CPU performance lower than usual

[poroseki]

I've been seeing a lower CPU these few days. My usual CPU performance is about 3.3 Ghz, but these few days i keep getting 0.75 Ghz and it gets locked there and never changes. This makes my laptop extremely slow what should I do? (If you need any information just ask for me to upload because I don't know what i should upload)

 

[Ian]

Welcome to the forums @poroseki .

If you've got the laptop model and specs that would be helpful. Which OS are you using?

Modern laptops will intentionally throttle their speed to either save power, or prevent overheating. I imaging it's unlikely you've limited the speed in the BIOS (but you could check). Likewise, it would be unusual for Windows to throttle the speed and lock it there, if more power is required.

How are you confirming the CPU performance? If it's Windows 10, can you take a look Task Manger (right click taskbar to access it) and then take a look at the Performance tab > CPU when you're under load. As the % utilisation increases, your CPU Speed figures should adjust upwards as required. If this doesn't happen and you're stuck at 0.75Ghz when under 100% CPU load, then there is a problem.

Could your laptop be overheating? That would cause these problems. If you download and install CoreTemp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ - it's free), can you please let us know what the temps look like (a screenshot perhaps). If it's getting too hot, the CPU max speed will be limited to prevent damage. Taking a vacuum cleaner and gently cleaning the laptop exhaust ports may clean out some of the dust blocking airflow and improve things.

 

[poroseki]

Welcome to the forums @poroseki .

If you've got the laptop model and specs that would be helpful. Which OS are you using?

Modern laptops will intentionally throttle their speed to either save power, or prevent overheating. I imaging it's unlikely you've limited the speed in the BIOS (but you could check). Likewise, it would be unusual for Windows to throttle the speed and lock it there, if more power is required.

How are you confirming the CPU performance? If it's Windows 10, can you take a look Task Manger (right click taskbar to access it) and then take a look at the Performance tab > CPU when you're under load. As the % utilisation increases, your CPU Speed figures should adjust upwards as required. If this doesn't happen and you're stuck at 0.75Ghz when under 100% CPU load, then there is a problem.

Could your laptop be overheating? That would cause these problems. If you download and install CoreTemp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ - it's free), can you please let us know what the temps look like (a screenshot perhaps). If it's getting too hot, the CPU max speed will be limited to prevent damage. Taking a vacuum cleaner and gently cleaning the laptop exhaust ports may clean out some of the dust blocking airflow and improve things.

Yes, I've heard that laptop overheating will result in the laptop controlling the speed to prevent overheating. My OS is currently Windows 8 and I check my cpu performance through task manager in the performance tab.

this is my CPU when it's working properly. I do not have a picture of the lower speed but it would be locked at 0.75 GHz. Even when I'm playing really hardcore games that require a lot of CPU usage, it would only go up to about 40% CPU usage so I do not get why it is decreasing my performance. For temperature, heres a temperature of my laptop from SpeedFan

The highest temperature I've seen is about 75, is that enough to make my CPU go slower? Also, i think there might be physical problems for my laptop because it is at 50 degress celcius without any load.

 

[poroseki]

Update 1: I got my 0.75 GHz CPU performance screenshot

Temperature of the laptop at this time:

 

[Ian]

Those temperatures aren't near levels where they would be throttled, but on your screenshot @ 0.75Ghz, the CPU utilisation is so low that it doesn't surprise me that it's set at that speed.

It may be that it is indeed behaving normally, and the slowness you are experiencing is something else. If you want to try, you can edit your power settings (Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > Edit Plan Settings > "Change advanced power settings"). Try temporarily changing the lowest power state to 100% and see if that means you see your max. speed in Task Manager, but more importantly see if those solves any slowness you notice. If it doesn't reset it to the default level and we can troubleshoot the slowness elsewhere.

