sysctl hw.cpufrequency - PROBLEM

[etyrnal at ameritech.net]

hello...

In the recent past (couple months) my 867MHz TiBook (machine specs. at 
end) has started feeling frustratingly sluggish...

as a quick aside - I always thought to myself "I would NEVER put it 
past a modern manufacturer to build in to their product a 'urge 
customer to buy a new model feature/bug" - especially if they thought 
they could hide it or get away with it...

Well...

In the article i heard some people discussing the "sysctl 
hw.cpufrequency" terminal command...

if you open your terminal and execute that command it reports your CPU 
speed...

well - my Eight Hundred Sixty Seven Mega Hertz TiBook was telling me 
that it is a 667MHz machine...

So i started searching around and found another article saying that if 
you reset the PMU it will return it to the advertised speed...

Sure enough...  i reset the PMU and the machine boots to "sysctl 
hw.cpufrequency" reporting 867MHz - and it boots NOTICEABLY faster - 
and runs noticeably faster...

I've heard some people CLAIM that this command does not report the 
correct speed...

This makes no sense...  I would estimate that if the command did, in 
fact, report incorrectly that it would doone of the following odd 
behaviours:

1.) ALWAYS report one wrong speed - regardless of any changes.
2.) Report a VERY wrong speed - eg: 0MHz or 439.7256497537 MHz or some 
other 'broken' sounding number.

But this is not the case for me...

I installed "GEEK TOOL" (pretty cool app) to monitor this "sysctl 
hw.cpufrequency"...

so at all times geek tool is displaying the results of this command 
floating above everything else being displayed at the lower right of my 
lcd screen...

If i do a Startup immediately after a PMU reset - it always shows 
867MHz...

If i do a NORMAL Restart and let it boot normally - it comes up as 
667MHz...

NOW - all of this is ESPECIALLY strange to me as it was my 
understanding that the 867MHz models do NOT do Processor Speed Changes 
at all...  it was my understanding that the main method of on-battery 
power-savings was achieved via disabling the L2 and or L3 cache 
memory...  and possibly by the user disabling unnecessary ports eg: 
modem, airport, enet, irda, etc...

So for a machine that is supposed (by me at least) to NOT change it's 
speed - i find it funny that mine changes...

...especially considering that this machine is ALWAYS on the Power 
Charger/Adapter - i use it as my desktop machine.

Also i forgot to mention that once the machine has switched itself to 
667MHz - it NEVER switches back automatically - i am FORCED to do a PMU 
reset to get it back...

Also it only takes about a day to a day and a half for the machine to 
Switch Itself from 867MHz to 667MHz in and of its OWN Accord...

I need a really good explanation on why i should NOT call up Apple and 
SCREAM at them...

My frustrations over how SLOW this machine has bees running recently 
have affected my peace of mind greatly.

What am i overlooking...

What causes this?

IS there a way to find out if there is any App that may be issuing a 
command to force my machine to do this?

Am i wrong about the 867MHz TiBook not supposed to be a cpu-speed 
switcher?

And if even so - if this machine is ALWAYS on the Adapter ( and i mean 
ALWAYS ) then why would it switch??

I have my energy setting set to Maximum performance...

HELP.


- Luke


867MHz TiBook (once in a while), 512MB Ram, 40GB HD, Older 15.2" LCD, 
OS X.2.8 (and holding - X.3 slowed the kids 17" iMac to a crawl), also 
bootable to OS 9.2.2...



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