HP nz6325 - suddenly very slow...

[Guest]

Hello,

I've got an HP nz6325 laptop (Sepron 3500+) that has suddenly started running very slowly - about 1/10th proper speed. It's not a Windows issue since if I boot from a UBCD4WIN live CD and run CPUBench, the performance figures still way down (similar to an old Pentium-90):

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CPUBENCH V4.0.0.6 results: , MFLOPS: 27.67, MIPS: 21.8, PI: 148969, KPPS: 205.36, Lorenz: 9844, Dhrystone: 136546, Whetstone: 49995, Nblock: 74390, Queens: 50734, Matrix: 60687, Savage: 22281, B5: 63906, Overall score: 1
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If I run the CPU-Z latency test, the memory latencies are very high:

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Cache latency computation, ver 1.0
www.cpuid.com

Computing ...


stride 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512
size (Kb)
1 64 58 58 60 60 60 61 61
2 60 60 60 60 60 60 61 60
4 60 60 60 60 60 60 61 60
8 60 60 60 61 61 60 60 60
16 60 60 60 60 60 59 60 59
32 60 60 60 60 60 59 60 60
64 61 60 60 60 60 60 60 60
128 81 103 135 213 223 184 184 187
256 81 103 135 214 223 192 195 202
512 80 104 133 208 219 189 190 223
1024 78 145 187 317 374 499 495 507
2048 79 146 217 322 375 498 494 513
4096 78 147 216 321 377 497 498 505
8192 79 149 216 322 377 502 498 504
16384 79 145 216 322 377 502 504 503
32768 78 146 217 321 378 502 503 504

2 cache levels detected
Level 1 size = 64Kb latency = 60 cycles
Level 2 size = 512Kb latency = 194 cycles
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I've updated the BIOS to F.07 (the latest) and reset the BIOS settings to their defaults. I've also replaced the memory, but nothing has helped. There are no memory or cache settings available in the BIOS so I don't know what else to try. Any suggestions?

 

[Guest]

So it's not a hard drive fault ?

Presumably, if it boots up at that speed, it's not overheating causing it to cycle down to a lower speed.

Is it the same on battery and on mains ?

 

[Guest]

No, it's still slow even with the HD removed. It's slow right from startup, even when cold.

Performance seems normal when running on battery though.

 

[Guest]

"Performance seems normal when running on battery though."

Sounds like the battery is being charged but the power adapter cube (or the power circuitry on the motherboard) aren't functioning normally.

On my monster Dell laptop, if I plug in an old 70w Dell power supply it cycles down to a lower speed (and warns me to attach the correct 90w cube).