Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 and Enhanced Speedstep

[Gabriel Lavoie]

Hello,
     I have a small problem/question about my Pentium Dual Core E5200. I
have this system running as a server since 1 month and I just noticed that
the CPU frequency may not be running at the highest speed. With my other
computer that has a Core 2 Duo, I noticed that under Windows and Linux, the
CPU frequency steps down at 2 GHz when the CPU is idle and increases at 2.66
GHz when the CPU is under load. With this FreeBSD Pentium Dual Core, I just
noticed using sysctl that the frequency after booting the system is at 1.25
GHz and it doesn't go up automatically at 2.5 GHz under load.

dev.cpu.0.freq: 1254
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2508/-1 2194/-1 1881/-1 1567/-1 1254/-1 940/-1 627/-1
313/-1

If I do "sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq=2508", the frequency gets changed:

[root at headless /home/wildchild]# sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq=2508
dev.cpu.0.freq: 1254 -> 2508
[root at headless /home/wildchild]# sysctl -a | grep cpu.0.freq
dev.cpu.0.freq: 2508
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2508/-1 2194/-1 1881/-1 1567/-1 1254/-1 940/-1 627/-1
313/-1

Why isn't the frequency isn't increased automatically under load? And why is
it at 1.254 GHz after boot and not at the maximum frequency?

Another thing I noticed with "dmesg" is the following error (CPU supports
Enhanced Speedstep, but is not recognized.):

cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
ACPI Warning (tbutils-0243): Incorrect checksum in table [OEMB] -   D,
should be  8 [20070320]
est0: <Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control> on cpu0
est: CPU supports Enhanced Speedstep, but is not recognized.
est: cpu_vendor GenuineIntel, msr 61a4c2006004c20
device_attach: est0 attach returned 6
p4tcc0: <CPU Frequency Thermal Control> on cpu0
cpu1: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
est1: <Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control> on cpu1
est: CPU supports Enhanced Speedstep, but is not recognized.
est: cpu_vendor GenuineIntel, msr 61a4c2006004c20
device_attach: est1 attach returned 6

Why do I get this error?

I found this problem with my machine after I looked at an article telling
that the new 45nm Intel CPUs were idling at around 3-4W when Speedstep is
decreasing their frequency. And I guess it means that I've been running my
server at 1.25 GHz all the time since I installed it, which would explain
why some compiling jobs were slow!

Thanks

Gabriel

-- 
Gabriel Lavoie
glavoie at gmail.com