2008/11/29
OEM laptop has max CPU frequency capped when on battery
I was playing with a laptop from HP the last couple of days and noticed that when off AC power (on battery), the maximum CPU frequency is only half of the specification. The machine runs Windows Vista. The CPU is an AMD ZM-80, duo core 2.1GHz. On AC power, the processor can reach 2.1GHz on heavy load, but on battery power, the maximum it will go to is 1.05GHz on each core. This is really a problem because performance (especially for single-threaded applications) is pitiful at those levels. In fact, 1080p HD WMV demo videos could not play smoothly just like on a four-year-old Pentium M 1.6GHz.
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