Help Needed Urgently!!!

Alu_ATC

Alu_ATC

Alu_ATC

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Joined
21 Jul 2005
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1,104
Hi all,

Sorry for the alarming title, but I need some help!

Installed SP2 on my Asus W1 (1.7Ghz Dothan PM) last night after over a years happy ownership, minus the slight problems with heat. Needed to get SP2 on as the service for SP1 end in October.

Anyway, all is well, except I notice a heavy slow down (and the usual Microsoft tampering). Once I get all the settings normal, the laptop is feeling slower and slower. I loaded up RMclock to check what was going on and for the first time saw my CPU being throttled badly.

When on battery power as standard, the CPU should sit at 600mhz, but for some reason, the processor was being throttled down to 350mhz (roughly). The kernal load was also 100% and CPU load. After a minute or two, the kernal and CPU settled down, but my processor remained badly throttled.

Temps were all good, processor was @ 41 and hadn't been higher than 51 all night. Even when I put it on AC (should be full 1.7Ghz) the CPU was throttled back instantly to about 1.1Ghz. Just to claify, I have checked all settings in RMclock.

If anyone has a solution I'd be extremely greatful, I have a tonn of work to do on this laptop and now is not the time for PII-esk performance.

Thanks everyone! :(
 
Yewen said:
Try running centrino hardware control (notebook control now I think).

It should give you manual control of the throttling on your laptop and be a good temporary solution.

http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm

On a side note that triples the battery life on my Acer. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Yewen, I'll give it a go. I used that programme before RMclock but found it to be a bit unstable. Could be a good temporary measure though.

Can anyone hazard a guess as to why this throttling is happening? At POST the CPU is working fine at 600mhz without power, only when it gets into windows does it throttle down.
 
Ok, well I've just run CHC and its reading the clockspeed @ 600mhz, which is true, but it is still being throttled down to 350.

Ive killed all the heavy processes and the CPU load now is very low 1 - 5 %, but my CPU is still being strangled.

Please help someone, I've too much work to do! Would I just be better off forcing SP2 to uninstall, or am I opening myself up to a world of problems?
 
Sorry to keep updating my own thread, but I'm tearing my hair out.

I've found a copy of svchost.exe that is causing the CPU to be at 100% load. I realise this could be a virus or an attack on the PC.

Now, thats one problem I need to solve, but regardless of that, when I kill the process all is well, but my CPU remains throttled.

Last time I used SP2 it caused a whole host of problems, and now its doing the same on my laptop. Please help someone!
 
That sounds like the best option, a slipstreamed XP install with SP2 using Nlite.

You sure the bios has not had something set wrong with the FSB, as that could scale the clocks back poorly when speedstep kicks in.
 
Yewen said:
That sounds like the best option, a slipstreamed XP install with SP2 using Nlite.

You sure the bios has not had something set wrong with the FSB, as that could scale the clocks back poorly when speedstep kicks in.
Click to expand...

Im 100% sure, the BIOS hasn't been altered at all and I've checked it this morning. All is well until XP loads up and then I'm hit with svchost.exe and awful clock rates.

Doing the remaining updates now, if this doesnt work, I'll uninstall SP2 if that fails, Ill take the HDD out and run the second partition on my desktop - I have work to do! :mad:
 
Turn off the power saving options in control panel, set the unit to Always on, reboot and see if it still throttles....


P.S. Is this laptop an Acer by any chance ?
 
He says its an asus.

My Acer runs fine with SP2, although every rig I have goes mental unless I install SP2 literally before anything else or as a slipstream.
 
Sorry, just that two years ago Acer laptops had a similar problem, this was the fix..... for some, others needed to be sent in for repair :(
 
UKDTweak said:
Turn off the power saving options in control panel, set the unit to Always on, reboot and see if it still throttles....


