Dell Inspiron 8600C (sept. 2004)
Intel Pentium M 745 1800 Mhz
1.5 GB RAM
80 GB HDD
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (128 MB)

Hello everyone,

I had a problem with Vista (and by extension Server 2008) since the beginning. Speedstep was not working and the CPU was always running at 1800 Mhz causing the battery to drain quickly. I was getting 45 minutes while browsing and 10 minutes while watching videos on Youtube. A major turn off if you ask me.

A thread on Dell’s laptop forum lead me to a solution: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6n5dvv. It talks about RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock). Excerpt from the website:

“RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock) is a small GUI application designed for real-time CPU frequency, throttling and load level monitoring and on-the-fly adjustment of the CPU performance level on supported CPU models via processor’s power management model-specific registers (MSRs). In automatic management mode it continuously monitors the CPU usage level and dynamically adjusts the CPU frequency, throttle and/or voltage level as needed, realizing the “Performance on Demand” concept."

With RMClock running I now get 3-4 hours on the battery, the same as XP and Linux. Ahhh. I might even go back to Vista once my 240 days trial limit is over.

Hope this helps someone with a similar problem.

Oh, BTW. Thanks for this site and to all participants. It has been great for me on numerous occasions.

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Kiaiiiii