problems with powerd and cpufreq on AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M

Dewayne Geraghty dewaynegeraghty at gmail.com
Mon Feb 29 04:29:11 UTC 2016


Bottom posted

On 29 February 2016 at 12:36, John <freebsd-lists at potato.growveg.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 08:29:14AM +1100, Dewayne Geraghty wrote:
>
> Thanks John, I have cpufreq added via the boot/loader.conf which always
>> works. However, over the weekend, I was testing some boot changes and
>> tried
>> to add cpufreq AFTER the kernel - unsuccessfully.  This was amd64
>> 10.3Beta1
>> and 10.3Beta3.
>>
>> A workaround (for you) might be to remove it from the kernel and load
>> cpufreq via loader.conf?
>>
>> I have some other problems (with usb nic's axge,axe) but I'll pursue if I
>> get time for enough info for a PR
>>
>
> Hi Dewayne,
>
> Thanks for looking at this. I modified loader.conf:
>
> $ cat /boot/loader.conf
> cpufreq_load="YES"
>
> then recompiled the kernel and rebooted:
>
> 10.3-BETA3 #1 r296151
>
> root at onion:~ # kldstat
> Id Refs Address            Size     Name
> 1   13 0xffffffff80200000 d45380   kernel
> 2    1 0xffffffff80f46000 f0c8     cpufreq.ko
> 3    1 0xffffffff8113d000 1604     fdescfs.ko
> 4    1 0xffffffff8113f000 946      pflog.ko
> 5    1 0xffffffff81140000 2d0ef    pf.ko
>     ...but still no-go:
>
> root at onion:~ # powerd -v
> powerd: no cpufreq(4) support -- aborting: No such file or directory
>
> Also commented out the powerd entries from /etc/rc.conf, rebooted
> again, no difference.
>
> many thanks,
>
> --
> John
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>

That's a nuisance!

As I said, IF I load the module before the kernel, I'm good as follows.
However if I load after booting, then I don't have any frequencies to
choose from.

I'm afraid the only "help" I can provide is of my working situation :(  The
order might be relevant.


This is the early part of my /boot/loader.conf
kern.hz="250"

kern.coredump="0"
loader_logo="none"
beastie_disable="YES"
autoboot_delay="1"

kern.geom.label.ext2fs.enable="0"
kern.geom.label.reiserfs.enable="0"

cpufreq_load="YES"
coretemp_load="YES"
mac_ifoff_load="YES"

-----
kldstat
 1   20 0xffffffff80200000 aef9a8   kernel
 2    1 0xffffffff80cf0000 2cc0     coretemp.ko
 3    1 0xffffffff80cf3000 ef38     cpufreq.ko
 4    1 0xffffffff80d02000 2b60     mac_ifoff.ko

# sysctl -e dev.cpu.0.freq_levels
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels=1801/25000 1800/25000 1700/23232 1600/21501
1500/20046 1400/18382 1300/16988 1200/15393 1100/14060 1000/12527 900/11252
800/9783

# /etc/rc.d/powerd onestart
Starting powerd.
# ps -axww|grep power
32365  -  Ss        0:00.00 /usr/sbin/powerd
32382  5  S+        0:00.00 grep power

Then I
/usr/sbin/powerd -vv
load   0%, current freq 1801 MHz ( 0), wanted freq 1744 MHz
changing clock speed from 1801 MHz to 1800 MHz
load   0%, current freq 1800 MHz ( 1), wanted freq 1689 MHz
changing clock speed from 1800 MHz to 1700 MHz
load   0%, current freq 1700 MHz ( 2), wanted freq 1636 MHz
load   0%, current freq 1700 MHz ( 2), wanted freq 1584 MHz

So its working as expected.  (I used to make extensive use of powerd, but
my customers' wanted top performance during the day, so I adjust the CPU
frequencies instead, based on time.)

As I might have mentioned, if I load after the kernel, then kldload will
show cpufreq.ko but there will be no frequencies to choose from.

Might be relevant??
Kind regards, Dewayne


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