Turion (PowerNow!) won't auto step

[Carskick]

I have just started looking into why my laptop on battery power has trouble with intensive software, and it is because PowerNow! keeps the CPU at 800Mhz despite usage.

I can go to the BIOS and disable PowerNow!, but then it is always at 2Ghz, and runs my battery down. I have downloaded the latest CPU driver from AMD, no cigar. Any ideas how I can get it to auto step like it should?

[Chandler]

Check to see what Power Management profile is selected in the Power control panel.  Despite how it appears, the profiles do more than just change display and hard drive time-outs.  They actually control CPU sleep/speed modes.

On my desktop Athlon 64 system, selecting "Minimal Power Management" gives good performance when speed is needed needed (2GHz) and good power saving at other times (1GHz).  I'm not sure what is needed on a laptop to produce the desired effect, but I suspect most of the profiles will bias towards power saving when running on battery power.

Windows Vista gives you a lot more control over what each power scheme does, but under XP there is a 3rd party utility for creating profiles who's name escapes me at the moment.

[Carskick]

I tried changing that, even to Always On and Full Performance, but it was always at 800Mhz on Battery. I setup RMclock, and it allows me to manually set up stepping, but I had to turn of PowerNow. I guess it will work fine, just kind of weird powernow! didn't work like normal.