E5700 problem

[idata]

It's suppose to work at 3.0ghz, but cpu-z says otherwise:

Processors Information

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Processor 1 ID = 0

Number of cores 2 (max 2) Number of threads 2 (max 2) Name Intel Pentium E5700 Codename Wolfdale Specification Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5700 @ 3.00GHz Package (platform ID) Socket 775 LGA (0x0) CPUID 6.7.A Extended CPUID 6.17 Core Stepping R0 Technology 45 nm TDP Limit 65 Watts Core Speed 2094.1 MHz Multiplier x FSB 10.5 x 199.4 MHz Rated Bus speed 797.7 MHz Stock frequency 3000 MHz Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T, VT-x L1 Data cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size L1 Instruction cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size L2 cache 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size FID/VID Control yes FID range 6.0x - 15.0x Max VID 1.288 V

Chipset

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Northbridge Intel G41 rev. A3

Southbridge Intel 82801GB (ICH7/R) rev. A1Memory Type DDR3Memory Size 8192 MBytesChannels Dual, (Symmetric)Memory Frequency 398.9 MHz (1:2)CAS# latency (CL) 6.0RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 6RAS# Precharge (tRP) 6Cycle Time (tRAS) 15Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) 64Command Rate (CR) 2TMCHBAR I/O Base address 0x0FED14000MCHBAR I/O Size 4096

So what's the problem? Is there even a problem? What am I missing? Motherboard is ASRock g41m-vs3.

Thank you for your help.

[idata · Accepted solution]

You are likely seeing the CPU's frequency when Enhanced Intel Speed Step (EIST), a CPU power saving option is on. Your speed of 2.0 GHz is a standard Speed Step low power frequency for CPUs like yours. In the info you posted, the Multiplier is 10.5, which looks like the Speed Step setting, rather than a Multiplier of 15, which would produce the standard 3.0 GHz frequency. CPU-Z is sometimes not fast enough to catch your CPU at it's standard frequency. You may have an older version of CPU-Z, the newest version (1.58) is better at monitoring CPU frequency than older versions, but is slower than other monitoring programs.

You should check your BIOS and see if EIST (Speed Step) is enabled, and if so you can temporarily disable it and check the frequency again. I have seen CPUs become locked into their Speed Step frequency, but that should be fixed with a reboot. If Speed Step was not enabled, let us know. You might also try resetting the BIOS with the mother board jumper if you have not done that in a while, to insure all the basic settings are correct.

[idata]

I don't see any EIST, there is only an intelligent energy save option, which is disabled. Here is some more info:

The motherboard and the cpu are brand new, so i haven't messed with any settings.

[idata]

The place in the BIOS you need to check is on the Advanced screen, and is called CPU Configuration. This is described in section 3.4 of your mother board's manual, starting on page 32, and should look like this:

The first thing to check is the "Ratio CMOS Setting", which must be 15 in order for you CPU to run at 3GHz. Also notice on this screen that Intel Speed Step is shown, which is EIST, your CPU has this option. Frankly the BIOS settings are a bit unusual, and I am curious as to what they are set to by default with your processor. The CPU Frequency should be 200 with your processor, and if it is I bet the Ratio CMOS setting is 10. For some odd reason they say in the manual that enabling Speed Step may be a problem with some power supplies, which is weird IMO, it won't be a problem.

You'll need to experiment with these BIOS settings, I can't predict what they will do when some things are enabled or disabled. If you can, set Ratio CMOS setting to 15. You should try enabling Speed Step and see what the Ratio becomes, if it is 15, fine. That On-Demand Clock Modulation may need to be disabled. You'll need to see what happens to your CPU frequency in CPU-Z after either setting the Ratio to 15, or enabling Speed Step and let us know what the Ratio is after that. I'd like to know what the settings were when you first checked them.

It seems to me that the default BIOS settings are what is causing your processor to run a 2GHz.

[idata]

Ok problem solved, though i'm not sure why... I loaded the default BIOS settings and now the multiplier is at 15 and I can see intel speedstep, whereas before i didn't. The thing is, cpu speed was lower when i first entered BIOS, which i would think already had the default settings. :S

Thanks for your help!

P.S.

Is it normal for one cpu core to be hotter than the other?

[idata]

It sounds like you had some bad BIOS settings for some reason before you reset it, but it's great that all is well now.

The temperature difference between the cores is not unusual at all. The amount of usage or load on each core is rarely the same, except when running a stress testing program. It's likely that Core 1 had a higher load than Core 2, so it was hotter. If the temp difference between the cores stays that way over long periods, or during a stress test when they are equally loaded, than it might be possible that the thermal compound is not distributed evenly, or the CPU cooler is not applying equal pressure on the top of the CPU. Also, the temp sensors for each core are usually never exactly the same in their reading, that is not unusual. Try a stress testing program like Prime95, and see if they are close or equal. The overall CPU temperature is what is important, and that is used to determine if it is overheating.