Strange Power Behavior of an HP Laptop (CPU related - I guess!)

[UMER]

Hi everyone! I've an HP 6910p Laptop.

CONFIGURATION:
Intel T8100 CPU (2.1 GHz with 3MB L2 Cache)
CPU Voltage Range: 1.00 - 1.5

PROBLEM:
1) Since 3 months, it is running on ten-folds less processing speed.
2) It takes almost a day to full charge it's internal 6-cell battery.

In CPUZ, the FSB rate is 200MHz (it used to be 800MHz in original condition).
(I've attached CPUz, HWInfo and TS snapshots.)

THINGS I'VE TRIED:
1) Using heavy-duty HP chargers from other HP laptops which are running perfectly.
2) Pulling out the battery and back.
3) Pressing power button for 30-secs to flush all charges from laptop.
4) Cleaning my CPU fan.
5) And even De-assembling my laptop and blowing the dust (if any).

WORKAROUND I'M USING:
I'm using the brilliant ThrottleStop to overclock my CPU cores by increasing the Multiplier to 11.5. I've put TS in my Windows logon tasks so it runs whenever the Windows starts up.

QUESTION I WANT TO ASK / SOLUTION I NEED FOR:
If the laptop's Motherboard / Power Supply Unit / Southbridge or whatever is not supplying the OEM-designed voltages to the CPU and charging kit, then how on Earth the ThrottleStop is able to increase the voltages to 1.5 or even higher and how does the Multiplier works. How's it that the CPU runs normal when I overclock with ThrottleStop, though the CPU/Motherboard is not getting required voltage. Because I guess overclocking is a procedure to increase a "normal" CPU's processing power.

I hope my issue will be understood and I'll get precise answers from high-techies here.
Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[OneMoar]

edit the power plan and ensure that the cpu settings are set to 0% to 100%
Control Panel>Power Options>Select Active Plan > Change Plan Settings;Advanced;min processor state & max processor state
I don't think you have a hardware problem .. or a problem at all really other then battery looks like its about used up,,, 40% ware level is pretty high time for a new battery pack

 

[Caring1]

^^^What he said.
Another thing you can try is remove the battery and run only on mains power, see if that makes a difference.

 

[unclewebb]

Your screenshot shows that your CPU is averaging 51.0% in the C0 state. When your CPU is idle, this number should be in the low single digits. A number like 51.0% means you have something running on your computer in the background that is fully loading the equivalent of one core. On a dual core CPU, that only leaves one core left to do any work. Trying to run anything on a single core computer is a miserable experience these days. Open up the Task Manager and find out what is running non-stop in the background and get rid of it.

After you do this and get your CPU to idle, then you can use ThrottleStop to lock both of your cores to the 11.5 multiplier. This is called Dual IDA and it works quite well on the T8100.

 

[UMER]

Thanks for replies but I think I didn't explain the scenario precisely. All replies suggest that the CPU is getting resource-intensive that's why it is not giving it's maximum power. NO...! That's NOT the case. If that was the case, I never would have even posted the question and would have dealt with that software-based issue myself.

See, I have tried CPU information tools in boot. In boot, there's nothing else is running except only one task which is the CPU diagnostic tool for DOS. Even in that DOS mode, the processes are taking way too long like I'm on a Pentium 1 computer. The tool also reports current CPU speed to be lesser than the OEM-preset speed.

 

[Liquid Cool]

cpu-z looks right to me...

Best,

LC

 

[unclewebb]

Is EIST - SpeedStep enabled in the bios? If you disabled EIST in the bios, your CPU might be locked at 1200 MHz when booting up. My Dell Inspiron D830 uses the 6 multiplier when booting up when EIST is disabled in the bios.

Can you post a screenshot of ThrottleStop while your CPU is idle in Windows? The C0% should be showing 1.0% or less when your CPU is idle. ThrottleStop should also be showing the 11.5 multiplier for both cores at idle or full load like my screenshot shows.

 

[UMER]

Yes EIST is enabled. C0% ranges from 0 to 5 depending upon current activity.
@unclewebb You're trying to help and I appreciate that, but you're NOT understanding what the situation actually is.
Let me rephrase. See, there's nothing about the software-load on the CPU. The speed is ridiculously slow until I open TS.

CPUz info when TS is not running:
1) Multiplier ranges from 1-4 (never goes above)
2) FSB = 200
3) Core Speed remains below 1GHz

 

[unclewebb]

Thanks for extra info.

If you look in the CPU-Z - Multiplier box you will see ( 6 - 11.5 )

The minimum multiplier that is physically possible in a Core 2 Duo is 6. When CPU-Z starts reporting multipliers less than 6, that is not possible but it does confirm that there is a problem. What CPU-Z does is it combines the reported multiplier with the Clock Modulation throttling value. I am not familiar with your HP model. In the Dell laptops, it is usually Clock Modulation in the CPU or Clock Modulation controlled by the Intel chipset. I have never seen Dell or any other manufacturer using both of these at the same time but it is possible.

To figure out exactly what your laptop is doing, exit ThrottleStop and delete the ThrottleStop.INI configuration file and then reboot. Go get a coffee while you wait and wait. When you make it back to the desktop, run ThrottleStop in Monitoring mode and see if it reports anything less than 100.0 in the CMod or Chip columns. Some versions of ThrottleStop would automatically correct this problem and set both of these to 100.0 automatically so this test might not show anything new.

When either type of clock modulation is being used, the CPU internally will start running like a slug. You can end up with only 5% to 10% of the normal CPU speed. Booting up will take forever if the bios sets this.

What causes this? That can be difficult to figure out. It can be a bad sensor on your motherboard, temperature or power related or it could be a power adapter issue. On the Dells, some of them go into a limp mode if the wrong power adapter is detected. They can drop the multiplier down to 6. I am not sure about HP but something similar to this might be happening.

Either the motherboard or power adapter will need to be replaced. I wish there was an easier fix but there usually isn't.