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Thread: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd

  1. #1
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    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!
    Laptop 1: Averatec 2150 running Karmic Laptop 2: HP dv4z running Lucid
    Laptop 3: Sony Vaio SR220J running Lucid (amd64) Desktop: AMD Athlon X2 4000+ ABIT AN-M2 nVidia GeForce 7025-630a running Lucid (amd64)

  2. #2
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    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.

  3. #3
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    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!
    Last edited by balak; July 10th, 2008 at 08:52 PM. Reason: Removed smax's email adddress
    Laptop 1: Averatec 2150 running Karmic Laptop 2: HP dv4z running Lucid
    Laptop 3: Sony Vaio SR220J running Lucid (amd64) Desktop: AMD Athlon X2 4000+ ABIT AN-M2 nVidia GeForce 7025-630a running Lucid (amd64)

  4. #4
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    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?

  5. #5
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    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.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Laptop 1: Averatec 2150 running Karmic Laptop 2: HP dv4z running Lucid
    Laptop 3: Sony Vaio SR220J running Lucid (amd64) Desktop: AMD Athlon X2 4000+ ABIT AN-M2 nVidia GeForce 7025-630a running Lucid (amd64)

  6. #6
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    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.
    Last edited by balak; July 15th, 2008 at 01:58 PM. Reason: typo
    Laptop 1: Averatec 2150 running Karmic Laptop 2: HP dv4z running Lucid
    Laptop 3: Sony Vaio SR220J running Lucid (amd64) Desktop: AMD Athlon X2 4000+ ABIT AN-M2 nVidia GeForce 7025-630a running Lucid (amd64)

  7. #7
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    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.

  8. #8
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    Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd

    Quote Originally Posted by jimv View Post
    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.
    Laptop 1: Averatec 2150 running Karmic Laptop 2: HP dv4z running Lucid
    Laptop 3: Sony Vaio SR220J running Lucid (amd64) Desktop: AMD Athlon X2 4000+ ABIT AN-M2 nVidia GeForce 7025-630a running Lucid (amd64)

  9. #9
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    Re: undervolting AMD Turion using cpupowerd

    Quote Originally Posted by jimv View Post
    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).
    Last edited by smax3; July 15th, 2008 at 09:08 PM.

  10. #10
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    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)

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