From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 23 07:23:37 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4090816A479 for ; Wed, 23 May 2007 07:23:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ghirai@ghirai.com) Received: from p28.ich-19.com (fa.ea.5646.static.theplanet.com [70.86.234.250]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 190C813C458 for ; Wed, 23 May 2007 07:23:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ghirai@ghirai.com) Received: from [89.122.159.160] (helo=Unknown-00-16-36-ae-62-05.lan) by p28.ich-19.com with esmtpa (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HqlBy-0001t9-NT for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 23 May 2007 02:23:31 -0500 Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 10:23:24 +0300 From: Ghirai X-Mailer: The Bat! (v3.99.3) Professional X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Message-ID: <244616829.20070523102324@ghirai.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Resent-from: Ghirai MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - p28.ich-19.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - freebsd.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - ghirai.com Resent-Message-Id: <20070523072337.190C813C458@mx1.freebsd.org> Resent-Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 07:23:37 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re[2]: notebook cpu throttling [solved] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 07:23:37 -0000 > [..] >> >> I did that, but now xorg constantly uses 20-30% CPU. >> >> >> >> CPUs were running cooler indeed, but everything ran jerky, >> >> because of the xorg cpu usage. > [..] >> > Point being, if powerd has selected your lowest cpu frequency because >> > load is less than default (or as specified by -i and -r switches) and >> > this is (say) 1/4 of full speed, then something that normally showed 5% >> > cpu will now show as using 20% (of available cpu cycles at that speed) >> >> > You can tune your powerd idle levels more towards performance, and/or >> > you can set a higher minimum cpu freq with sysctl debug.cpufreq.lowest >> > from among your available levels. > [..] >> I suspected this; xorg just reporting to use 20-30% cpu doesn't bother >> my, what bothers me is the fact that mouse cursor and everything moves >> jerky. >> >> I'll try to raise the min. freq., maybe powerd lowers it too much.. > Maybe. In one recent example, a 1400MHz box (Thinkpad T42p) had freqs > all the way down to 75MHz while still running with 1mS slicing (1000HZ) > apparently losing i8254 timer interrupts (when using APM, not with ACPI) > powerd(8) in adaptive mode with default settings will lower cpu freq one > level whenever the load idle is 90% or more, and raise freq (two levels) > whenever idle gets less than 65%. Looks like if you set that to say 75% > your xorg alone would kick it up. Of course you must be careful not to > set the shiftpoints too close together, or you'll observe oscillation .. > again, running 'powerd -v' is useful while you're playing with tuning. > Re jerkiness, you might also benefit by decreasing the polling interval > (how often powerd checks load average) from 500mS to perhaps half that? > I'm kinda interested in these fujitsu-siemens laptops myself, so I'm > still keen to see your 'sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq_levels' please? > Cheers, Ian Ok, i think i got it working. dev.cpu.0.freq_levels showed about 14 possibilities. It turned out that powerd was lowering it down to 100MHz, or 50MHz per core. Playing with debug.cpufreq.lowest, i increased it gradually until KDE/Xorg behaved normal; for my system it was 800MHz, which is 400MHz/core. -- Best regards, Ghirai.