Core speed increase after BIOS update

Question

Hi everybody! My notebook is a Compaq Presario V5025EA with Mobile AMD Sempron 3300+ (Albany) and 2x256 DIMM banks. Since I recently updated the BIOS from version F.41 to version F.54, I'm having some troubles. The core-temperature is now about 88°C, the fan became very noisy and often the notebook shuts down automatically (I think cause the too high temperature). Trying to understand the cause of that, I noticed these differences in the CPUID report, before and after the BIOS update: - With BIOS F.41
Core Speed: 796.0 MHz
Multiplier x FSB: 4.0 x 199.0 MHz
Stock frequency: 2000 MHz - With BIOS F.54
Core Speed: 1989.9 MHz
Multiplier x FSB: 10.0 x 199.0 MHz
Stock frequency: 2000 MHz 
Is this core speed change normal? Is it the cause of the high temperature? What can I do to mantain it in accettable ranges? I tried to downgrade till to BIOS F.41 A (the F.41 isn't available on this site), but nothing changed. In the BIOS there aren't unfortunately any options  to customize the CPU speed.
 Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Answer 1

Your laptop uses the original AMD64 system which was the first to have an integrated memory controller called the hypertransport bus. Strictly speaking there is not a front side bus as such. Nothing has changed in your system, the new BIOS is reporting the situation more accurately. On AMD laptops there are always heat issues. The new BIOS may have changed the way the fan works or it may just be time to go in there and clean out around the heatsink and fan and apply new thermal compound. I see a lot of laptops and older AMD models always run hot. Even new ones run hotter than their Intel cohorts. You do not see as many older AMD laptops; they generally die before they get old (to paraphrase The Who). You need to keep the fan vents elevated and perhaps consider a notebook cooler and also do the clean-out and new thermal compound thing as suggested above. Also be sure AMD Cool 'n Quiet is installed and enabled. Open the system applet (I assume you use Windows XP) and see the noted clock speed. You should be showing about an 800 mhz clock speed most of the time rather than the full 2000 mhz. This will tell you the processor is properly downclocking when it is not under load. Also check the properties of the processor driver in the Device Manager. It should show up as amdk7.sys and not just processor.sys. This will tell you the proper processor driver is installed.