Problem with speedstepping on 2.6.18, 1.8Ghz dell d400 with only run 600MHz

[Morten Bisgaard <bisgaard@control.aau.dk>]

Hi

I have the problem that I can only get my Dell D400 1.8GHz computer to run
600Mhz. It boots at 600Mhz by default (found by cat /proc/cpuinfo) and I thought
that speedstepping would get it running at full speed. But even after modprobe
speedstep-centrino and running cpufreqd it stays at 600 Mhz.

cpufreq-info gives:
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
hardware limits: 600 MHz - 1.80 GHz
available frequency steps: 1.80 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.40 GHz,
1.20 GHz, 1000 MHz, 800 MHz, 600 MHz
available cpufreq governors: ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 600 MHz and 600 MHz.
The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 600 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).

I have tried
echo 1800000 >> /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

but no matter what I do I always end up with:
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
600000

Something is changing the scaling_max_freq value back to 600000 and thus the cpu
stays at 600Mhz :(
I cannot create a file anywhere in the /sys/ directory, I get a permission
denied but I am not sure it this is nominal or releated.

Everything is run as root and /sys/ is mounted as:
sysfs        /sys        sysfs    defaults,noatime    0  0


Does anyone have any input to this - I would really like to get my computer
running full speed?

Thanks
Morten Bisgaard