Hi,
I have a DEll L400 Laptop (WinXP Pro)which has intel speedstep
technology. I recent;y bought it used. It was touted as P-III
700MHZ. Initially I saw 497MHZ being reported by Windows System
Properties. Only a few times I saw 696 MHZ. Then I don't know
what happened I see it always fixed at 497 MHZ even if I enable "
Always On" in Power management. I have also tried taking out the battery and running on AC. Still it shows 497MHZ. The only thing I did was upgraded
the bios, but I am not sure if this happened after bios upgrade
or before. I cannot get into the bios as it is password protected.
Is there anyway I can see for myself that the maximum speed is
indeed 700MHZ through any setting/configuration? Thanks in
advance.

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php

Download CPU-z and run that, it will tell you exactly what you have.

Completely useless? I can always be used as a bad example

Thanks for the link. I did try cpuz. It still gives me the CURRENT cpu speed (500MHZ). I
am trying to see the MAXIMUM possible cpu speed
which is supposed to be 700MHZ. I have seen
696MHZ before a couple of times. The question is how do I ever make my processor to run at the maximum rated speed? Otherwise I can tell people my processor is a Pentium III 800/900MHZ
... How does one verify its 700MHZ P-III? I hope I am making sense.

Or try the Intel CPU ID Utility

http://support.intel.com/support/processors/tools/frequencyid/sb/CS-007623.htm

You could simply disable all power saving options, or even better, disable speedstep in the BIOS.

Completely useless? I can always be used as a bad example.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Thanks again for the new tool. Well, this time
the Intel tool fidenu32 did report 500MHZ as the "expected" frequency which is explained as the highets speed attainable by the processor.
I will resign to my CPU being a 500MHZ P-III. But I swear I have seen 696 MHZ being reported by Windows Property box a couple of times and it was sold to me as a 700MHZ Pentium III Laptop. Besides I would expect a Mobile Pentium processor to fluctuate in speed instaed of staying fixed at 500MHZ regardless of what I do (running it only on AC, turning "always on" option in power management, running various applications etc). So I will always have a nagging question about the CPU speed.

BTW as I said I cannot access the bios as it is password enabled and I don't have the password as the laptop is second hand.

Thanks

Sorry, you might want to download a service manual for the laptop and see if you can reset the BIOS. Additionally, speed step can be controlled via Windows, just disable all power management features.

Completely useless? I can always be used as a bad example.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary, and those that don't.