Intel i5 running slower than it should be.

Hi, I have an Intel i5-3350P CPU with an advertised clock speed of 3.1GHz. When I checked it with CPUz not long after installing it a while back when pushed it reached it's advertised 3.1GHz and often went well above that (I assume that was the fancy overclocking tech Intel put in their CPUs these days), however I checked it again last night, and am looking at it this very moment, and the clock speed refuses to go above 2.6GHz.

I am running it in high power mode, checked that windows power settings aren't limiting it's max output below 100%, and have even chucked every power hungry game I can at it just to be sure, and it refuses to go above 2.6GHz. It doesn't appear to be a heat issue since the system temperature doesn't seem any higher than usual, but most curious of all when I entered the bios to see if anything was wrong there it said "Intel etc ... 3.10 GHz" but the clock speed is registered as 2600 MHz.

I'm afraid my knowledge of all things PC hardware don't go any further than building one, so I have no idea what is going on (things like multipliers and volts and all that technical stuff are totally beyond me). It may also be worth noting that in past drunken shenanigans there's a good chance I've gone into the bios for the fun of it and accidentally adjusted a setting I don't understand. If you need any further details let me know and I'll drag them up.

Thanks.

Are you sure it's running at 2.6 max? There's a chance that it slows down as you alt-tab. You should run a torture test and use CPU-Z to check the clock. It will make it run at full speed (without turbo). If it still won't run faster than 2.6 then you should go to bios and set everything in the CPU section to default.

Here's what you need:

IBT

CPU-Z

HWMonitor

It might not go higher because of heat?

Pretty sure it's max is 2.6, I've been running games in windowed mode as well so I can monitor CPU-Z just to be sure. Just run the test you suggested and still the same, I've also restored bios settings to default, but the CPU still refuses to go past 2.6.

As for heat, I don't recall what the system used to put out, but the system doesn't seem any warmer than it used to and there is a good air flow into and out of the case, as well as in the case itself, so I doubt it's temperature.

So checked Intel's own posted info on it. Stock speed should be 3.1 and turbo should be 3.3.

Good airflow is good, but dust can still be a problem.

I transferred the whole rig to a new case a couple of weeks ago and took the opportunity to remove all the dust I could find, but I'll give it another look once I find the time just incase I missed some. I has just occured to me that it's still using the thermal compound that was pre-applied to the heat sink, perhaps that's worn out? I don't know how long Intel's pre-applied stuff tends to last.

Why can't technology ever just work? :(

The i5-3350p runs at 3.1 ghz and boost to 3.3 ghz (allthough it could be this is only on one core). These cpu's will downclock when there's no need for more cpu power.

You can go back to default setting in the bios to restore your mistakes. You may have disabled the boost options, or lowered the clock speed.

There's software in windows too that can change your clock settings, mostly this is the software released with your motherboard. There too you can use default settings.

As has already be discussed earlier in the thread I've already reset the bios settings to factory default, no difference, and I've also checked the windows power management. I don't think my motherboard came with any over clocking software.

Is your ram 1600 mhz?

Then you should set your ram to xmp mode in bios

@evildead6789: It was already set to XMP before I reset to default (after researching what to do with that kind of ram). What does that have to do with the cpu speed?

well normally the cpu speed is determined by the multiplier and the bus speed. The bus speed is normally the ram speed as well. I don't know if this is still the case with sandy and ivy bridge's though.

Wait I'll restart my pc, go into bios and check.

Everything is all set to auto with me and when i put it to manual i can't even change the baseclock

If you put everything to auto it should work normally. What you can also try is disabling the internal graphics card. I know the p version don't have support for this (ivy and sandy have a gpu on chip)

What is the type and model of your motherboard?

Also what is your ram speed?

if you have a h77 motherboard,

go into the bios menu and raise the cpu cap,

it can only go to 3.36ghz and that is it.

it is a good cpu,

but it is easily outclassed by the k series, so if you can invest in that if it bothers you that much.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1716859/overclock-3350p.html

@killatwill15: There is no option in the bios to bring up the cap as far as I can find. I am also not interested in overclocking it, I want it to get up to it's advertised clock speeds like it was before.