[SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

Renan Birck · 2009-11-09 21:35:18

Hello,

I started to have a problem in cpufreq:

- When I boot my laptop while it's plugged to the charger, the cpufreq only goes to 1.33GHz (it supports 1.83GHz), cpufreq -f 1830000 does nothing.

- If I shut it down (not reboot), unplug the charger, wait a few seconds, and start it, then plug the charger in back, cpufreq is working correctly and goes on until the next reboot.

I don't remember when this started, mainly because I spent a long time without turning my laptop off (when I was on vacation) and lately I've often been using it on batteries.

Any ideas? I have an Acer Aspire 7720 laptop (Core 2 Duo T5550 processor, Intel i965 chipset). The BIOS is updated to the latest version.

Thanks!

SOLVED, kind of: I will just stick to the ondemand governor + manual fine-tuning with trayfreq when I need more than 1GHz (not very often, mostly when I'm running VMs or compiling stuff).

Last edited by Renan Birck (2009-11-23 04:04:23)

acmps · 2009-11-11 14:58:18

Please post your /etc/conf.d/cpufreq.

Mine is like this:

#configuration for cpufreq control

# valid governors:
#  ondemand, performance, powersave,
#  conservative, userspace
governor="ondemand"

# valid suffixes: Hz, kHz (default), MHz, GHz, THz
min_freq="550MHz"
max_freq="2.2GHz"

Renan Birck · 2009-11-12 18:04:17

Here is it:

#configuration for cpufreq control

# valid governors:
#  ondemand, performance, powersave,
#  conservative, userspace
governor="ondemand"

# valid suffixes: Hz, kHz (default), MHz, GHz, THz
min_freq="1GHz"
max_freq="1.83GHz"

skanky · 2009-11-13 10:32:03

Just a few of things to try:

1) Comment out the min_freq and max_freq lines and let ondemand work it out itself.

2) ondemand ups the rate based on usage (95% by deafult). Is your usage not high enough? You could try changing the threshold.
eg (from the wiki): echo 50 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ondemand/up_threshold

3) Check /etc/acpi/handler.sh to see if there's some odd settings in there. You could also load the performance governor and set that to be used when AC is plugged in (see http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cpufreq about halfway down). I don't know whether those events get triggered at boot time, but it's worth a try.

Renan Birck · 2009-11-13 22:27:35

skanky wrote:

2) ondemand ups the rate based on usage (95% by deafult). Is your usage not high enough? You could try changing the threshold.
eg (from the wiki): echo 50 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ondemand/up_threshold

Even under heavy usage it only goes to 1.33GHz.

3) Check /etc/acpi/handler.sh to see if there's some odd settings in there. You could also load the performance governor and set that to be used when AC is plugged in (see http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cpufreq about halfway down). I don't know whether those events get triggered at boot time, but it's worth a try.

I don't have this file. But it seems, no matter which the governor is, I only get 1.33GHz.

skanky · 2009-11-13 22:47:14

Sorry, that's pretty much taken me to the limits of my experience.

mira · 2009-12-03 13:51:20

Hi,

I had similar problem too. I have HP nx7400 notebook with Intel Core Duo T2400 at 1.83 GHz, but when I set the max_freq="1.83GHz" (tried also max_freq="1833MHz") in the /etc/conf.d/cpufreq file, the cpu was only at 1.33GHz max (even on performance setting). The "cpufreq-info" command said "hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.83 GHz" which is correct, but "current policy: frequency should be within 1000MHz and 1.33GHz" which is not, so I think this might be some kind of bug.

I commented the min_freq and max_freq and after reboot the maximum frequency was set automatically to the right value of 1.83GHz.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-11-09 21:35:18

[SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

#2 2009-11-11 14:58:18

Re: [SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

#3 2009-11-12 18:04:17

Re: [SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

#4 2009-11-13 10:32:03

Re: [SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

#5 2009-11-13 22:27:35

Re: [SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

#6 2009-11-13 22:47:14

Re: [SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

#7 2009-12-03 13:51:20

Re: [SOLVED,kind of]cpufreq only works correctly when running from battery

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