Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

jerf · 2009-12-07 10:04:39

I have Intel Core i7 860 processor on an Asus P7P55D motherboard. Core i7 processors have this Turbo Boost technology which allows to dynamically increase frequency of separate cores when other are not used intensively. My processor has nominal frequency of 2800 MHz and Intel site tells that it supports Turbo Boost scheme 1/1/4/5, i.e. the frequency can rise to 2933 MHz when 4 or 3 cores are under heavy load (if thermal end electrical conditions are met), to 3333 MHz when only 2 of cores are under heavy load and to 3466 MHz when only a single core is under heavy load.
However, I had no chance to get this working under Archlinux. I have an up-to-date system, i.e. kernel 2.6.31.6 (x86_64), I enabled Turbo Mode, Speed Step and C-State Tech in BIOS, and installed cpufrequtils.
Command

# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

returns eght times

# 2801000 2800000 2667000 2533000 2400000 2267000 2133000 2000000 1867000 1733000 1600000 1467000 1333000 1200000

With both performance and ondemand governors maximal frequency returned by

# cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -i MHz

is 2801 MHz. I test this by running single process

# cat /dev/urandom > /dev/null

Any suggestions how to get Turbo Boost working? Is there a single Arch person who has it working?
Thanks in advance!

Square · 2009-12-07 12:05:57

See if any of these help you:
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-17124
http://kolbusa.livejournal.com/71066.html
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/l … el/1151201

I just did a quick Google and looked for relevant information, so don't shoot me for it.
Just remember... Everybody gets one...

jerf · 2009-12-07 12:18:41

Square wrote:

See if any of these help you:
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-17124
http://kolbusa.livejournal.com/71066.html
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/l … el/1151201
I just did a quick Google and looked for relevant information, so don't shoot me for it.
Just remember... Everybody gets one...

I've seen all these posts, and tried all combinations of (partially contradicting) options mentioned there (i.e. with C1E and C-State tech on and off, with ondemand and performance governors, etc)..

hunterthomson · 2010-01-20 10:41:53

Hum, Kind of old but I am looking into this becuase I am looking to get a M15x with a core i7-720QM or probaly the i7-620M Dule core... Arg... I wan the Quad core but it is the old tec.... Tough call. I want it mainly for VirtualBox. I have a need to run 2 guest OS's so I need more cores then 2....but the 620M has Hyper-threading so it is seen as a Quad...

Ahe, New 32nm is better then the old 45nm + I want the new AES stuff for my AES encrypted HardDrive... I'll just get the new one...Really I should wait a year till the GPU is also 32nm and maybe then buy a new one when the CPU/GPU/Mem-controller are all on the same die. Though I'll probably use the nVidia card anyway.

I'll probably move to Hardened-Gentoo so I can compile everything for this CPU. To get the most out of it

Anyway, This guy seems to have gotten it working. It seems that is is posable but it will take some trickery.
http://kolbusa.livejournal.com/71066.html
What I took away form it was this. Turn OFF the C stuff and set the cpufreq to Performance also ...
"Idle power mode of the processor must be set to "Low Power" (or similar). Otherwise, required ACPI kernel modules won't load"

Last edited by hunterthomson (2010-01-20 10:46:43)

noahsark1126 · 2010-01-20 14:41:29

I'd bet almost 100% that your turbo is working correctly, but the kernel is incorrectly reporting it. I have an i7-920, and no matter what I do it shows as 2.66 GHz, even though turbo gives me 2.8. Even when I overclock it (it's at 4 GHz at the moment), it still shows as 2.66. So clearly it's wrong. Try this little tool:

http://code.google.com/p/i7z/

It should give you a better idea of what's really going on. Try running it, then put your chip under load by running mprime or compiling a program or something of that nature. All 4 cores should bump up one multiplier.

Personally, I have C1 and C1E states enabled, and I'm using cpufreq-ondemand. Everything works like a charm. The only thing I'll say is that although my turbo is 1/1/1/2, I've never seen the one core turbo mode enabled on my chip. However it has no problem bumping all 4 cores up 1x, so I'm not complaining.

surfed · 2010-01-20 17:57:02

noahsark1126 wrote:

I'd bet almost 100% that your turbo is working correctly, but the kernel is incorrectly reporting it. I have an i7-920, and no matter what I do it shows as 2.66 GHz, even though turbo gives me 2.8. Even when I overclock it (it's at 4 GHz at the moment), it still shows as 2.66. So clearly it's wrong. Try this little tool:
http://code.google.com/p/i7z/
It should give you a better idea of what's really going on. Try running it, then put your chip under load by running mprime or compiling a program or something of that nature. All 4 cores should bump up one multiplier.
Personally, I have C1 and C1E states enabled, and I'm using cpufreq-ondemand. Everything works like a charm. The only thing I'll say is that although my turbo is 1/1/1/2, I've never seen the one core turbo mode enabled on my chip. However it has no problem bumping all 4 cores up 1x, so I'm not complaining.

