DSDT for NVIDIA GeForce Go 6100 to reduce notebook heat

funeagle

Hello,

If you have a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6100 with NVIDIA nForce Go 430 chipset chances are that your CPU power states are not working. This means that your CPU is draining your battery and will be quite hot because it cannot sleep even if it was designed to.

You can check if it is your case by these commands:

dottore · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject: What about GeForce GO 7600?

I have an HP dv9040ea. dmesg tells me something about "MCP51M". But I don't have any lines about power states. You say: "If you did not get anything then it means that either it is invalid or you have not properly configured your kernel." So how can I find out about the reason? How should I configure my kernel? Or is your posting not applicable to my computer?

Thank you!

funeagle · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:01 pm Post subject:

dottore,

It is applicable to your model as well, however your DSDT might be slightly different than mine. First you should install acpitool,

Monkeh · Veteran Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 1656 Location: England

Random DSDTs won't even be remotely suitable for your machine. I have a working MCP51 however, so if you supply yours, I can have a look.

E: hm, or not.

dottore · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:37 pm Post subject:

I just read the other threads and articles. ACPI is quite complex but interesting. I think I configured my computer as suggested.
My

funeagle · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:45 am Post subject:

dottore,

You have the same problem as I do, your _CST section is missing, most often it is defined in this section:

Richie · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 52 Location: Home

I've this issue too. A HP dv2140eu laptop with turion TL-52. Is it possible that a BIOS update could help here? There have been quite a few releases since the one I have now: F.13 vs. F.34.

I wrote HP a support ticket about this issue, but I doubt they can help as I think they support windows only, when it comes to consumer hardware.

If I find a way to update that BIOS without windows and it works, I'll post the DSDT here.

dottore · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:56 am Post subject:

Yesterday I did an update of my BIOS (using Windows). It's F.38 from june. They made quite a few changes. But the _CST sections are untouched.

So I also filed a support request to HP. We will see...

[Edit 2007-08-06]
After some conversation with HP no real new result has been reached. HP offers a BIOS with the given quality. Take it or leave it :-|

Richie · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 52 Location: Home

Just a thought..

If this dsdt entry is chipset-specific rather than mainboard-specific, wouldn't it be possible to get relevant information from amd or nvidia?

How much does it differ between implementations? Would it be possible to gather this entry from a few other chipsets that work, and somehow work from there to resolve this? Maybe look at nvidias previous chipset!?

Unless it's dangerous to the hardware I'd be willing to try this myself, as this is a serious issue for me.

Edit:
According to this post:
:arrow:

http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7576#c9

dottore · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:07 am Post subject:

One more thought.

Woulnd't it help to simply code a HLT statement in case the ACPI does not provide any c-states?
If I remember correctly in old times when there was no ACPI only the HLT statement was available to tell the cpu that now work is do be done.

OTOH I already read somewhere that using the hlt statement with a new AMD processor does not save much energy. But perhaps it would be a little more than nothing.

Richie · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 52 Location: Home

@dottore:
I notice I have c0 and c1, whereas you have only c0, according to "acpitool -c"

dottore · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:07 pm Post subject:

@Richie:

How did you create the FADT-listing? I did not find a program to do it.
But looking at byte #95 in /proc/acpi/fadt I see a 0 - no _CST.

Richie · n00b Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 52 Location: Home

Same command/program as with dsdt disassembly, I guess it works for other *dt in /proc/acpi as well if you have any.

I managed to update my bios in a "magical" way, involving swapping harddrives and installing that other os.

The good news is that the two warnings I had earlier is gone. The bad news is that there is still no _CST section.

Edit: After bios update I lost about 4-5 degrees Celsius, which makes me kind of happy, because that should mean energy consumption is lower, and that's the whole purpose..

Edit 2: After some use I notice that temperature drop is more like 2-3 degrees. HP responded that they don't support linux. (big surprise :roll:

)

retroman · Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject:

I figured there would be a stick posted in the amd64 section by now saying wether or not the turion64 x2 has c states. Ive been messing around with the dsdt for a few weeks now with no sucess.....

funeagle · Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 11:47 am Post subject:

Richie,

I did not get a notification about replies, so sorry for coming back to you late.

Our CPU should support the C states: http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=48&page=4
Our chipset supports C states: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_34696.html
that is all we need to have a cool and quiet system.

I have contacted NVIDIA they said that they support only products which they sell directly so I should contact the manufacturer.

I am requesting a proper DSDT from acer ever since, but they keep playing dumb. They asked me to update the drivers and bios that was the only smart reply, the bios update changed my DSDT but the processor definitions are still empty. Other replies were like reinstall the system etc. they clearly dont know what they are talking about or just want to distract me from the problem.

I was so desperate that I studied the ACPI specification and found out there that in order to support the higher C states they HAVE TO do it trough the _CST section, which we are missing. For lower C states they could also use some registers but that is not the case http://www.acpi.info/DOWNLOADS/ACPIspec30a.pdf.

One more tip. you dont have to request support for Linux, DSDT should be defined for Windows too, and that is what windows probably uses. You could send your manufacturer the DSDT table generated from windows and ask for windows support! You can use ASL Compiler v. 3.0.1 from http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/powermgmt/default.mspx. In Vista run a console (cmd) as an Administrator (otherwise it will not have permission to get it) and then do a

funeagle · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:24 pm Post subject:

I would NOT recommend buying a notebook from ACER if you want to use Linux.

If you plan to, please consider rather paying a little more and buying from a manufacturer with real support. You will save yourself time, have less stress and headaches!