Odd Bus Speed Change on Dell Latitude C400

[etgeek]

I've had this Dell Latitude C400 for quite a while now, but recently I've noticed that the bus speed (which is usually 133 MHz) changes by itself to 33 MHz and doesn't change back unless you do a couple of reboots. I know that it's not the SpeedStep thing because that should make it run at 800 MHZ processing speed. It's labeled as a 1.2 GHZ CPU and currently it's running at around 193 MHZ according to CPU-Z. Dell says that it's my hard drive... don't know how that could affect the bus speed, but I guess it's because it's Dell. :haha: What could be the issue and how can I fix it other than replacing parts?

Here's the specs that it has:

Dell Latitude C400 - Service Tag DP4Q821
Pentium III-M @ 1.2 GHz
256 PC 133 SDRAM
Western Digital 60 GB PATA HDD
Windows XP Pro

 

[raybay]

We had the same problem, and it did go away when we replaced the hard drive.

 

[etgeek]

I can't see how it's the hard drive though. I bought it in July of 2006 so it's not old at all really. I know it isn't a compatibility issue because it's been in this for a few months. It used to be in an IBM laptop which worked well but shuts off whenever it wants to (but that's for another thread). I'll try a different one (IBM 20 GB, probably close to the original) after I get out of class.