Gateway 400VTX. CPU SpeedStep blocked?!

I've had this laptop for 4 years now. With the appropriate upgrades of memory and hard-drive I've been quite happy with it. One annoying thing is that the CPU fan would start spinning and wouldn't stop for a long time. It started really bothering me recently either because the fan is older and noisier, or I am older and more irritable
So I was trying to run programs like SpeedSwitchXP and NHC, and neither ever showed a decrease of CPU frequency! Even when I was trying to force it by switching to Max Battery mode. But both programs are reporting the CPU to be Mobile Intel Celeron 2.2GHz, which is supposed to support SpeedStep. Now I am thinking that Gateway somehow blocked this function of the processor. Is it possible?
Supposedly this model was made with either Celeron or Pentium 4-M. Perhaps the more expensive Pentium 4-M model was allowed to work with SpeedStep properly? Do you think I could easily "upgrade" to Pentium 4-M of the same frequency? Notice that there is not a word about the possibility of processor upgrade in the service manual.
Thanks!

 

The celeron CPUs do not have the capability to use SpeedStep. Intel did not enable that feature in them, and there is no way to change that.

 

Greg is right, one of the things that makes Celerons cheaper is the lack of speedstep. It's at full whack all the time. I know how annoying that can be as my L100 has a Celeron-M.

Regarding an upgrade: I'd first off check the bottom of the laptop. The cpu should be located where the side and bottom vents meet. Is the plastic over the cpu removable? Some have a panel you can unscrew to get easy access to the cpu, others require taking the entire laptop apart. If yours is the easy-removable panel an upgrade should be relatively simple.

I'd run cpu-z (easy download, just google it) and find out exactly what cpu you have, then buy a P4 with the same core and fsb etc. Also you could check exactly which P4s were offered with the 400VTX and aim for one of them. A P4-M (mobile) would probably be advisable.

The higher clock speed you go for the more heat it'll kick out and P4 based chips are renowned for being on the warm side. Similar clock speed to your celeron should be safe.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks a lot guys! I guess I was just confused by the fact that SpeedSwitchXP and NHC while they obviously recognized the CPU type, never informed me that there is no SpeedStep enabled..
Concerning upgrade. I couldn't find anything useful on Gateway site. But from my google searched it appears that the laptops came with Pentium 4-M everywhere between 1.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz at least. NHC claims that the motherboard supports up to 3 GHz frequency (I don't know where that came from and how reliable it is). Is it safe to conclude that the motherboard will recognize the CPU frequency and adjust the parameters properly? To stay on the safe side I could stick with the same FSB of 400 MHz..
Actually I was thinking about downgrading in frequency to say 1.8 GHz, since the performance would probably be compensated by the larger cache and such. So I kind of want to be sure that the system will not overclock my new CPU because of not recognizing it
Thanks!

 

Do you need a 1.8Ghz p4m. I have one which I can sell to you.
Send me a PM if you are interested.

The p4m's ranged from 1.4Ghz to 2.6Ghz.
Your system will not overclock the new cpu, because it has a different frequency. The p4m will run cooler than the celeron because it has speedstep, which you can enable, which will throttle the processor down to 1.2Ghz.

K-TRON