System running hot / CPU freq changes randomly

[Eric Anderson]

Nate Lawson wrote:
> Eric Anderson wrote:
> 
>> I've jsut upgraded from 5.3-STABLE to -CURRENT, and have a few things 
>> I've noticed.  One, my machine runs much hotter - it used to stay 
>> around 40 - 41C, but not stays around 49C.  Also, it actually seems 
>> like it's running slower - and maybe it is.  It looks like the cpu 
>> frequency is changing all the time, hopping around from one freq to 
>> another, for no real reason that I can tell.
>> I'm running on a dell D600 (1.6GHZ Pentium M), with -CURRENT as of 
>> last night.
>> I can provide any additional information needed..
>>
>>
>> Here's what I mean (on AC, not battery):
>> [ 12:48:25 root at neutrino ~ ]# sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq
>> dev.cpu.0.freq: 1600
>> [ 12:48:27 root at neutrino ~ ]# sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq
>> dev.cpu.0.freq: 400
>> [ 12:48:28 root at neutrino ~ ]# sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq
>> dev.cpu.0.freq: 400
> 
> 
> Are you running powerd?  If you have powerd_enable="YES" in 
> /etc/rc.conf, it defaults to adaptive control.  I _thought_ I made the 
> default "NO" until we get more testing.

Yes, I am using it.  It was default to no, but I enabled it in hopes that it would help battery life and reduce temperature.  I realized I didn't really have the settings right, so after setting some lines in rc.conf and restarting powerd, it seems to have stopped flopping around. I'm willing to help debug/test..


>> hw.acpi.cpu.cx_supported: C1/1 C2/1 C3/85 C4/185
>> hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest: C1
>> hw.acpi.cpu.cx_usage: 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
> 
> 
> I had to disable C2 and higher by default due to some C3 problems some 
> users were having.  Hopefully we'll sort this out at some point and 
> re-enable it by default.
> 
> You can get the old values back through /etc/rc.conf.  Add:
> 
> performance_cx_lowest="LOW"
> economy_cx_lowest="LOW"
> 
> (Or explicitly use "C3" if C4 doesn't work right for you).

These are the settings I have right now:
powerd_enable="YES"
powerd_flags="-a max -b adaptive"
performance_cx_lowest="HIGH"            # Online CPU idle state
performance_cpu_freq="1600"             # Online CPU frequency
economy_cx_lowest="LOW"                # Offline CPU idle state
economy_cpu_freq="NONE"                 # Offline CPU frequency

Did I set something suboptimally?  I play with the settings a bit - I'm used to est and estctrl (which I've removed from my system now that I am on 6.0-CURRENT).  

I'll also try S3 to see if it works on -CURRENT (it rebooted the machine under 5.3-STABLE) - I really want S3 and S4BIOS to work on this laptop, so I'm willing to put some energy into helping anyway I can..

Eric



-- 
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Eric Anderson        Sr. Systems Administrator        Centaur Technology
I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.
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