processor performance alot lower than i thought

[wazzaracer]

hi guys i am new here so firstly let me say hello.
i have recently upgraded to windows 7, installed fine and noticed it did not perform as well as XP did, thought it was probably my system as i built it 2 years ago, so i decided to run the Windows Experience test, to see what part of my system was the weakest, i was surpised to see my processor got a score of 1.7, this was a suprise as i thought the processor was one of the stronger parts of my computer, oh it is a Intel pentium 4 631 3GHz, so i have downloaded Intel Processor Identification Utility and here are the results

speed expected: 3 GHz reported:1.43 GHz
System Bus 800MHz reported: 382 MHz

i am confused, shows up in bios as 3 GHz and in Windows shows as 3GHz

any ideas ?
thanks

 

[wazzaracer]

right i think i may have found the problem the temp of the CPU is on average 70c, seems a little high to me as i checked my lap top and this was 35C, any ideas ?

thanks
Warren

 

[Uber Philf]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I think your CPU idle's at 1.43GHZ, then if it needs more, it will get up to 3.00GHZ, and this also goes for FSB.

Not sure about the Overheating tho.

 

[stormy13]

Disable Speedstep or whatever CPU power saving/throttling options are enabled in the bios, if you want it to run at full speed all the time.

the temp of the CPU is on average 70c

Open the case and clean all the dust out.

 

[chev65]

Speed step or not, you should be getting a much higher WEI score. I have the same CPU P4 3.0 with only 1GB Ram I get a 4.0 WEI score so something isn't right with your system.

 

[Digerati]

I think your CPU idle's at 1.43GHZ, then if it needs more, it will get up to 3.00GHZ, and this also goes for FSB.

While true, the WEI runs the CPU at full speed I would suspect heat and nothing having to do with idle speeds.

I agree with Stormy, make sure the system is clean of heat trapping dust and dirt - get your temps below 60°C. Blast a desk fan into the side if necessary.

 

[thefabe]

Personally CPU at 70c is way to hot for me. I would not only check for dust ect, but would seriously conceder re seating my heatsink, cleaning off the thermal grease and reapplying a thin layer of artic saver 5. But that's just me. Fabe

 

[Digerati]

If the CPU heatsink has not been knocked loose breaking the cured bond, it does not need reseating. Using a good thermal interface material (TIM) is certainly a good idea as it can help lower temps a "few" degrees over generic (white silicon "grease") TIM, but it will not fix an overheating problem if the original TIM bond was applied correctly, and has not been disturbed.

 

[ccatlett1984]

right i think i may have found the problem the temp of the CPU is on average 70c, seems a little high to me as i checked my lap top and this was 35C, any ideas ?

thanks
Warren

70C = DANGER

Turn off the pc and re-seat your cpu's heatsink. Its not working properly and the cpu is throttling down so it doesnt burn up.

 

[rover3500]

I think it could be that the power settings (on my laptop anyway)have 2 settings in the bios,high or low power...mine has a setting for half speed or full,to help battery consumption.Make sure ur fan holes aren't blocked/obstructed on the bottom,or full of dust.If u put on ur knee can do it aswell.

 

[wazzaracer]

thanks for all your replies, CPU has got as hot as 85c, will be getting some thermo paste today and reseating the heat sink, will keep you updated
warren

 

[Qdos]

thanks for all your replies, CPU has got as hot as 85c, will be getting some thermo paste today and reseating the heat sink, will keep you updated
warren

The early Skt775 multi-threaded Pentium IV's were beasts to cool, and very power hungry with it, and... from memory, weren't they actually part of the famously hot 65nm Prescott family of processors?

Thermal spec for yours is 69' Celcius, so clearly there's something wrong, as others are pointing out. I'm not surprised at your WEI score if the CPU has throttled back due to thermal controls kicking in if the temperatures are as high as they're reported.

Personally I'd use a top quality thermal compound that doesn't need chiseling off subsequently, something like Arctic Céramique would fit the bill

All that said, it's still quite a modest single core CPU, your eventual WEI score ain't ever going to hit the roof with that processor.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

At that temperature, I would expect something significantly wrong, probably beyond dust.

CPU fan not spinning as it should?

If you have other chassis fans, are they working properly?

Anything glaringly wrong inside your case with airflow?

If you are going to reseat the heatsink, go to the Arctic Silver web site and look at the application instructions. I don't know your experience, but newbies often do it wrong.

Take your time with some alcohol, Qtips, and clean white cotton rags to get the contact surfaces clean before you reapply the thermal compound.

Make sure you do a good job of mounting the heatsink. The Intel mounting systems aren't exactly easy to master.

Has the case been banged around enough to dislodge anything. A heat sink shouldn't just become dislodged.

 

[wazzaracer]

well this goes to prove you lot know what your talking about and a couple of spotty teenagers who work in shops are just not interested in a 3 quid sale, took your advice went to a computer shop to buy some theromo grease, thought while i was here i would ask for thier advice too, first shop did not have any grease but was not very forth coming with any advice, the second shop again was not very helpful and just said 74C's is fine any the processor would run fine till about 90c, i bought some thermo paste and thanked him for his advice, got home took the heat sink off cleaned off all the old paste re-applied paste and re attached the heat sink, turned the computer on, put the CPU under load and ran Speed fan, read 54C at its highest, so re ran the Intel Processor Identification Utility read my processor running at the right speed now(actually slightly overclocked as i messed with my bios settings) re ran WEI and my processor now gets a healthy score of 4.1

In short thanks for your help and advice guys

 

[Digerati]

Wow. I'm surprised that was all it took to get the temps down. TIM does not go bad with age - UNLESS it has been disturbed and the cured bond broken. Nevertheless, I am glad this seemed to have worked. Thanks for the followup.

 

[wazzaracer]

Wow. I'm surprised that was all it took to get the temps down. TIM does not go bad with age - UNLESS it has been disturbed and the cured bond broken. Nevertheless, I am glad this seemed to have worked. Thanks for the followup.

yeah brought the temps down massively even under load for ages the temp does not rise beyond 60c now, and when not under load about 50c, thinking about it i have recently moved my computer so this could have disturbed everything ?
thanks
Warren

 

[Digerati]

Could be. Ever since PCs went from desktop to tower orientation, the heavy heatsink "hangs" on the motherboard instead of sitting on top of the motherboard. If you look at the manual of many after-market HSF assemblies, they often recommend removal during transport to prevent stressing the motherboard. The popular Zalman cooler manual goes so far as to say,

During transportation of the system, the cooler must be removed.

 

[Qdos]

If the temperature was being measured using a mainboard sensor then I seriously doubt the CPU was all that far over limits; it's more likely the sensor is one of the thousands out there that report wildly inaccurate results.

I've frequently seen Skt775 fans & sinks which are tacked down on only three pins on the mainboard peg fittings - that can cause overheating very readily indeed in itself, some coolers are absolute pigs to clip on correctly.

 

[Digerati]

it's more likely the sensor is one of the thousands out there that report wildly inaccurate results.

If it had been wrong from the start, I would be inclined to agree with you. But unless physically damaged, it should not now be way different from previous readings. Those sensors are cheap, and you are right, they are often very inaccurate, but they still tend to be inaccurate, consistently. That is, if 10 degrees off today, they will be 10 degrees off tomorrow.

 

[Qdos]

Their departure from accuracy tends not to be even however. At 30 degrees celcius it may be 3-5 degrees off kilter, but at 65 degrees the inaccuracy may be far more, and reporting could be more than 20 degrees off the mark.