AMD A12-8800B ACPI questions (turbo mode, temp zones)

Tue Dec 15 15:05:38 UTC 2015

Dear Ian,

thanks for the response!

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au> wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 19:53:52 -0500, Johannes Dieterich wrote:
>  > Dear list,
>  >
>  > I am running CURRENT on an HP elitebook 745 G3 which comes with a AMD
>  > A12-8800B CPU. All in all, it runs very well with just a few nits to
>  > pick. Two of them are ACPI related.
>  >
>  > 1) there are 5 thermal zones defined out of which only two provide
>  > reasonable numbers it seems:
>  >
>  > hw.acpi.thermal.tz4.temperature: 34.1C
>  > hw.acpi.thermal.tz3.temperature: 0.1C
>  > hw.acpi.thermal.tz2.temperature: 0.1C
>  > hw.acpi.thermal.tz1.temperature: 0.1C
>  > hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature: 56.1C
>  >
>  > my gut feeling is that tz0-tz3 may be the CPU cores and tz4 would be
>  > the GPU (which does not work in BSD ATM, hence consistently lower
>  > temp). I guess this is not a big deal (everything works) but I still
>  > wonder how to fix it.
>
> Not sure if anything needs fixing, but I only have Intel gear these
> days and am not up on the AMD side of things.  However, please show:
>
> % sysctl dev.cpu
dev.cpu.3.cx_method: C1/hlt C2/io
dev.cpu.3.cx_usage_counters: 25314 20561
dev.cpu.3.cx_usage: 55.18% 44.81% last 979us
dev.cpu.3.cx_lowest: C2
dev.cpu.3.cx_supported: C1/1/0 C2/2/400
dev.cpu.3.%parent: acpi0
dev.cpu.3.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0
dev.cpu.3.%location: handle=\_PR_.C003
dev.cpu.3.%driver: cpu
dev.cpu.3.%desc: ACPI CPU
dev.cpu.2.cx_method: C1/hlt C2/io
dev.cpu.2.cx_usage_counters: 25676 20634
dev.cpu.2.cx_usage: 55.44% 44.55% last 1300us
dev.cpu.2.cx_lowest: C2
dev.cpu.2.cx_supported: C1/1/0 C2/2/400
dev.cpu.2.%parent: acpi0
dev.cpu.2.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0
dev.cpu.2.%location: handle=\_PR_.C002
dev.cpu.2.%driver: cpu
dev.cpu.2.%desc: ACPI CPU
dev.cpu.1.cx_method: C1/hlt C2/io
dev.cpu.1.cx_usage_counters: 27544 21225
dev.cpu.1.cx_usage: 56.47% 43.52% last 1836us
dev.cpu.1.cx_lowest: C2
dev.cpu.1.cx_supported: C1/1/0 C2/2/400
dev.cpu.1.%parent: acpi0
dev.cpu.1.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0
dev.cpu.1.%location: handle=\_PR_.C001
dev.cpu.1.%driver: cpu
dev.cpu.1.%desc: ACPI CPU
dev.cpu.0.cx_method: C1/hlt C2/io
dev.cpu.0.cx_usage_counters: 35013 29515
dev.cpu.0.cx_usage: 54.26% 45.73% last 1686us
dev.cpu.0.cx_lowest: C2
dev.cpu.0.cx_supported: C1/1/0 C2/2/400
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2100/4717 1800/3450 1400/2320
dev.cpu.0.freq: 2100
dev.cpu.0.%parent: acpi0
dev.cpu.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0
dev.cpu.0.%location: handle=\_PR_.C000
dev.cpu.0.%driver: cpu
dev.cpu.0.%desc: ACPI CPU
dev.cpu.%parent:

