Another Cool&Quiet question

[AllenB]

Hello everyone,

I am a little confused on how Cool&Quiet works on my Athlon 64 2800+.

I am using Kernel 2.6.13-gentoo-r1 and I have the following enabled in the kernel:

Power Management Support
Cpu Frequency Scaling
CPU Frequency Table Helpers
AMD Opteron/Athlon64 Powernow!

I have performance governor specified as default governor and all the other governors are built into the kernel.

I have also emerged cpudyn and am using the default config file for it.

here is my cpu info:

home linux # cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 12
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 2800+
stepping : 0
cpu MHz : 1800.127
cache size : 512 KB
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext lm 3dnowext 3dnow lahf_lm
bogomips : 3606.89
TLB size : 1024 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

Here is the output of cpufreq-info:

home linux # cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 0.3: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: powernow-k8
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.80 GHz
available frequency steps: 1000 MHz, 1.80 GHz
available cpufreq governors: powersave, ondemand, userspace, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 1.80 GHz.
The governor "powersave" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).

Now you notice that the cpu is running at the lowest freq allowed by the cpu. It's using the powersave governor.

Now here is the same output while I am running a few programs in the background:

home linux # cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 0.3: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: powernow-k8
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.80 GHz
available frequency steps: 1000 MHz, 1.80 GHz
available cpufreq governors: powersave, ondemand, userspace, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 1.80 GHz.
The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1.80 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).

Now you can notice that the cpu is switching between max and min cpu freqs but is this true cool&quiet mode?

I see alot of post here in the forum concerning using the ondemand governor for cool&quiet. I have tried using the echo command that is listed here in the forum and it works for a few seconds but then the system reverts back to using powersave and peformance governors. Is this setup ok or do I need to do more?

Many thanks for any answers you guys can give.

[Pitr-]

Make sure you've either unemerged or deactivated cpudyn before changing to ondemand governor or else they might conflict with each other.

[mudrii]

What you should do.
1. Uninstall cpudyn you not need
#emerged -C cpudyn
2. Check if powernow is supported by kernel on boot
#dmesg | grep powernow
in my case

[AllenB]

I did what you suggested and this is the result:

home / # cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 0.3: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
driver: powernow-k8
CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.80 GHz
available frequency steps: 1000 MHz, 1.80 GHz
available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, powersave, userspace, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 1.80 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.
current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).

Seems to be working like a champ. My main concern is that the cpu fan speed is adjusted as needed.

Thanks