CPU Speeds

I've been running PCDiagnose on my two laptops for the past few days, with surprising results. The first laptop is a Panasonic Toughbook with an 866 MHz Pentium III processor. The second is my wife's Compaq Presario with a 1.6 GHz Celeron processor.
The Panasonic (866 MHz) routinely is running above 1 GHz. I'm very happy about that. However, the Compaq (1.6 GHz) always runs at 600 to 800 mHz.

They both are running Windows XP sp2. The Compaq has about 1 GB RAM, whereas the Panasonic only has 256 MB RAM. As far as I can figure, the Compaq should run circles around the Panasonic...but the Panasonic still performs better than the Compaq.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to why this is?
Thanks,
Marc

 

The Compaq is probably using Intel's Speed Step technology. It is used by laptop PC to prolong battery life. In basic terms, it increases CPU speed as needed. If the PC is idle or performing simple, basic tasks, the CPU will run at a low speed because computing power isn't needed. But as more instensive applications are opened, or a 3d game is started, the SpeedStep will kick in and increase the CPU as needed to keep the program(s) running smoothly. As for the 866mhz PC running at over 1ghz... that is odd. Most laptops do not have overclocking options in the BIOS, especially not the older ones. This makes me question the validity of the results produced by the program you're using. Try using Everest or PCWizard or Crystal CPUID or CPUZ for accurate processor readings....
Everest http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181
PCWizard http://www.majorgeeks.com/PC_Wizard_d3846.html
Crystal CPUID http://www.majorgeeks.com/CrystalCPUID_d5000.html
CPUZ http://www.majorgeeks.com/CPU-Z_d425.html

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