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#1 2016-02-18 09:09:15

Utini
Member
Registered: 2015-09-28
Posts: 452
Website

Should I use all of them? (TLP,thermald,acpi,acpid2,cpupower,...)

Hey there,

I am running Arch on a Dell XPS 15 9530 (late 2015) and have the following packages installed:

lm_sensor (and afterwards I did run sensors-detect)
thermald
TLP
intel-ucode

A few arch-wiki pages also state that laptops should Install:

acpi
acpid2
smartmontools
cpupower

From my understanding TLP + thermald already do the cpu scaling so why "cpupower" ?
What do I gain from acpi that I do not already have?
acpi vs acpid2 ?

To me it smells like more troubles than power savings?

Thanks !

Last edited by Utini (2016-02-18 09:11:41)


Setup 1: Thinkpad T14s G3, 14" FHD - R7 6850U - 32GB RAM - 2TB Solidigm P44 Pro NVME
Setup 2: Thinkpad X1E G1, 15.6" FHD - i7-8850H - 32GB RAM - NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti - 2x 1TB Samsung 970 Pro NVME
Accessories: Filco Majestouch TKL MX-Brown Mini Otaku, Benq XL2420T (144Hz), Lo(w)gitech G400, Puretrak Talent, Sennheiser HD800S + Meier Daccord FF + Meier Classic FF

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#2 2016-02-18 09:17:11

olive
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2008-06-22
Posts: 1,490

Re: Should I use all of them? (TLP,thermald,acpi,acpid2,cpupower,...)

Personally, I use intel-ucode (this is an update of the microcode that the processor use, however I have seen no difference in practice). If you have a recent laptop the intel_pstate (hard included in the kernel) should take care of CPU frequency out of the box without anything to configure or install. I don't use any of the other tool that supposedly manage the FAN, etc... This is normally managed by the firmware (BIOS/UEFI). I don't think all laptops support them and moreover, the probability that a misconfigured thing or a bug can cause damage is greater that the supposedly benefit. I think that some manufacturers don't allow to set FAN speed via software for this reason.

Note that acpid is somewhat different. It used to be useful to put the the machine on sleep when you close the laptop or to manage the POWER/SLEEP/... buttons. However, systemd now manage this so acpid has become mostly redundant. It might still support obscure things that I do not know; if you need it be sure to disable the corresponding functionality in systemd. I don't use the smartmontools daemon but it contain a command smartctl that is able to display stats on the hard disk. With this I can see how much data has been written/write since I bought the computer as well the total time that the system was running since the beginning. I don't use any of this to configure anything but I just find fun to read the stats.

Last edited by olive (2016-02-18 09:28:28)

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#3 2016-02-18 09:41:34

Utini
Member
Registered: 2015-09-28
Posts: 452
Website

Re: Should I use all of them? (TLP,thermald,acpi,acpid2,cpupower,...)

olive wrote:

Personally, I use intel-ucode (this is an update of the microcode that the processor use, however I have seen no difference in practice). If you have a recent laptop the intel_pstate (hard included in the kernel) should take care of CPU frequency out of the box without anything to configure or install. I don't use any of the other tool that supposedly manage the FAN, etc... This is normally managed by the firmware (BIOS/UEFI). I don't think all laptops support them and moreover, the probability that a misconfigured thing or a bug can cause damage is greater that the supposedly benefit. I think that some manufacturers don't allow to set FAN speed via software for this reason.

Note that acpid is somewhat different. It used to be useful to put the the machine on sleep when you close the laptop or to manage the POWER/SLEEP/... buttons. However, systemd now manage this so acpid has become mostly redundant. It might still support obscure things that I do not know; if you need it be sure to disable the corresponding functionality in systemd. I don't use the smartmontools daemon but it contain a command smartctl that is able to display stats on the hard disk. With this I can see how much data has been written/write since I bought the computer as well the total time that the system was running since the beginning. I don't use any of this to configure anything but I just find fun to read the stats.

Thanks for the quick reply !

So acpi, acpid2 and cpupower are kinda usless as potentially do more harm than good.

However, thermald is a different thing if I am correct. Thermald is smth that is in windows out of the box but missing in the linux kernel. It transfers the load to the cpu with the least load + temperatur to keep the heat low across all CPU's. I believe it does even more but it should be compareable with the "passivr cooling mode" that windows has in its "power saving plan"?


Setup 1: Thinkpad T14s G3, 14" FHD - R7 6850U - 32GB RAM - 2TB Solidigm P44 Pro NVME
Setup 2: Thinkpad X1E G1, 15.6" FHD - i7-8850H - 32GB RAM - NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti - 2x 1TB Samsung 970 Pro NVME
Accessories: Filco Majestouch TKL MX-Brown Mini Otaku, Benq XL2420T (144Hz), Lo(w)gitech G400, Puretrak Talent, Sennheiser HD800S + Meier Daccord FF + Meier Classic FF

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#4 2016-02-18 10:00:28

olive
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2008-06-22
Posts: 1,490

Re: Should I use all of them? (TLP,thermald,acpi,acpid2,cpupower,...)

To be honest, I do not know thermald. It is only in the AUR, so I guess it is not so popular. This claim are very dubious, however... I don't think you can reliably lower the CPU temperature by just redistributing the tasks... The CPU won't overheat like that... If it did, the manufacturer would soon become bankrupt with all the repairs claimed under warranty. The power saving plan of windows is much more comparable with the setting you can write in  /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu?/cpufreq/scaling_governor . In both case, the goal is to save battery, not a supposedly overheating.

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#5 2016-02-18 11:09:42

Utini
Member
Registered: 2015-09-28
Posts: 452
Website

Re: Should I use all of them? (TLP,thermald,acpi,acpid2,cpupower,...)

olive wrote:

To be honest, I do not know thermald. It is only in the AUR, so I guess it is not so popular. This claim are very dubious, however... I don't think you can reliably lower the CPU temperature by just redistributing the tasks... The CPU won't overheat like that... If it did, the manufacturer would soon become bankrupt with all the repairs claimed under warranty. The power saving plan of windows is much more comparable with the setting you can write in  /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu?/cpufreq/scaling_governor . In both case, the goal is to save battery, not a supposedly overheating.

No overheating = no fan = less battery drain.

Thermald is a tool that comes directly from intel and i believe even the intel project site claimed that this is the exact same feature as "passive cooling" on windows.


Setup 1: Thinkpad T14s G3, 14" FHD - R7 6850U - 32GB RAM - 2TB Solidigm P44 Pro NVME
Setup 2: Thinkpad X1E G1, 15.6" FHD - i7-8850H - 32GB RAM - NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti - 2x 1TB Samsung 970 Pro NVME
Accessories: Filco Majestouch TKL MX-Brown Mini Otaku, Benq XL2420T (144Hz), Lo(w)gitech G400, Puretrak Talent, Sennheiser HD800S + Meier Daccord FF + Meier Classic FF

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