I have a computer with an athlon 3500+ cpu but system info says its running at 1 Ghz. I loaded a new game the other day and during installation got the message that since my computer was only running at 1 GHz it was not recommended to load game so I aborted. Do I have to go into bios to set the speed of the cpu? I have been to manufacturers website and the cpu should run at 2200 MHz. I have a ms it8693 mobo. any advice appreciated.

Yeah, check in the BIOS im an ASUS fan myself and havent see the MSI BIOS but I bet you'll have an Advanced tab with CPU SPEED option or simular. Most motherboards detect the speed of a chip but in some cases you have to go into the BIOS and select it. For instance I can select, after jumping the overvolt pins on this board anywhere from manual - to 2300 WinXP PRO SP2 ASUS AN78X-X BIOS ASUS 1014 beta 2 PC3200 768 1.5t 3t 3t 6t AMD XP 2600+ @ 2.2 ATI AIW 9800 PRO

read the manual ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

If you see 1Ghz in system properties... Then try to do this... Assuming u using win xp... Right click on desktop -> properties -> screen saver -> power -> and change the power scheme to "Always On".. Now check back in ur system properties, it should be 2.2Ghz... If still 1Ghz, then you will need to change that in the BIOS... Known common problems for new Athlon 64/FX/X2 and Pentium 4 Prescott core is when the system is idling and you did not use "always on" as your power sheme, it will throttle down for AMD has "cool n quiet" technology which throttle down ur clock speed when idle and Pentium 4 throttle down to 2.8Ghz when idle... Common... So try back and reply if you have further questions.. TMP-Man Asus A7V classic rev 1.05 Athlon XP 2100+ @ 101x20 1.75v 768MB PC133 RAM @ 134Mhz 2-2-2 40GB 5400RPM + 120GB 7200RPM HD 128MB Geforce FX5200 128bit

Thanks everyone I will let you know how it goes.....special thanks to jam for his response, which could potentially solve every problem on this website (the world,even....legend)

That function on a Athlon64 is called "Cool and Quiet" and it clocks the cpu down to 1000MHz togther with a lowered VCore every time you don't need a real fast cpu. As soon as you need more power it goes back to the original speed and voltage! This function is menat to save power and to keep the cpu as cool as possible. I might be a ain with installing a few games that check the hardware but usually the game still installs and you only have to adjust the graphic settings which I do anyway. You can switch that of just like TMP-Man wrote and to switch it on again set that power scheme back to minimal power! Until now I never realised a decrease in performance with using Cool and Quiet!