Hey S350,
Welcome to the Centrino family, I am also using a centrino-chipped Laptop since a year now, and am happy to the point where I really wont touch any other.
Okay, Speedstep is basically an inbuilt utility that brings down the processor speeds when you dont need that much power. This helps to significantly increase the laptop battery life.
I wouldnt want to mess with the standard chip management settings but if you badly want to mod it - Download speedswitchxp from
here by right-clicking and save as.
Its a well-renowned software for Centrinos and lets you choose the processor speed.
GTO