Acer Aspire E5-521 AMD 1.8GHz Turbo 2.4GHz Appears to Slow When it Should Speed Up

gbt20317
gbt20317 Member Posts: 3 New User
in 2016 Archives

I've upgraded the Laptop to Windows 10 Home.  I've noticed that the CPU speed drops to .99GHz-1.7GHz whenever applications are running.  However, when sitting idle, it will throttle up to almost 2.4GHz (what?).  I noticed this when editing a video clip.  I know this unit is not a video editing unit but it can do light editing of small video clips.  CPU dropped to as low as .99GHz during the render and never got any higher than 1.6-7GHz. Then I noticed it does this on any tasks I run, using Windows Media Player, surfing the web, installing software, copying files, etc.  What gives?  CPU cycles up when I stop doing anything and just watch the CPU performance.  It's an AMD6 Quad, not a high speed CPU but with the turbo feature, it should do better cause when I do my editing, it's hard to swallow that pill that it does not throttle up but throttles down and it doesn't matter if it's plugged-in or AC power.  Temps stay somewhere between 41c-53c.

Best Answer

  • gbt20317
    gbt20317 Member Posts: 3 New User
    Answer ✓

    I took your advice and contacted Acer Support.  I was told the issue was in my Power Settings.  I needed to choose the Advanced option under the Edit Plan Settings window and on the drop-down list choose High Performance.  Rep said this should resolve the issue.  So I'm trying that. So unless this doesn't work for some reason, I guess this is a closed issue.

Answers

  • benton582
    benton582 Member Posts: 213 Enthusiast WiFi Icon

    Hello, and to adress your concern over the CPU speeds, it often flucates on the background applications because of a antivirus/system/software included with the computer, which most is required, and will consume CPU speed when idle, when resources aren't a problem to run scans or some other background utility. Your light editing probably does not require much speed to run, therefore, it uses less, and spikes when resources are needed. This should be the case.

     

    If you have further concerns, try asking Acer support, or sit around for a more experenced techntion. Thank you for your time. And hope we can help with your problem.

  • gbt20317
    gbt20317 Member Posts: 3 New User

    Thank you for the response.  Prior to updating to Windows 10 I removed Acer's Mcafee Antivirus.  So the only thing on the system now is MS Defender (UGGH!).  I do agree with you that there are background activities going on cause there is a lot of software that was pre-installed and I did not remove it all prior to the Windows 10 upgrade. Still I find it unsettling that when running a program in the foreground, the CPU speed drops.  I've never seen that as a consistant behavior.  But again, this is also my 1st system with an APU so that too could be a factor in how the CPU functions.  Overall, I'm very pleased with this laptop.

  • benton582
    benton582 Member Posts: 213 Enthusiast WiFi Icon

    Intel and APUs are very diffrent in function, and AMD consumes more power than usual Intel CPUs do. Meaning it's less efficient and tends to use more power for specfic tasks than Intel does. And glad to know you are pleased with your laptop! Don't worry about the CPU pings, it's often bounces randomly for most laptops anyways.

  • gbt20317
    gbt20317 Member Posts: 3 New User
    Answer ✓

    I took your advice and contacted Acer Support.  I was told the issue was in my Power Settings.  I needed to choose the Advanced option under the Edit Plan Settings window and on the drop-down list choose High Performance.  Rep said this should resolve the issue.  So I'm trying that. So unless this doesn't work for some reason, I guess this is a closed issue.

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