desktop cpuspeed

[James Wilkinson]

Tim wrote:
> Generally, you can't make CPU go faster than it's supposed to without
> some hackery involved.  Look into "overclocking".  But beware that
> there's some risk involved (instability and wrecking it). 

And that the computer is somewhat less likely to give you the right
answer, particularly where complex calculations are concerned. (Note: if
this could be a problem, you should get a computer with ECC memory,
since non-ECC memory also very occasionally returns the wrong answer.)

> The CPU speed utility can be used to slow down a CPU (if it supports
> it), for things like power saving or noise abatement reasons (cooling
> fan noise).  But, normally, it runs full speed.
> 
> By default, a CPU runs at its normal speed, and its normal speed is its
> maximum.  When Intel sells you a 510 MHz CPU, they sell it as the speed
> that they think it will run fastest at and stabily.  If they thought
> it'd go faster, they'd have sold it as a faster MHz CPU and charged you
> more money for it.

Except that to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t sell a 510 MHz
Celeron: the closest were 500 MHz and 533 MHz. It looks like the
computer has already been somewhat overclocked (or possibly
underclocked).

This Celeron is almost certainly one of the Mendocino family (check the
model name line in /proc/cpuinfo), which is essentially a Pentium II
with a different cache system. Intel never sold any of these processors
at speeds above 533 MHz, despite considerable commercial pressure to do
so, so I’d doubt it can be made to go much further anyway.

Hope this helps,

James.

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