My cpu is supposed to run at 1.66 MHz. However, most of the time it
You mean GHz, not MHz, right?
How do I fix this?
Frustrated
These are just guesses, but:
There may not be anything to 'fix', but it is worth making the
measurements with a couple of different tools to see if you get the same
results between the two tools. If not, look for another tool until you
get repeatable numbers. That is a lot slower than one would expect,
IMO.
Check your CMOS BIOS settings and see if there is any kind of a throttle
there, or anything that helps it accomodate legacy games, etc..
Here's a good System Info program (called SIW) that seems to be
excellent for reading data from the cpu stores to see what the actual
hardware speed of the cpu is (and it's free):
http://www.gtopala.com/
It's sort of a super-set of windows System Information but with a lot
more detail. Under hardware, cpu, for instance, it shows:
Property Value Max CPU Speed 3060 MHz
so when I run a speedchecker I know it could show close to 3 GHz. My
speed test shows me to be actually running at 2593.88 MHz, and from SIW
I see that the System Clock is at 199.5 with a 13x multiplier. The
System Clock and multiplier are the actual components that determine all
the rest of the speeds on the system. So I'm not really close to the
3.0 GHz spec in reality either. Not unusual, I don't think.
As in your case, though it's a little rude & crude, you may well have
a 1.66 GHz capable cpu, but they're only running it at about 1 GHz. (Or,
it might even be a 1.0 GHz cpu.) They could run it at half a GHz but
it's still be a 1.66 GHz machine. Nasty, huh? Notice that the
DIFFERENCE in freqs between your machine and mine isn't all that great;
they are almost similar.
Sometimes the reason is the mobo copper layout just won't handle
higher speeds, sometimes it's adjustable in the BIOS, sometimes it's a
limitation of some of the other components on the mobo, sometimes it's
because they buy the cheapest components they can lay hands on and to
hell with specs, and on and on and ... .
I don't know how "standard" this kind of thing is, but ... I know on my
3 machines and my sister's two machines all the measurements come out
similar to the ones I showed here. Of course, this particular machine
is now almost 5 years old, so maybe it's a change over time, too, I
don't know. I've never measured a brand new, out of the box, unloaded
machine.
HTH a little,
Twayne