I was randomly surfing the day away when I came across the ThrottleGate issue today that affects quite a few Dell laptop computers including the Latitude E6500/E6400 series. The problem is that some Dell laptops have been throttling both the CPU multiplier and also using Clock Modulation which is a feature built into all Intel CPUs which can drastically cut performance to keep the core temperatures down.
Great in theory but some Dell engineers got carried away and these features are kicking in way too soon and turning some expensive laptops into slow slugs.
If you haven't heard about this issue you can go here to read some more.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...d_dell_laptops
This issue has been around for a year now. Randall Cotton did a thorough investigation and published a 59 page pdf explaining the problem in great detail back in July and how to reproduce it.
It took a mountain of negative press before Dell finally got around to releasing some new bios versions recently to try and take care of this problem but I don't know if any of these fixes are 100% effective.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/...7/MaxCore2.zip
I decided to throw together a quick app this afternoon which will hopefully give users with this issue some more control over this problem. It is called MaxCore2 and can be used on any Intel Core 2 CPU, mobile or desktop.
It is an extremely light weight app and won't take up too many system resources when it is running and can also be minimized to your System Tray. It will constantly monitor the Clock Modulation feature of your CPU and make sure that this is turned off. Dell seems to think that it's a good idea to modulate people's CPUs without bothering to notify them that something is going on but I disagree.
The other thing this utility can do is monitor and make sure your Core 2 multiplier stays at its maximum. The Dell bios is designed to lower the multiplier when it decides that your laptop is too hot. This utility should immediately over ride that request.
I'd use the Disable Clock Modulation feature all of the time if you have one of these laptops with this issue. When gaming I would also enable the Maximize Multiplier feature. When surfing the web or on battery power you might want to leave Maximize Multiplier turned off since it will use more power and drain your battery quicker.
If this utility is of any use to you then post some results.
Use of MaxCore2 is strictly at your own risk. It may cause your CPU to run significantly hotter so use RealTemp or a similar program to keep an eye on your core temperatures.
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