Is this laptop defective?

First off, the specs:

This is an Evesham Quest Roma T37, based of MSI's MS-1029 chassis (or Megabook M635)
Ati Xpress 200 chipset
Turion 64 MT-37 (approximately equivalent to a 3700+ Athlon 64)
1024MB DDR333 RAM
128MB Mobility Radeon X700
Windows XP Home Edition
All latest graphics/chipset/CPU drivers

Now, my processor should be theoretically running at it's peak clock rate the whole time when under load, which is 2Ghz. When idle, the processor clocks down to 800Mhz to dissipate heat and save power.

The problem I am experiencing is when under load for extended periods of time, while playing games for example, occasionally the CPU will clock down even when under load for about 5 seconds, then speeds back up. During these 5 seconds the gameplay becomes very laggy due to the much reduced clock rate and is downright unplayable as this happens about twice a minute.

The only way to stop this is to completely uninstall the Powernow drivers and also disable Powernow in the BIOS. However under these conditions after a while playing games the laptop turns itself off, which leads me to believe it is a heat issue. This would explain the clocking down under load to avoid overheating. Research on the internet has also lead me to believe this is true.

Now as this thing is only a few months old and is still under warranty do you think I should return it? Definitely seems like the cooling isn't enough!

Opinions, please.

 

You are right, it does sound like a cooling issue. If you talk to your reseller they might be able to help you with a different cooling solution. Perhaps some Arctic Silver 5 and/or a better heatsink would make a big difference. I would suggest contacting your reseller and seeing if they can help with your cooling problems.

You are correct, however, I would look no further as it definately sounds like a heat problem.

 

i agree with ttupa's opinion. it may indeed be just a matter of changing the thermal paste or pad. once upon a time when i had a compaq athlon notebook, i had the same problem. it was a big headache when suddenly the machine would just freeze. when the thermal paste and pad were replaced the problem simply flew away just like that. so i suggest you look into this angle in finding for possible cause of problem and the proper action to take.

 

In absence of the Arctic silver 5 solution, you can also try using a utility called RMClock to permanently downvolt your CPU, eg I have an MT40 on 2.2G 1.35v, but it's running on 1.8G only on an incredibly low 1.05v. Well it can also run on 2.2G on 1.2v Prime95 stable.

 

Mmm I would try that but I'm concerned that that (or opening the case) will void the warranty.