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Date:      Mon, 16 Apr 2001 17:48:13 -0700 (PDT)
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        f-mobile <freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.org>, parv <parv_@yahoo.com>, (Nate Williams) <nate@yogotech.com>
Subject:   Re: observation: clock slows down when battery power gets low
Message-ID:  <XFMail.010416174813.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <200104162003.f3GK36513708@mass.dis.org>

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On 16-Apr-01 Mike Smith wrote:
>> > just an observation... on dell i5000e, clock slowed down
>> > by about an hour and 10 minutes. didn't see anything else
>> > happening. i instinctively pressed the "power" button
>> > when "power" led was not shining. nothing bad happened (of
>> > course, apm is disabled.).
>> 
>> I think apm must be enabled for it to recognize the 'slowing' clock and
>> deal with things correctly.
>> 
>> Either that or completely disable power-savings...
> 
> No, just don't use the TSC.  The BIOS is winding the CPU clock back to 
> reduce power consumption, but the TSC code has no way of knowing that 
> this is going on.
> 
> Again - do not use the TSC.  Got it yet? 8)

That would be easier if not doing so wasn't so cryptic to figure out from a
non-kernel hacker perspective, Mike. :)

Parv,

You want to do:

sysctl -w kern.timecounter.hardware=i8254

To make it more permament and easier, you can just stick

kern.timecounter.hardware=i8254

in /etc/sysctl.conf.

We really should use hte i8254 by default on laptops.  I have acpi turned on so
the system even knows that it has a CPU that throttles, but it still uses the
TSC by default.  *sigh*

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/

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