CPU seriously UNDERperforming

[Alexandru]

Hey everyone,

I have a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop. It is rather old but since it was a mid-high end computer when it was new it is still up to every task I care to throw at it.

It has a CPU INTEL Core Duo T2600 2.16 Ghz, 2 Gb of RAM and Nvidia 7900 GS with 512 mb, HDD 250 Gb @ 7200 rpm.

So it is reasonably quick....Or so it used to be until a couple of months ago...
Now it is a TRUE sluggard. Everything is very slow. I re-installed Windows 7, updated it, installed the drivers, got nothing else installed and still it is miserably slow.

I suspect the culprit is my CPU, because when my PC used to be nice and fast the Windows Performance Index gave my CPU a mark of 5.2. Now, though it gives it a lowly 2.1. And well-deserved it is too...

I have run the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool and the result of the tests was a green message of PASS. So what is wrong with it, then???

Why is it so slow? What can be done to make as fast as before??

Thank you in advance for your answers!

 

[patonb]

Welcome to the forum.
Hae you checked how hot it's getting?
Use coretemp Core Temp to check. If a cpu overheats it'll throttle back, slowing down to cool off.
A 5yr old laptop is probably caked with dust and crap not allowing it to properly exhaust the heat.

 

[Alexandru]

I don't think it's the temperature. It may be old, but it has been cleaned a couple of months ago, besides, I have connected the fan to a 5 Volt source on the motherboard so it always spinning like crazy, and it's winter over here and the room is relatively cold.

So it is not the temperature. (but if you insist, it gets to a maximum of 60 degrees Celsius, under load).

 

[hamlet]

Welcome to the forum.
Hae you checked how hot it's getting?
Use coretemp Core Temp to check. If a cpu overheats it'll throttle back, slowing down to cool off.
A 5yr old laptop is probably caked with dust and crap not allowing it to properly exhaust the heat.

What would be considered a "red flag" temp?

 

[Alexandru]

Well, the CPU usually goes from 1.25 Volts to 0.95 Volts (and becomes properly slow, much slower than it currently is) @ temperatures over 75 degrees.

 

[patonb]

Yha, 60C is warm, but not bad.

Hmm, the fact that you have a new install of win 7 takes that out of the equation.

I've never heard of a cpu "going bad" like that unless it was highly overclocked.

I'm at a loss, as its typically as heat issue 99% of the time.

 

[Thorax_the_Impaler]

Hey everyone,

I have a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop. It is rather old but since it was a mid-high end computer when it was new it is still up to every task I care to throw at it.

It has a CPU INTEL Core Duo T2600 2.16 Ghz, 2 Gb of RAM and Nvidia 7900 GS with 512 mb, HDD 250 Gb @ 7200 rpm.

So it is reasonably quick....Or so it used to be until a couple of months ago...
Now it is a TRUE sluggard. Everything is very slow. I re-installed Windows 7, updated it, installed the drivers, got nothing else installed and still it is miserably slow.

I suspect the culprit is my CPU, because when my PC used to be nice and fast the Windows Performance Index gave my CPU a mark of 5.2. Now, though it gives it a lowly 2.1. And well-deserved it is too...

I have run the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool and the result of the tests was a green message of PASS. So what is wrong with it, then???

Why is it so slow? What can be done to make as fast as before??

Thank you in advance for your answers!

I have a couple questions....
1. Did it just go bad overnight?
2. Was it "acting up" before it slowed down?
3. When it was "faster" were you running Windows 7?

 

[Alexandru]

Hmm, not overnight, no. But from time to time it used to get ass slow as it is right now.
Usually was happening after upon booting I used to get a BIOS message that my power source isn't 100% right and if I press F1, the PC will operate at a slower regime.

What I used to do is meddle with the cables and the power brick and then have it restarted a few times until I did not get that BIOS message, and then when windows was loaded the PC was as fast as it normally should have been.

The strange thing is that I don't get that BIOS message anymore, but the PC is just as slow as when I had been getting it.

Could it be the power brick????

 

[patonb]

You know I was thinking about that too.

You have Access too another one?

 

[Alexandru]

well, I will have access to a new one in a couple of days. so I hope it is the problem, as my current power brick is a cheap Chinese copy, not the original, which is dead.