Vortex II CPU clock

Hi,

I just received my Vortex II (just 7 business days after ordering, in Ireland, mad!).
Laptop is really nice - highly recommended. It takes time to get used to the keyboard (still looking for keys) but I actually really like it.
Only reproach I'd do is that I seriously miss the mouse buttons on top of the trackpad that I had on my previous HP laptop - the ones below (on the Vortex) tend to be under by T-Shirt (and I don't really have a belly!). Also, the finger scanner is seriously recessed and right in the middle of these 2 buttons, which makes it hard to use.
Otherwise, it's a fantastic laptop. I got a latest genereation SSD and ATTO indeed confirms 550+ MB/s. Starting the heaviest applications usually just take 1 or 2 seconds.

I have one issue though - it's probably normal but not what I was used to in my old laptop (6 year old Pentium M).
I noticed that when the laptop is not plugged in to the mains, I can only get half of the CPU frequency, e.g. 1.2Ghz instead of 2.4 )and obviously no turbo boost either).
Is this expected? I created a "Full on" power plan with min and max CPU speed to 100% so I'd expect 2.4Ghz but it only stays at 1.2. Is it expected?
So really when it's not plugged in, single-threaded apps actually run about 20% slower than on my 6 year old laptop :-(. When connected though, no contest, it's a beast! Single threaded apps are 2.5 times faster and multithreaded apps are easily 10 times faster than my old laptop, with still some spare capacity!

And the "minimum CPU %" seems to be ignored too - even when plugged in I only get 800Mhz on idle (but it does boost to 3.2Ghz when fully loaded, great!). I don't really care about this (this was mostly for an experiment), but the fact that it peaks at 1.2Ghz when not plugged in really means it's not usable for development (what I do).

Is this expected? Is this a feature of Windows or the bios?

Thanks!

CM
 

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
i remember someone having this problem before where it didnt even go up from 800mhz,, im not sure about the 1.2ghz thing, but i imagine it would be in the BIOS somewhere
 
Weird, I just replied twice but it didn't go through... Probably because of the link to the other thread so I'm removing it here.

Thanks for your help!
I've found the thread: (link removed, hopefully my reply will show)

So I've uninstalled/reinstalled the hotkey and still no luck, multiplier won't go past 12x when not plugged in...

CM
 

AshleyUK

Bronze Level Poster
Weird, I just replied twice but it didn't go through... Probably because of the link to the other thread so I'm removing it here.

Thanks for your help!
I've found the thread: (link removed, hopefully my reply will show)

So I've uninstalled/reinstalled the hotkey and still no luck, multiplier won't go past 12x when not plugged in...

CM

Is this even when your trying to push it with something that is maxing the CPU? What program are you using to view the multiplier?
 
Is this even when your trying to push it with something that is maxing the CPU? What program are you using to view the multiplier?

Yes. If I run my tomcat web server and simulate 50 simultaneous users full on for 20 seconds it pretty much maxes out the CPU. Plugged in I can get 6000 pages per second.
I only get a fraction of that when on battery.
 
I've found the problem - indeed with the hotkey app ("laptop" tray icon). It has some other power plans, which are actually different from the Windows 7 ones. You need to set the hotkey to "performance" in order to unlock the multiplier.
I'm not too sure what this app does and why there are 2 different power plans - looks odd.
Anyway, I'm happy now, I have a fast laptop even on battery :) .
 
Top