napoleon8

I bought a brand new pc a week ago and it was all great. Playing around i saw the CPU speed in my computer is 3.17Ghz like it should be and all was great. But a few days ago i realized the pc was running much slower than usual, a took much longer to boot up. When looking around it noticed the cpu speed in My computer was now 2.09Ghz instead of the normal 3.17Ghz. That stressed me out a bit so i restarted and checked in the BIOS, but everything was normal with no under or overclocking, and at the boot screen the clock speed was correct at 3.17Ghz. But when i go back into windows its at 2.09Ghz. Then i checked the ASUS overclocking utility where the speed was 3,17Ghz for about ten seconds and then dropped to 2.09Ghz like in My Computer. I then uninstalled all the ASUS software and reinstalled it, and after it rebooted the pc took like 5 minutes to get into windows. In My computer the speed was still 2.09Ghz but in the overclocking utility the speed was 300mhz! I heard someone else had a smiliar problem and they said its is virus on the harddrive that controls your cpu speed and that you need to reformat and install everything. So thats what i did. And still no change. Please help.
CPU: Intel Core2duo E8500 3.17Ghz
MB: ASUS P5Q
RAM: 2x1GB CORSIAR CL4 DDR2-800
VIDEOCARD: ASUS GEFORCE 8600GT 256MB
HDD: SEAGATE 320GB HDD SATA

Jtsou

The drop in speed is normal, its intel speedstep. The multiplier jumps to 6 when idle to save power. If you can monitor it, when you start an application, watch the cpu speed, it should speed back up. Also, you can go to the task manager(CTRL/ALT/DEL) and go to performance tab then resource monitor. You can watch it there also. It should say maximum CPU frequency.

Also the 300 mhz should have been 335. That is probably the actual cpu mhz.

If 335 is the mhz, when the multiplier is at 9 which is max, the frequency is 3.15ghz. When the multiplier is at 6, which is what it drops to at idle, the frequency is 2.01mhz. I think everything is normal.

Falconoffury

Intel Speedstep is usually disabled by default on desktop computers. He also said that his computer noticably slowed down. I believe intel processors slow themselves when they overheat.

Go into BIOS setup and see if you can find the current temperatures. Post what you find. Also download and install a program that checks temperatures such as Speedfan. Do a web search for it. Post what you find there as well.

Check your cpu heatsink to make sure it is secure. You used a thermal compound right?

napoleon8

Thanks for the reply
Okay it makes sense what you are saying, but what doesn't make sense is that my pc suddenly feels like a pentium 1 (even the start menu takes quite long to fade in) and why is my CPU speed 2.09Ghz when I right click on My Computer?

The computer is definitly much slower and really performs Like its a Pentium 1.

Okay Yeah when it open or close programs the speed goes up and down but that doesn't mean anything when it goes from 335 to about 500 (and still runs at pentium 1 performance).

As i said earlier at the bootup screen the speed and everything is correct and the temperature is 40 degrees (i will try to get that lower when this problem is fixed) but in windows the temperature drops to about 34 degrees which means the cpu doesn't run at the same speed as when it boots up.
Whan i mean here is might this be a software related problem or virus and nothing wrong with the hardware?

napoleon8

Well When i built it i was told the heatsink has pre-applied thermal compound on it and you only need to place compound on when you removed the heatsink.

See the thing here is the PC ran perfect no-problem for about a week and then all of this started.

As said earlier the temperature at boot and when it worked in windows was about 40 degress Celsuis but now with this problem is drops to about 34 in windows.
I checked these tempratures in the BIOS and in the ASUS utility.

Thanks for the replies

Falconoffury

I personally, have never heard of a problem like this, but a software problem is possible since the BIOS is reported the correct speed.

Go to control panel, power options, and the power scheme should be "Home/Office Desk". See if that is the case.

Jtsou

The 335 number should stay the same, unless you are overclocking. And no, most motherboards now have it enabled by default to save power.

napoleon8

Im currently reformatting the hard drive with KILL DISK and reinstalling windows because found another forum where a guy with a E8400 has exactly the same problem. He claimed its a virus attack but in the end it looks like they decided its a hardware related issue. He also reformatted and everything and has the exact same symptoms.

If its the same after the format im gona put my old pc's IDE drive in there and boot that windows in safe mode and see what it has to say.

Otherwise this is a hardware issue and ill have to courier it to the other side of my country to the place where it bought it.

Jtsou

Everything looks good to me, the dropping down of the frequency is normal, and the fsb speed is normal.

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napoleon8

I found the Problem!

The BIOS seems to have gotten mixed up somehow.
Someone just told me to update the BIOS with the latest version so i did and that fixed everything, it shows the right speed in my computer and the PC now performs the way it should.

Thanks for ur help anyway!