How can I slow down or control the processor speed on my lap top?

Question

I Know most people are trying to find ways to speed their computer up but not me. I Have a P4 processor 3.2 GHZ installed within my laptop (dont ask me why) but the result is my laptop overheats so quickly I can not use it long enough to do what I want.

I read somewhere that you could change the settings of your processor so it runs at a lower speed. Any one know how this is or can be done?

Answer 1

I don't think you can slow down the processor speed enough to get it to run cooler. Why is your processor running so hot? You should keep the fans clear of everything, IE. don't put your laptop on a bed or surrounded by blankets.. this will get the laptop some room to disperse the heat and won't freeze up or crash.
You get special stands with fans on them where you can put the laptop on .. and they will help cool the thing down.

If nothing helps, take it back to the store and ask them to look at it. You might need more heat conductor gel or have them put the cpu heatsink back on it properly.

Answer 2

as people like to overclock their p.c,s and laptops ,their is a few users who underclock their computers,and the main reason is the same as yours,overheating
however ,your laptop shouldnt be overheating like it does,laptops are designed to be able to cope with the high clock speeds that the pentium 4 uses,so if it is still under warranty i would send it to be looked at as it sounds like a fan in the laptop is malfunctioning,and this is what is making the laptop so hot when used
if it were a tower,you could easily add extra ventelation,such as a rear chassis fan which only costs £8 but a laptop is a bit more difficult,that is why i recommend proffesinal advice
however ,for a short term fix,why not go into power options in control panel,and see if you can change any settings to ease the laptops resources,also it may not be your processor,it could be a overheating battery,to check if its your processor just press ctrl+alt+delete and when the windows task manager appears look at the processor usage at the bottom,and leave it on it for a while,if your laptop gets warmer,and the usage stays around 3% it isnt your processor,it must be your battery or even your graphic chip(or a defective fan)
either way,like i said,you should seek professinal advice,do not try and underclock(slow down) your processor,as any messing with your processor(overclocking or underclocking)is dangerous when you dont fully understand what you are doing,it can ruin your processor for good
however if you feel brave enough to do the job your self,its a case of going into bios(setup) press delete on start up ,and in set up look for power management or a similar named item and then its a case of lowering the clock speed bit by bit,do not lower it in one big amount,clock speeds are made up of 2 things,front service bus(fsb) and multiplyer,multilply thee two together and you get your clock speed
for example fsb 200mhz.....multiplyer 13.5 x
clock speed.....2.9 ghz
some times you lower using the multiplier but sometimes these are hard locked to stop overclocking ,and you can only use the fsb,then it is best to raise or lower these by the smallest possible frequency each time..allways save and exit each entry ,but be carefull overclocking can damage the processor and underclocking,well i dont know anyone who,s done this,so its a rough guess that i wouldnt lower it more than 400mhz taking it down to 2.8ghz
the rule of thumb is safe overclocking is normally 10 to 20% of the clock speed so if you apply that when underclocking you should be safe,that means you can underclock between 320 to 640 mhz but i would go for 400mhz lower
any probs let me know
good luck

Answer 3

I cant speak for other laptops, but on my Toshiba, I have a Toshiba Power Saver application which lets me control lots of settings for power management, and one of them is the processor speed - I can choose from level 1 to 4 and also choose the cooling method (eg min, medium max).

If you dont have a toshiba, this is probably not much use to you.

Answer 4

in the approach checklist you are able to disable each and every thing that's not equipment aside from your virus test, explorer, and job supervisor, which will reason much less CPU interest which generates warmth. you additionally can use a can of compressed air to clean the ducts into and out of your computing gadget, do away with the airborne dirt and dust and the fan shouldn't kick as much as extreme velocity as rapid. ultimately, do not place your pc on delicate surfaces, it could block the vents and which will reason your fant to kick on.

Answer 5

Computer might over heat when the fan gets blocked with dust and hair. Clean it out. It helped in my case.
Processor must be in touch with heat sink. There must be enough heat conducting gel between the two.

Answer 6

Sounds like you have a desktop chip in there ;) I'd swing by the BIOS when it starts up and see if you can lower the Front-side Bus to CPU multiplier.

Answer 7

You might have room for manouevre with Notebook Hardware Control (requires .netframework 2.0)
http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm#anchor_download