Hi,
Maybe it is having a cooling problem, i.e. the fan is on the way out, they will slow down if they start to overheat.
Also is the power management disabled in the BIOS.
Also is the CPU overclocked.

>Hi,
>
>>>
>It is a laptop, the CPU's can run at variuos rates, depending on power saving etc.
>>>
>
>So you're say the first figure is the CPU 'design' speed and the second reflects the speed that the CPU is currently runnning at?
>
>Although the form on the URL pertains to a laptop I only used it as an example. The machine I'm really concerned with is a desktop PC (with power management disabled). The relevant section reads:
>

>Intel(R)
>Pentium(r) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
>2.10GHz
>

>so the implication is that this is a 2.8GHz processor running at 2.10Ghz. Any suggestions as to why (or how to find out why) it's running at this reduced speed ?
>
>Regards,
>Viv