Varying processor speed

Dooom

I bought a pc from jes a while back, the "pc from hell" one. Now it's got that Cool 'N' Quiet thing, which seemed good enough. The processor's an AMD 64 3200+ so it should be running at 2.2ghz. I've only recently gotten around to running a few benchmarks on it using 3dMark. But twice now I've gotten a message saying something along the lines that there was varying cpu performance. Even running a DirectX Diagnostic, it will come up as running at 2.0ghz, and a few minutes later it might show up as running at 1.8ghz, 1.0ghz or even 989mhz!
So this is starting to p*ss me off a bit, I want this to be running at its optimum performance. I've looked through the Bios and a few other places but can't find anything relating to Cool 'N' Quiet. Can someone give me a bit of advice on this?
Thanks.

PS: I also never have many programs running in the background. Only the 20 or so that're in the task manager, and usually winamp - which I know playing mp3's can eat processor time, but surely not that much!

Optikus

what are the temps like...this could be something to do with thermal throttling when the cpu overheats..the motherboard slow it down to reduce heat.

Dooom

I'm not sure..I don't have a temp monitoring program installed. At least to my knowledge anyway. Is there one in windows?

Optikus

Try this one .. you might want to also get a stress test program so you can monitor temps while that is running, try prime 95.

Dooom

Right I've got CPU-Z running and I've noticed a few things:
For one, the multiplier keeps switching around, thus altering the clock speed. That's the problem I have anyway..but in the BIOS I can't see any way to alter the multiplier or the bus speed.
And another, my RAM's only running at 166mhz. Considering its DDR3200, shouldn't it be a bit higher than that?

Here's a report on it.

Optikus

The FSB is probably being changed aswelll and because of the ram divider it would affect the memory speed... disable thermal throttling and set ur PC to shut down at 70c and run the stress test if it is your temps your pc will just shut down instead of trying to slow down.

Dooom

Right, how do I disable the thermal throttling? Motherboard's an Abit K8T800 if it's any help

Optikus

Not sure exactly where it is but just look in the BIOS.

BKtje

The processor's an AMD 64 3200+

They run at 2ghz (clawhammer) and 2.2ghz (newcastle).

Erm this sounds like cool and quiet to me. Thats what CnQ does. Lowers multiplier/fsb when cpu is not in heavy use.
Try disabling it and see if problem remains, also try installing the amd 64 CnQ driver for windows (if u havent already).

Of course it could be therman throttling but it sounds more like CnQ at play.

Optikus

Heres Motherboard Monitor for monitoring the temps.

Dooom

Mine's a newcastle B-K, and actually, just looking at Prime95 run (had CPU-Z running aswell) the processor went up to 2.2ghz...and stayed there. Then when I stopped the test, back down to 1ghz. So yeah I think it is CnQ..I'll have a look for the driver and see if I have it installed. Next time I'm going back to building my own pc..mutter curses mutter.
Thanks for the help lads

Optikus

Well i never heard of Cool and Quite, but after a quick google and from what you just said about it staying at 2.2 on the bench marking, it seems this is whats going on. you can get more info and the latesst version here .

astrofool

cool n quiet is one of the options in the bios, 3rd or 4th section down if I remember correctly. Have a few of the same board myself.

It doesn't have a "driver" as such