Re: Machines misreporting Bogomips

Barry K. Nathan
2002-02-03T21:40:49Z

watermodem wrote:
> If they are Intel CPU's and the heatsink <-> CPU connection is poor
> (no heatsink compound, heatsink loose) or the fan is dead/dying or
> due to dust poor airflow this is reasonable. Intel CPUs slow down
> when they get hot as as safety measure.

Note that this only applies to Pentium 4's. I believe Coppermine Pentium
III's will simply stop running (i.e., the computer freezes altogether
instead of slowing down) to prevent overheating. I'm not sure off the top
of my head what older Pentiums do, except that they certainly don't have
the slowdown trick that the Pentium 4 has.

Also, some BIOSes have an option called "CPU Speed at Boot" or something
like that, which has a Low and a High setting -- this serves the same
purpose as those old Turbo switches. (Note that I'm *not* talking about
the SpeedStep settings that newer laptops have in their BIOSes.)

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn@pobox.com>