New laptop speed issue

Countcussy · 27 Dec 2012 at 01:12

I have picked up a new laptop today. Its a Samsung 550p5c with Windows 8. It looked a nice machine at the right price. Its got a Core I5 3210m @2.5ghz cpu. I decided I did not need a dedicated gpu, as gaming will be pretty non existent. I have had to give up my main rig, as we need the space for a new arrival, and this was its replacement. The most intensive task will be to encode a few DVD`s to my network storage.
The problem I am having is the processor speed seems to be locked. CPU-z identifies the processor and its max speed correctly, but reports a current working multiplier of 12, giving a speed of 1200mhz. It does not seem to matter what I do, I cannot get this to increase. I tried a Handbrake encode and got equal performance to a 4 year old Vostro laptop. Core temp reports 45-50 degrees on the cores. I have tried adjusting power settings etc, but I cannot seem to get anything to move. I downloaded passmark to double check and it scored roughly half what it should be capable off. The WEI gives a CPU score of 4.9, which is the lowest figure out of all the tested components. That can`t be right, surely.

Am I missing something stupidly simple? Its almost like there is a power management mode stuck. But I have changed them all multiple times this evening without success. It also makes no difference whether the power adapter is plugged in or not. I have had a quick look in the bios, and can`t see anything obvious.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as at this moment in time, I am very disappointed.

DAnDan · 27 Dec 2012 at 01:15

Chances are (as the laptop is very similar to my samsung one) that it will have a program called "EasySettings" or something similar, in there there's an option under the power management to enable power save mode, this limits the CPU to 1.2 GHz. I know you say you've checked this, but it seems like it's exactly the issue you're describing.

For me there's also the keyboard shortcut to activate/deactivate this, FN + F8 I think, but I'm not sure.

Countcussy · 27 Dec 2012 at 14:57

DAnDan said:
Chances are (as the laptop is very similar to my samsung one) that it will have a program called "EasySettings" or something similar, in there there's an option under the power management to enable power save mode, this limits the CPU to 1.2 GHz. I know you say you've checked this, but it seems like it's exactly the issue you're describing.

For me there's also the keyboard shortcut to activate/deactivate this, FN + F8 I think, but I'm not sure.

Thank you for the help. However, the settings only give me a "eco" mode which is already switched off. I have set the power management in windows to high performance, but it makes no difference. I will keep searching...

Countcussy · 2 Jan 2013 at 09:25

Sorted. It turns out some of Samsungs software is not quite "ready" for Windows 8

Re-installed the settings program and after a bit of faffing, the system works as it should.

After playing with Windows 8 for a while, I really do like the concept and even though you can drop back to desktop, I really feel a touchscreen would maximise the 8 experience.

Surprisingly with Samsung, there was no OS disc, Just a recovery partition. I planned to dual boot with Windows 7 and did not realise that the new bios made this awkward but not impossible. GPT issues etc.

In the end, I picked up a cheap SSD and did a fresh install of Windows 7. I can always go back to 8 at a later date.

Drizmod · 2 Jan 2013 at 11:42

You should always decrapify your new laptop. They always come with a lot of rubbish and bloat that reduces a lot of the performance