Im not a big hardware guy. I use my PC alot, but I dont game on it, and dont really do anything that needs the latest and greatest in CPU, RAM, or Video card technology. I recently formated my harddrive, and reinstalled windows, and I noticed something. Never payed attention to it before. Perhaps everything is fine. Nonetheless HD playback (WMV HD downloads from microsoft.com) plays back really choppy, whereas before it used to be smooth. I noticed that in the My Computer properties, it displays my CPU as a 1.5Ghz, however I have a 3.0Ghz CPU. Task manager and device manager recognize both machines OK. Here is an image, maybe someone could tell me what is wrong. Also, for about 6 months now, MY PC will not boot up on the first try. Sometimes it takes 3-5 tries before it will boot. There are two booting symptoms when it fails. Sometimes it just sits there, doing absolutly nothing. At this time the lights on my optical drives flash, but thats about it. The other scenario is that it will begin to boot (lll hear the lil beep noise), but it will hang and says checking NVRAM....... It will hang there forever. I usually have to hit the power button on and off a few times, then it will boot up OK, and be totally fine untill I have to reboot again. My intial thoughts are Power Supply, but Im not sure if that would explain the 3Ghz, 1.5Ghz thing above.
First thing to do would be to check your actual frequency using a dedicated tool like [google]CPU-Z[/google] and check the frequency there. As for the other problem, open your PC (make sure you've touched the case/power supply to discharge static and remove your motherboard battery (its a small watch type) and put it back in. You may get a CMOS checksum error on boot but thats normal. If that fails, download a copy of [google]memtest86[/google] and burn the .iso (maybe .bin i can't quite remember) file to a cd with software like Nero, Blindwrite, Alcohol 120% etc and boot your PC from it. It will automaticaly start checking your RAM and leave it running for an hour to see if you have problems with your RAM.
I'd also take a look at your cooling, as the CPU may be throttled back to avoid heat damage to the CPU. Wether the fan quit, the heatsink isn't attached right, or the airflow through the case is bad, I don't know, but if there's a cooling issue, you could see your CPU speed throttled back quite a bit.
I did that, and CPUZ is reading exactly 1.5GHz. also, under processor selection (bottom) it is only showing 1 CPU, shouldnt it show two? I think I may know the problem for this, I recently reinstalled windows, and I forgot to turn the HT option on. I caught it after I installed the OS, so I booted to BIOS, turn the HT option on, rebooted machine, and windows detected the additional thread OK. So I figured everything was fine. Should I reinstall windows? Or else my problem elsewhere?
Ok, I downloaded an app called speedfan. I installed it and rebooted. Oddly after my reboot, im now getting a correct reading of 3.0Ghz. And the PC doesnt lag when playin High Def video material. However there is something im concerned about. I took a screen capture of SpeedFan. As you can see TEMP 2 is high, how can I find out what each TEMP reading is located at? I dont know much about HT CPUs, but would it be possible to have a different temperature reading for each of the two virtual CPUs (Dont know the proper term, is each CPU called a Thread?) Anyway, in accordance with that higher temperature reading at the bottom you can see that the Vcore2 reading is putting more voltage. Lastly, the voltage readings. The +12V seems to be a decent percantage lower, and in the second column the +5V is less than half of what it should be. It dont see how that could be the case cause in the first column the +5V reads ok. How accurate is this information from this program?
Looks like it might be the PSU. The upped voltage could up the temperature, although I'm not sure if that is the temperature of the CPU or the PWM.
10.5V is way out of tolerance for the 12V rail. Wether the computer is too much for what you got or simply a poor unit, I'm not sure. Newegg has the FSP AX400-PN (400W) for $40 and the AX450-PN for $50, and they have some very nice specs on them, especially considering the high quality and prices they're going for. 49*C is getting warm, but you might want to find out where the 70*C is coming from as that's definitely a problem. If you feel your heatsink is warm, then it's probably attached correctly. If not, you'll want to take it off and install it correctly. You may also want to get a can of compressed air and blow out the system while you're in there.
Thanks for the replies again. My CPU is a prescott, and from reading on here these guys run quite warm. It registed 28C when I woke this morning, and after 4 hours of DVD playback on my front projection system, it climbed to 59*C. When I run HD content for longer periods of time it gets in the mid 60's. That high reading temp 2, I have no clue what it is. I installed MBM 5, and it only has 1 temperature reading for my motherboard. And that one temperature reading is displayed as CPU temp in that application. It also is the exact same reading that Im getting with the SpeedFan program for Temp1. I have a name brand PSU that I bought from Circuit City about 1 year ago, for an older PC that hasnt gotten much usage. So Im gonna throw that in this PC to see if I clean up that 12V rail some.
