How to step up my CPU's frequency?

Question

I installed xubuntu 12.10 in a Fujitsu Siemens laptop with Intel Pentium M processor 1.86Ghz. I noticed that the processor's frequency that the "System information" mentions is only 800Mhz (step down frequency). How can I step up the frequency up to the processor's maximum (1.86GHz)?

Answer 1

The default mode for CPU frequency in Ubuntu is Ondemand, with demand the speed goes up, however you can control that either with cpu-freq indicator or Jupiter power applet.

Answer 2

Thank you all for your attention and will to help. It turns out that all I needed to do is to install "cpufrequtils" from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Answer 3

You can see the available CPU frequencies using the following command:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

and you can see the current CPU frequency using:

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

So here is an idea, run the following command in one terminal to observe the current CPU frequencies:

watch -n 1 cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

..and then run some CPU demanding applications and you should see the CPU frequencies ramp up and down as the load changes.