PCMCIA speed increases with CPU load only

[Elusive Peanut]

Hey! This is my first post here; I thank you TREMENDOUSLY for taking your time to read this.

I have an HP Pavilion ze4805us laptop.
Upgrades: XP Home to XP Pro and added 512mb crucial ram.
Only usb 1.1 ports.
Added firewire via pcmcia (belkin) for Ipod, MiniDV, and DVD burner.


Basically, the PCMCIA is slow and I finally realized why. Using nero speed test my burner only will go 1x. I checked software issues, media issues, ect.. It turns out that the Athlon XP-M manages the power in a way that the PCMCIA slot does not get full speed unless the CPU usage is at 100%. I have tested this by using Photoshop and using a clone tool feature to max the cpu usage while watch the burner speed rating increase and decrease with the proportionally with the cpu usage.


My question is this: Is there a fix to this power management problem? It's not in power management settings. Or should I just be ghetto and find a way to max the cpu usage when I burn.

Is there a program that will max the cpu usage without me having to hold the mouse click down in photoshop. Compressing a large file only gave me like 14% cpu usage. I've tried SpeedswitchXP and some other power managment program but it doesn't effect the CPU load and therefore doesn't increase the PCMCIA slot speed with Firewire.

Thank you so much for any response!!!!!!

Bryan
University of Tennessee
Knoxville

 

[Syn7ax 3rror]

Hmmmm. Run photoshop, Doom3, AIM, MSN, cloner, and 5 wesites up at the same time. That should do it?

 

[Elusive Peanut]

Thanks for the post. Let me evaluate its effectiveness.

Comedy Level: 0
Educative Level: 0
Helpfulness: 0

 

[Syn7ax 3rror]

Sorry. What I owuld recomend is over clocking your computer while burning the cd.

 

[ACES WILD]

dont listen to him, BTW overclocking a laptop is not a very smart thing to DO! overheats like crazy! if you can even get to the bios.
So i didnt really read this clear, so your using a portable Cd burner? thats connected through a PCmcia bus? if it is, try getting a new USB 2.0 card, also i think there is a thing in nero that lets you change your write speed, it's like in tools or something, also there should be in nero a priority for burning box in nero, if you set it to high it will use 100% cpu, at least in the ver of nero that i used to use (I use alcohol120% now)
also, did you try a different burning program to make sure it isnt just nero?

 

[Elusive Peanut]

Thanks ACES WILD, I didn't try that in nero. I will go look for that. I use a external dvd burner. It's not just with the burner though, it's also when transferring files over to my ipod and when converting my minidv tapes to the hard drive, i have to use the pcmcia adapter with firewire. If the nero does fix the cpu load then it wont help me out else where, so it's more of a bandaid than a fix. Thanks though. This really sucks!

 

[ACES WILD]

maybe you want to get a new PCMCIA card for your laptop, that could be the problem, only this time get one with USB 2.0 and firewire, like this one...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-104-234&depa=0
this should work I think, (also this way you wont have to convert firewire to USB)

 

[Elusive Peanut]

Reply From AMD Tech Support:

If the system is using AMD's PowerNow! utility, it may cause the
fluctuation in performance. PowerNow! is a utility that changes the
power states of the CPU to allow the battery to last longer. Under low
loads, the CPU should be changed to a low power state. Once, the system
is put into higher usage the power state should change accordingly. To
allow the system to operate at full potential, you may need to disable
PowerNow!. If the utility is installed and being used, it can be
disabled by changing the "Power Schemes" to "Always On" in the "Power
Management" panel. The utility is the only factor AMD knows of that may
be causing the loss of performance. If the solution does not help, it
may be caused by some other type of utility installed in the system.
AMD recommends contacting HP for further troubleshooting.

A utility that will make the CPU run at a 100% usage is CPU Burn In,
which can be found by using Google. It is not recommended that you run
your CPU at 100% usage to allow other devices to have higher transfer
rates. Putting the CPU to a 100% usage will put a heavy load onto the
CPU, which will cause other programs to run slower even if transfer
rates are higher.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please feel free to
contact me.

Regards,
Joe
Customer Support Analyst
AMD TSC