Thank you for this, finally some clarity on the subject. My turbo boost works just fine.

hunterthomson · 2010-01-22 08:03:34

Ok then that settles it. If the tubo boost works. I'm going for the 45nm Core i7-720QM. It's base is 1.6Ghz and I guess the single core bump is 2.8Ghz but yada yada, That is far more powerfull then the Dule core i7-620M at 2.66Ghz base. I'll also be able to get the 1333Mhz RAM. I only wish the Alianware M15x had a ATI video card and not the nVidia. Finally the Open Source ATI driver is getting good. But it looks like the nVidia Open dirver is far from as good on new cards. Though I don't really know that much about the nVidia Open driver.

The way I see it. If I use Gentoo and compile everything for the i7 Quad. I WILL get lots of multi-threaded use out of the Quad core and of course for VM's which is the real reason I want a Quad core. However, I bet on Windows it is not that big of a deal except for multi tasking.

Last edited by hunterthomson (2010-01-22 08:07:37)

surfed · 2010-01-22 08:19:10

hunterthomson wrote:

Ok then that settles it. If the tubo boost works. I'm going for the 45nm Core i7-720QM. It's base is 1.6Ghz and I guess the single core bump is 2.8Ghz but yada yada, That is far more powerfull then the Dule core i7-620M at 2.66Ghz base. I'll also be able to get the 1333Mhz RAM. I only wish the Alianware M15x had a ATI video card and not the nVidia. Finally the Open Source ATI driver is getting good. But it looks like the nVidia Open dirver is far from as good on new cards. Though I don't really know that much about the nVidia Open driver.
The way I see it. If I use Gentoo and compile everything for the i7 Quad. I WILL get lots of multi-threaded use out of the Quad core and of course for VM's which is the real reason I want a Quad core. However, I bet on Windows it is not that big of a deal except for multi tasking.

Careful what dvd drive you get with this. On my xps 16 (with the i7-720QM 4gb 1333Ram and ati 4670) my dvd burner cant burn as it is an incompatible drive with linux burning tools. Took me forever to figure this out but its in other dells too and in the new macs and i have not found a solution yet. The drive is made by LG, under the Dell name:
HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GA11N
thats the 8x slot drive they use now. Funny thing is the drive comes with Firmware A102 but A101 is listed in Dells download section. Hoping for an update soon.

Last edited by surfed (2010-01-22 08:20:57)

hunterthomson · 2010-01-22 10:29:03

Hum, ya the Laditude E6500 has this problem too I read. At first it didn't even work in Window but then a new firmware fixed it. I am not so consered about this though. Ya, it sucks to have something that doesn't work but I have an external Rosewill drive that is fantastic i.e. bootable, and on the box it says it supports Linux and it dose

I'v kind of got a bad taste in my mouth about using DVD's as data backup now. I had 100+ DVD's of moves and and stuff. Now less then half work do to sun and scratches. I just put them all in the trash when I moved a month ago. I also got so sick of flipping though all toughs DVDs looking for a move or something. I figure now that I can get a 1TB HHD for less then 100$ that is a better way to keep data backups. This way I can use BASH tools to search the drive for what ever data I'm looking for.

I took out my CD-rom on my current laptop and added a second harddrive. So I have a SSD /root partition and a HHD /home, /tmp, /var, /mnt/pkg and /mnt/mail directory's. This is one thing that sucks about the M15x there is NO WAY of putting 2 HDD's in it. Arg. I'm going to have to sell my 30GB OCZ Vertex and buy at least a 60GB. I do have a eSATA external 2.5" drive but it's not Hot-Swapable. So I have to re-boot to use it or maybe there is a way to mount it Hot but I have not found out how.

EDIT: Stupid me, a quick google search and I found out how to hot swap eSATA. I guess I'll save my extra $300 on the OCZ Vertex 60G and just mount the extra drive when I need it.

Last edited by hunterthomson (2010-01-22 10:35:04)

ngoonee · 2010-01-22 10:32:59

I recall being able to (a year plus ago) hot-mount esata. It was convulated, to say the least.

hunterthomson · 2010-01-22 10:37:13

Boy off topic but no one cares right?...You know how it goes. Looking to buy a new computer gets one talking, alot

Ya, I found this Ubuntuforums post by Emblem Parade. He got it working on his System76. It looks like there is an application "scsiadd" that makes it fairly simple.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=907124

Last edited by hunterthomson (2010-01-22 10:45:49)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-07 10:04:39

Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#2 2009-12-07 12:05:57

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#3 2009-12-07 12:18:41

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#4 2010-01-20 10:41:53

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#5 2010-01-20 14:41:29

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#6 2010-01-20 17:57:02

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#7 2010-01-22 08:03:34

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#8 2010-01-22 08:19:10

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#9 2010-01-22 10:29:03

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#10 2010-01-22 10:32:59

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

#11 2010-01-22 10:37:13

Re: Intel Turbo Boost/Mode Not Working

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