P.S. Is this laptop an Acer by any chance ?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post, that was very useful! :) I think I have found the problem with the throttling. For some strange reason, Power 4 Gear and SP2 are conflicting. If I set the power to a windows option, like 'Always On', my CPU returns to normal (thank God), but if I use Power 4 Gear, I'm getting instant throttling.

Not sure whether to tell the laptop to load as always on and manage using RMclock or uninstall power 4 gear and avoid future problems.

Yewen said:
He says its an asus.

My Acer runs fine with SP2, although every rig I have goes mental unless I install SP2 literally before anything else or as a slipstream.
Click to expand...

I agree. This seems to be a big problem, but I can't really spend anymore time re-formatting right now.

UKDTweak said:
Sorry, just that two years ago Acer laptops had a similar problem, this was the fix..... for some, others needed to be sent in for repair :(
Click to expand...

I'm still having major problems with svchost.exe, one copy is causing 100% CPU at start up everytime. McAfee and AVG agree its not a virus, but updates arn't sorting it.

:(
 
I have had similar SVCHOST.exe issues. Think it was sasser, I will do a bit of hunting for you. :)

It appears its either a virus or a driver / program conflict on what you are loading at startup.

If you run diskeeper bin it for now is my advice, it hates the upgrade from SP1 to 2 and it could cause the issue.

MSConfig and start disabling things you dont like, but SVCHOST as itself is fine, but some may be viri.
 
Ok, well I jumped in the deep end and stopped Power 4 Gear running completely. Nothing really wrong with it, but SP2 hates it. Instead, I've told RMclock to handle it all now, no more throttling. :D

Yewen said:
I have had similar SVCHOST.exe issues. Think it was sasser, I will do a bit of hunting for you. :)
Click to expand...

Still trying various ways to kill it. It's not one that makes it unstable, but seems to have something to do with the desktop. I've used security task manager which doesn't see it as dangerous. Arg.

But thanks mate for hunting, see if you can dig anything up! And thanks to everyone who posted, legends the lot of ya! :cool:

Yewen said:
It appears its either a virus or a driver / program conflict on what you are loading at startup.

If you run diskeeper bin it for now is my advice, it hates the upgrade from SP1 to 2 and it could cause the issue.

MSConfig and start disabling things you dont like, but SVCHOST as itself is fine, but some may be viri.
Click to expand...

Ok, I thought it was a virus too, but nothing I've used has reported it as a virus, even the tool Leo Notenboom reccomends. Must be a file causing this. Microsoft's Defeneder, SpyBot, McAfee, AVG and PC-cillin have all found nothing either. This is so fustrating.
 
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If you can try and load up safe mode and see if it goes mental in that it would be a huge help. :)

Would identify if its windows / driver or a software conflict. :)
 
Yewen said:
If you can try and load up safe mode and see if it goes mental in that it would be a huge help. :)

Would identify if its windows / driver or a software conflict. :)
Click to expand...

I'm fearful, but I'll go for it. :(
 
Ok, a little sluggish in safe mode, but with all the usual stuff turned off it was pretty happy, settled down slower than with sp1, but settled none the less. SVCHOST.exe was @ 30k, but not a problem.

*Hooray* I've terminated a lot of processes, just to speed the thing up, and as a bi-product SVCHOST.exe seems settled. No longer getting huge loads and although the laptop is booting slower than in sp1, its fairly normal. This probably isn't the end, but it seems solved for now.

Thanks everyone for your help, free cookies on me (the good kind). :D

cookie.jpg


Now, just gotta catch up on 9 or so hours of work. Cheers. :)
 
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Glad you at least got it to working state.

Never update before or during major work, or make sure you can on multiple machines before you attempt it next time. :p
 
Yewen said:
Glad you at least got it to working state.

Never update before or during major work, or make sure you can on multiple machines before you attempt it next time. :p
Click to expand...

Hehe, yeh. I always make backups, but thought 'ah, the sp2 bugs will have been worked out by now, it'll take an hour at most'.

How wrong I was. :o
 
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