cpu speed
 

how can i find the cpu speed at a given point of time?

i have a dell Latitude D500 running win Xp and Fedora Core1 ... i have observed in win xp tht my cpu speed never goes above 575 MHz ... i have a intel centrino 1.3 GHz processor. even when cpu utilization is 100% it never goes above 575MHz.
how can i check if my processor is running perfectly? wht program can i run to see if the CPU speed is varying with load ?

thanks

try
less /proc/cpuinfo
this should tell you

wolfe

That's definitely not the right speed for your CPU. Have you checked what your BIOS says is the speed? What is the bootup speed listed as (on the first screen when you boot the machine?). If that is the BIOS speed of your CPU, there's a problem with a setting. Either the bus setting is wrong, or the multiplier is. Your CPU should be pretty solid. The variation shouldn't be much more than 5-10 mhz off the rated specs (unless you purposefully overclock it :D). You're likely gonna discover a "new" machine if you've been running at 1/2 speed!

cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep MHz
for just the MHz speed

you might also want to check out gkrellm (for CPU load monitoring) and kpm for more detailed (by process) load monitoring (CPU and RAM)

i tried running cpu intensive jobs like the Ackerman function
i can see the cpu utilization in the system monitor = 100% and the cou resource by this process to be around 98% but the CPU Speed in /proc/cpuinfo is still 599.494 MHZ :(:(:(:(

is it tht my processor has a problem
it is actually supposed to be an Intel Pentium M Processor 1300 MHz

any help will be greatly appreciated

thanks

Just because your CPU is a 1300mhz processor doesn't always mean its going to run at that, even when running applications.

Its like a car, you might get that 300 horsepower at 7000rpms but your not always getting 300 horsepower when your cruising at 90mph and 3000rpms. Same could go for a amplifier for a subwoofer in your car. It may say 400watts but hell, if it always ran at 400watts, it would probably die or blow up in a matter of time..

Think of it as a good think that your CPU isn't always running at 1300mhz, it would probably melt after a few days.. ;)

I agree to wht u say but from day 1 i have never ever seen my machine running at 1300MHz even if CPU utilization is 100% ... my machine is abt 5 months old and is a dual boot .. win xp and FC1 ... even in windows i never get the full power ever.... till date i have never seen my cpu going above 600MHz .... is it normal for a mobile processor tht even if CPU is being utilized 100% the speed enhancement doent kick off ...

if the cpu utilization is 100 sometime i cant even move the mouse pointer .. as in it gets no responsive .... the characters i type get displayed on the screen after a delay ...

is it so,ething to worry abt ?? should i send the laptop to dell for getting it checked ??

thanks

I agree that the cpu may not run at full speed all the time but the command: cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep MHz should give you an accurate reading of the cpu rating. I just tried it at another box and the output was 1300 MHz.

I think vectordrake is right that you should check what the bios sees the cpu as. It is possible that the cpu / mother board is bad or miss configured.

the bios says something like this

Pentium M 1.30 GHz/600MHz
Current CPU speed 1.3GHz
Level 2 Cache 1024MB
system memory 512 MB@266MHz

Well the bios seems to have the right idea. On every box I've tried, the command gives the same output as the bios. Maybe you could boot up with the knoppix cd and try the command from there.

cool ... thts a nice idea ... never thought of that ... will try it once i reach home ... have the knoppix CD at home.
just a queestion though
when i looked into the bios ... wht does 1.3GHz/600MHz signify ??

thanks

I don't for sure but I'm guessing the 1.3 is as you said the cpu rating and 600 is the system bus speed.

Your monitor software is off or displaying the wrong info to you, then. Your system is running at the right speed. And, yes, the processor should always run at nearly the same speed all the time. It may fluctuate up and down by maybe 1%, but generally always the same speed, regardless of the task. When you load it up, it'll only handle so much, until it can't do any more. Then, it locks up. The cpu will still be running at the same speed even if its maxed out. All that means is that computations will be waiting in line to be done.

i tried it with Knoppix ... it shows the speed to be 1298.1 MHz which is right

though i tried with win xp .. it still shows me 597MHz

are there and tools i can use to see the performance of my cpu w.r.t some standards as in are there any benchmarking tools available

thanks

http://lbs.sourceforge.net/

A few tools listed here. Pick the one(s) that works for you. I've never bothered with benchmarking under linux (stopped OC'ng as well) but I've heard that Bonnie is a good tool.