I have a new HP Pavilion with an AMD Mobil x2500 processor.
I am having a strange problem since the day it was bought.
It runs slow on initail startup then kicks into full speed after awhile.
If on boot I go to Control Panel>System and on the General page at the bottom it says its runnig at 512 mhz. Obviously not right.Sometimes if I restart CP it will then say 1800mhz, the speed XP Home decides it really is.
I have downloaded all the XP updates.
What might it be?

So what's the problem?

WindowsXP is notorious for its useless estimates of processor speed - it sometimes tells me that I'm running at 0.74MHz. Sure. So you can't usually trust that - BUT in this case, it is about right. Your CPU is switching speed to suit the load (i.e. to increase battery life by lowering consumption): So if you are typing in MS Word with nothing else happening in the background, your AXP-m is going to run at 533MHz (and a voltage of only 1.05V), but if you suddenly start converting a DVD to DivX or something, it's going to switch to its full speed (1.8?GHz - and about 1.3-1.4V) - which will obviously use more power. And it can switch almost anywhere in between: 533MHz, to 1000MHz, 1266MHz - basically whatever it needs to get the task completed using the least amount of energy. It is not unusual for your notebook to only run at 500MHz, in fact it is better in terms of heat, longevity and thriftiness.

However, if you wish to control the speed yourself, download SpeedSwitchXP from <A HREF="http://www.diefer.de" target="_new">here</A>.

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Great.
That seems logical.
I have a Dell that doesnt do that so I assumed it was the HP that was runnig weird.

Well, the Dell probably does too, but since it is an Intel processor, it works in a slightly different way. And depending on many factors that may differ between the two, you might not notice it.

Regards,

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?