New
#1
CPU frequency fluctuation.
For about the past two weeks now, my CPU has started behaving strangely. I noticed it doing this while gaming, when what should have been perfect performance was kind of choppy. I alt-tabbed out of the game and peeked at SpeedFan, and noticed my temperature not rising above 50c while playing a game that normally shoots it up to around 75c.
Looking at CPU-Z, I see that for whatever reason the Core Voltage keeps randomly changing between 1.0 and 1.3v; this in turn is causing the multiplier to variate between 16-22. While typing this, it was staying at 1.235v, but dropped down to 1.0 when I ran a game just then to see if perhaps it had fixed itself like it seems to randomly do also. Also on that note, CPU-Z used to show my multiplier as "x23 (x23)", but now shows it as: "N (12-25)", N being whatever it's at currently based on the voltage, I assume. I don't know why it's suddenly listing a range of multipliers instead of just x23 as it used to. Also not sure why the range listed extends beyond what I thought was my CPU's maximum, x23. (I've never seen the multiplier go higher than 22 or 23 during all of this, or ever before for that matter.)
As far as I know, no Windows or BIOS settings are causing this, as nothing had been changed when it started happening (other than Windows updates). The only thing I've changed today was turning Turbo Boost off in the BIOS, but that had no effect. I was contemplating turning SpeedStep off also, as it kind of seems like the culprit right now. Almost as if it's underclocking when not under load, like it should, but then not clocking back up when under load.
So I'm not sure if it's the CPU itself starting to show signs of its age (and use), or if something else is causing this. What's everyone's opinions? I know my hardware is fairly old now, so I could understand if it was the CPU itself; I just hope it isn't. hah