undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Hi Everybody,
I am trying to reduce the temperature of my laptop using undervolting.
I have an AMD Turion 64 MT-28 processor running Hardy 8.04 amd64 version (fully updated).
I found this cool program in a german ubuntu/linux forum called 'cpupowerd'
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cpupowerd
It first reads your current fid/vid (frequency/voltage id) programming and allows you to reduce the cpu voltage at a certain frequency.
Unfortunately, I don't understand german and google translation didn't help me understand how to set and run this all the time either.
For those of you who want to try it out: please note that this program can easily damage your cpu/system if you mix up the settings.
However, I am having issues with turning off powernowd which controls the frequency variation in hardy by default. I have tried /etc/init.d/powernowd stop which turns this off by I still get powernow-k8 messages in dmesg log.
If I start cpupowerd when powernowd is running, the undervolting is overriden by powernowd
Any ideas on how to proceed?
thanks!
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Hello balak,
I am the developer from cpupowerd.
I think your problem isn't the powernowd, because you have it stopped with "/etc/init.d/powernowd stop".
Sometimes the Gnome-Power-Manager make troubles on cpu undervolting, so test to stop or kill the gnome-power-manager and try cpupowerd again.
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Thanks smax!
I was hoping that you'll respond to this thread ;) you have written a very cool program - thanks again!
So I killed gnome-power-manager, stopped powernowd and started cpupowerd
cpupowerd -d -c /etc/cpupowerd.conf
Code:
$ more /etc/cpupowerd.conf
800 0.8750
1600 1.0750
However, if I check back the voltage, it still shows the old voltage:
Code:
$$sudo cpupowerd -s
cpupowerd 0.1.2
WARNING: This program could cause damage to your Hardware!
Physical cpu : 0
Vendor : AMD
Family : 1
Model : 2
Coreids : 0
Mastercoreid : 0
Affected coreids : 0
Current voltage (VID) : 1.0500 V (20)
Current frequency (FID) : 800 MHz (0)
Supported frequencies : 800 1600 MHz
Am I doing anything wrong in this?
thanks!
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Hello balak,
first, please remove my mailadress from the output of cpupowerd -s ;).
Can you try "cpupowerd -f -c /etc/cpupowerd.conf", create cpu load with the script createload.sh included in cpupowerd package (don' forget to read the README-File) and send me the output over mail?
2 Attachment(s)
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
I have attached the two files. one is the output of cpupowerd in foreground mode and the other is the output of mprime stress test.
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Finally, I figure out one way, thanks to smax.
There is hal, addon process called 'hald-addon-cpufreq' which is started in hald. It doesn't let cpupowerd do its job. Once you kill that process and then run cpupowerd, it works like a charm.
My laptop used to run at 53-55C all the time and now its mostly running at 45C.
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
I don't know if it's really necessary to mess with your voltages and all that. I use the CPU Frequency Scaling panel app to throttle my processor and I get the temp from 55 down to about 40.
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jimv
I don't know if it's really necessary to mess with your voltages and all that. I use the CPU Frequency Scaling panel app to throttle my processor and I get the temp from 55 down to about 40.
I agree. It is not at all required and probably not advisable to do that. But I just wanted to try and see what gains I can get.
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jimv
I don't know if it's really necessary to mess with your voltages and all that. I use the CPU Frequency Scaling panel app to throttle my processor and I get the temp from 55 down to about 40.
I don't agree ;).
CPU throttling is normaly used, when the cpu is in idle mode to get lower frequencies as over Cool'nQuiet/EIST.
The temp and noise in cpu-idle-mode is not a problem in the most cases.
But on full-cpu-load, the temp is much higher and the fan is very loud! Here undervolting can help to reduce the temp and noise.
What's on desktop systems?
My desktop amd64 x2 3800+ ee sff system haven't a throttling mode (only Cool'nQuiet). Here is undervolting the only possibility way to reduce the power usage (and the noise). My desktop system needs less 20W in idle-mode with cpu undervolting (see here).
Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd
Ah, I see. By throttle, I mean I set my CPU speed to about 1/3 of what it normally is, which is more than enough for most of what I do.
I use a cheapo Gateway laptop that seems to get too hot (for some reason the GPU is always running around 70C in any OS)