Slow Dell laptop - (Solved)

[Diggs]

I was getting a twin pair of old Dell Latitudes ready for "Pandora" duty. After the Win10 installs were done one was fast and quick running at 2.8 mhz on the processor and all was good. The other was slow and sluggish with the processor stuck at .59 mhz. I'm thinking it must be Intel MB drivers or at worst BIOS issues, but why one and not the other? They are identical with the same Win10 install. I threw drivers at it and changed the power settings and the Advanced Power settings in Control Panel but no change. I finally changed out the 65 watt power adapter I was using for a 90 watt and away it went. Spiked right up to maximum CPU clock speed and was just like the other one.

Until now I had no idea a lessor wattage PS will severely clock throttle a laptop. Never heard of such.......

 

[Porthos]

Until now I had no idea a lessor wattage PS will severely clock throttle a laptop. Never heard of such.......

Yup, If it lower it will but if it more, for example, the 130 watt on one that requires 95 watts it works fine as well. Always run the service tag to see what it shipped with. Especially when getting refurbs. Also Genuine Dell chargers are required most of the time for proper charging.

 

[Diggs]

Genuine Dell chargers are required most of the time for proper charging.

Yep - Which is why I keep separate Dell chargers around besides my universal chargers to avoid the BIOS warnings. It gave me a warning on boot that the battery would charge slowly which is what I would expect, but nothing about the CPU clock throttling.

 

[Porthos]

It gave me a warning on boot that the battery would charge slowly which is what I would expect, but nothing about the CPU clock throttling.

Goes hand in hand on Dells.