CPU frequency drop

mikey19

New Member
Hi. I noticed a significant CPU freq. drop from 3492 MHz to 798 MHz (it was the minimum freq. reading). It happened after I came back to Win7 from a game and I checked the sensor info. Is this normal or is there something wrong with my CPU? (Intel i3-4150, 3.5 GHz). Thanks very much.
 

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That's absolutely normal. Power management (depending on your Power Plan setting) reduces the clock dynamically depending on load. If the CPU/GPU (or other component) is idle, it does this to save power. This can even happen several times per second.
 
Martin said:
That's absolutely normal. Power management (depending on your Power Plan setting) reduces the clock dynamically depending on load. If the CPU/GPU (or other component) is idle, it does this to save power. This can even happen several times per second.

Thank you for a fast and reassuring response. Actually, I had checked the Power Plan Settings and it's set to "High Performance", which is supposed to maintain a constant CPU frequency, not letting it drop even when the machine is idle (SpeedStep is turned off). Moreover, it happened while I was in an FPS game, that's where the confusion is coming from. Hopefully everything is okay, I just wanted to make sure.
 
Hmm, then it's interesting, but I don't think this can mean a problem... Maybe check other BIOS settings like C-States.
 
Martin said:
Hmm, then it's interesting, but I don't think this can mean a problem... Maybe check other BIOS settings like C-States.

Hi Martin,
I looked into this matter further and now this phenomenon seems to be normal indeed. The CPU scales itself between 800 and 3500 MHz (EIST / Speedstep technology) in order to reduce heat and power consumption. Disabling these features is not always easy and not even recommended. Thanks again.
 
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