powerd effectiveness

[Jonathan Noack]

Mike Jakubik wrote:
> Daniel O'Connor wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 13:52, Mike Jakubik wrote:
>>>> powerd won't run your CPU at a specific clock frequency - it varies the
>>>> CPU frequency based on current load conditions.
>>>
>>> The load was 0, only thing that was running was mbmon.
>>
>> Fair enough.. still.. makes testing simpler IMO.
> 
> Agreed. However thats how i tested it :P
> 
>>>> You could try what I do but there are some systems which are very 
>>>> slow to
>>>> change clock speed so this could be an impediment.
>>> 
>>> What was part of my question, is it the hardware or the software thats
>>> at fault here. I.e. would a cool n quiet system be better.
>> 
>> Hard to say.
>> I don't see how you can possibly get the frequencies you say with the 
>> hardware you claim.
>>
>> What does sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq_levels say?
> 
> CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) Processor (1410.21-MHz 686-class CPU)
> 
> # sysctl dev.cpu.0
> dev.cpu.0.%desc: ACPI CPU
> dev.cpu.0.%driver: cpu
> dev.cpu.0.%location: handle=\_PR_.CPU0
> dev.cpu.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0
> dev.cpu.0.%parent: acpi0
> dev.cpu.0.freq: 87
> dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 1403/-1 1315/-1 1227/-1 1139/-1 1052/-1 964/-1 
> 876/-1 789/-1 701/-1 613/-1 526/-1 438/-1 350/-1 263/-1 175/-1 87/-1
> 
> I think i meant 87, instead of 75.

You might want to throw 'hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled="1"' in 
loader.conf so acpi_throttle doesn't load.  Assuming acpi_throttle is 
being used, this will help power consumption a lot.

You could also try setting debug.cpufreq.lowest to some sane value to 
help with performance.

-Jonathan