> % sysctl hw.acpi.thermal
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._TSP: 300
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._TC2: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._TC1: 50
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._ACx: -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._CRT: 128.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._HOT: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4._PSV: 55.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4.thermal_flags: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4.passive_cooling: 1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4.active: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz4.temperature: 29.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._TSP: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._TC2: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._TC1: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._ACx: -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._CRT: 128.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._HOT: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3._PSV: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3.thermal_flags: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3.passive_cooling: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3.active: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz3.temperature: 0.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._TSP: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._TC2: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._TC1: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._ACx: -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._CRT: 128.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._HOT: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2._PSV: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2.thermal_flags: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2.passive_cooling: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2.active: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz2.temperature: 0.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._TSP: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._TC2: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._TC1: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._ACx: -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._CRT: 128.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._HOT: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1._PSV: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1.thermal_flags: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1.passive_cooling: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1.active: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz1.temperature: 0.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._TSP: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._TC2: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._TC1: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._ACx: -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._CRT: 128.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._HOT: 102.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0._PSV: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.thermal_flags: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.passive_cooling: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.active: -1
hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature: 48.1C
hw.acpi.thermal.user_override: 0
hw.acpi.thermal.polling_rate: 10
hw.acpi.thermal.min_runtime:

That does indeed show an awful lot of -1, or?

>
> which may provide more clues.  Perhaps all 4 cores are in one package,
> in which case individual CPU temperatures may not be too meaningful.  I
> don't know whether there's any equivalent to coretemp(4) for AMD CPUs?
>
> Yours won't use est(4) but perhaps powernow(0) - 0 meaning no manpage :)
> but both are in GENERIC kernels.  You should be able to glean from dmesg
> which driver/s are in use; a verbose dmesg.boot might come in handy.
verbose boot does show neither powernow nor est.

http://llamapost.net/verbose_boot holds the verbose boot.

>  > 2) turbo mode: this is a more major issue. sysctl reports the
>  > following for all four cores:
>  >
>  > dev.cpu.0.cx_lowest: C2
>  > dev.cpu.0.cx_supported: C1/1/0 C2/2/400
>  > dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2100/4717 1800/3450 1400/2320
>  > dev.cpu.0.freq: 2100
>  >
>  > >From the intel CPUs w/ turbo mode I had before I know that there
>  > should be (at least) a 2101 frequency indicating the turbo clock. This
>  > frequency is absent, I suspect this means turbo mode does not work.
>
> Or that these CPUs just don't have a turbo mode, as such?  I expect the
> specs on AMD's site should mention that, either way?
http://products.amd.com/en-us/search/APU/AMD-PRO-A-Series-Processors/AMD-PRO-A-Series-A12-APU-for-Laptops/AMD-PRO-A12-8800B-with-Radeon%E2%84%A2-R7-Graphics/164

So it does have a turbo mode up to 3.4 GHz, I recall reading from a
review (sorry, no link) that it should also have multiple steps in
between 2.1 and 3.4 (it would supposedly typically run in between the
two).

>  > How can I debug this? I believe also that this AMD chip has multiple
>  > frequencies above the base clock of 2100, so how would that show?
>
> What leads you to believe that?  Where is this documented?
>  > Loaded modules:
>  >
>  > Id Refs Address            Size     Name
>  >  1   23 0xffffffff80200000 1e79670  kernel
>  >  2    1 0xffffffff8207b000 384858   zfs.ko
>  >  3    2 0xffffffff82400000 ca38     opensolaris.ko
>  >  4    1 0xffffffff8240d000 22b98    geom_eli.ko
>  >  5    1 0xffffffff82431000 ac60     aesni.ko
>  >  6    1 0xffffffff8243d000 1c520    fuse.ko
>  >  7    1 0xffffffff82621000 358b     ums.ko
>  >  8    1 0xffffffff82625000 223c4    ipfw.ko
>  >
>  > I should note that I boot in legacy mode, not EFI.
>  >
>  > asl dump available from http://llamapost.net/elitebook.asl
>
> If it cxomes to that ..
>
>  > Thanks a lot!
>  >
>  > Johannes
>
> Not much help, but I see noone else springing to your aid so far ..
Thanks either way!

Johannes