sony UMPC and it has the fan on almost all the time.(sure it runs Aplle MacOSX and Sharp mm20 cannot do that)

  4. Fixed your post by fat_mike · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "An old topic, but one still relevant as 99% of business notebooks still use XP."

    Seriously, why do you think all laptop makers have instructions to downgrade to XP. And, Microsoft knows they got a lemon because the Vista license is also good to use if you downgrade to XP. I recently did this with three Thinkpad T61's.