 

[poroseki]

I've always been rocking high performance when I'm home and have my laptop plugged in. Heres a screenshot of the power settings:

(I don't think there's anything wrong with that)

and about low CPU utilization being the reason I don't really think it's possible because I can run a game that is hard on performance and the CPU wouldn't change

This has been really troubling me recently since the laptop is so unbelievably slow when it could be so much faster

 

[V_R]

Try installing HWINFO - https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

The sensors page can show a wealth of info, including CPU utilisation and clock speeds. (you can enable a graph to see the history) - that will let you confirm its clocking up and down as needed.

Also, you don't really need it set on 100% all the time in my opinion.

 

[poroseki]

Right I guess ill change the minimum to about 80% and I will download the HWinfo thing

Edit 1: I do see my drivers being throttled to a lower speed, I'll send a picture of the information needed. Please tell me what i need to send.

 

[V_R]

Edit 1: I do see my drivers being throttled to a lower speed, I'll send a picture of the information needed. Please tell me what i need to send.

Drivers? Post a screenshot of what you mean.

I've just realised, its not HWInfo. I mean this: http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

Sorry, I wasn't at my home PC when I posted earlier.

My screenshot below as an example.

 

[poroseki]

also i tried to get as much load as possible onto my computer trying to make the computer run faster since a lot of people said that if I dont have a high load, my laptop will throttle it to save power. Here are the screenshots:

 

[V_R]

Hmm that does look a bit low.

1. Can you try running a stress test to see if you can make it max out the CPU? Prime95 will be do. Run a 'simple stress test' - or a game if you have one that will stress the machine.
2. It is plugged into the mains and charging right?

 

[poroseki]

1. I've tried the stress test, it doesn't do much other than making my fan start working at a high power. I also tried to use GTA V with high graphics to stress my computer, which is the game that stresses my laptop the most. In both cases my laptop's CPU performance remained at 0.75 GHz when i looked in the task manager.

2. I'm pretty sure I have it charging right, or else it would've ran out out of power really quickly.

 

[V_R]

Right. In that case something has seemingly locked it at 0.75Ghz by the sounds of it. The question is what.

Are you sure its not overheating?
Have you changed anything recently? Updates? New software?
Take the hoover to the vents and make sure they're not clogged up with dust and other crap. Carefully.

Ian's BIOS Idea might be worth exploring, but I'd imagine you would know if you've changed anything in BIOS as you would have to do it yourself and then save the changes.


Anyone else got any thoughts?

 

[Ian]

Which model laptop is this? Some Dell laptops (and perhaps others) have had an issue with the power adaptor (apparently the centre pin can come loose and this communicates wattage data - without it, it thinks the laptop is in low power mode).

 

[V_R]

View attachment 10711

Acer VN7-791 according to his screenshot.

 

[poroseki]

Right. In that case something has seemingly locked it at 0.75Ghz by the sounds of it. The question is what.

Are you sure its not overheating?
Have you changed anything recently? Updates? New software?
Take the hoover to the vents and make sure they're not clogged up with dust and other crap. Carefully.

Ian's BIOS Idea might be worth exploring, but I'd imagine you would know if you've changed anything in BIOS as you would have to do it yourself and then save the changes.


Anyone else got any thoughts?

Honestly I do not know about overheating because I've never seen my laptop overheat, but something has to cause this throttling.
No i have not changed anything recently.
I might take clean the dust and stuff later as well.

I do not even know what BIOS mean and how it works.

 

[Ian]

It may be worth contacting Acer support about this, as perhaps it's a known issue and they may have a fix - the laptop isn't that old and shouldn't limit the CPU to that extent when running stress tests. Definitely give it a quick (and gentle) clean with a vacuum, just in case it is overheating.

 

[V_R]

I've been having a bit of a read around on this and I'm honestly not sure what it could be. I'm wondering if it might be an actual fault with the laptop maybe? I dunno.... If its not a software or dust issue and you say you've checked everything else I'm out of ideas.

But, if you do find out/fix it etc. Please let us know, I'd be very interested in knowing what the issue was.

 

[V_R]

Hey @poroseki

CPU-Z!: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

I've just had a thought, Can you install that and post a screenshot of the main page please? Like the below.