Intel Core i7 Weird High Clock Speed Behaviour and Occasional BSOD

[EliaB]

I need help in understanding one simple thing that I find difficult to realise of my CPU.
You can see my specs, I filled all of them in while registering. My BIOS is fully up-to-date, and, except the battery which does not charge, this laptop works fine.
I am not a wealthy-enough person to buy "spare parts" for my laptop to test it.
The problem I am encountering features my CPU, an Intel Core i7 3537U which is designed to run at 2GHz, as the benchmarks state.
Some time ago I noticed how the "System Information" windows in the Control Panel states the following on the "Processor" line "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3537U CPU @ 2.00GHz 2.50GHz" and I always asked myself why does it have 2 clock speeds.
Today, having some spare times, I wanted to go in depth, and downloaded CPU-Z and discovered that the clock speed fluctuates between 2893.10 MHz and 3092.63 MHz, which is much over than both 2 and 2.5GHz. Is this normal? I never practiced overclocking. BSODs are rare (1/month) and, when they happen, they are always of code 0x00000124 (hal.dll is the main problem, then ntoskrn.exe is also considered problematic, BlueScreenView highlights them both red). I know it is a hardware issue but I don't know what is it related to, maybe to this?
Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Mellon Head]

If you look here:

Intel® Coreâ„¢ i7-3537U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz) Specifications

You'll see the specs for your processor. Notice that the base frequency is 2.00 GHz. Notice also that the max turbo frequency is 3.1 GHz.

You processor is behaving normally. It is designed to clock up to 3.1 GHz when needed for extra processing power, but it's normal energy saving mode is 2.0 GHz. It will operate at any speed between the two depending on the load you place on the CPU.

So, everything is all right there.

I don't know what is causing your BSOD errors, but you might want to post in the BSOD section of the forum for help with those. I don't think that they are hardware related. At least not related to your CPU.

http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/

 

[EliaB]

Thank you for your quick reply Mellon Head! Being a total ignorant on hardware, I thought that "Turbo" technology was Intel's own official overclocking program... Thank you for your answer, it positively changed my day! I will post in the BSOD section soon. Thank you again! Enjoy your day.

 

[Mellon Head]

You're welcome. Glad I could help.