My P-M system will not do max performance on battery, help!

[Glint]

I have a Dell 9200 with a 2.0 GHz Pentium-M.

I cannot get this system to stay at 2.0 GHz while on Battery. Speedstep/Notebook Hardware Control (was CHC) will show 2.0 GHz, but the system properties page will show 600 MHz whenever I unplug my system. Gaming also suffers greatly while on battery. I have disabled Dell Quickset, ensured speedstep is enabled in the BIOS, Upgraded NHC to the most recent versions and tried many different settings, and upgraded my BIOS to the most current version (hoping for a BIOS option to override speed stepping and force max cpu performance on battery).

I do a lot of traveling, and would love to be able to play Need for Speed, Titan Quest, or whatever game needs full power to be playable while unplugged. Please help before I start my summer traveling next week.

Thanks,
Glint

[qhn]

have u checked ur power management option in desktop properties/screensaver/power?

cheers ...

[Glint]

Yep,

I tried setting it to Desktop, always on, and anything else that looked like helpful.

[Yoob@NBF]

You misunderstand. The CPU cycles dynamically and will clock up to 2GHz when needed but th eperformance your suffering from is videocard performance. If you'll note in the videocard properties page under Powermizer for nvidia or Powerplay for ATI (your probabaly ATI MR9700) the GPU clocks down to a sort of battery saver mode which runs a lot slower to preserve battery life. There should be an option fo rthe ATI cards to run full steam so make sur eyou have the latest catalyst video drivers to get all the options.

[Glint]

This fixed it! Thank you so much for correcting my GCE (gross conceptual error)!!!!! This has been driving me crazy since I bought this system over a year ago. I had no clue the video card was undercloking itself.

Thanks again,
Glint