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Date:      Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:27:18 +0200
From:      Alexander Motin <mav@FreeBSD.org>
To:        John Long <fbsd2@sstec.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD-STABLE Mailing List <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Powerd and est / eist functionality
Message-ID:  <4BA85F46.9010306@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <1269310984.00232724.1269300005@10.7.7.3>
References:  <1269310984.00232724.1269300005@10.7.7.3>

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John Long wrote:
>    Hello, I am putting together a couple update servers. Went with c2d
>    E7500 on gigabyte G41M-ES2L boards. fbsd 8.0 release generic (so far)
>    amd64, 1g mem, 1tb wd cavier blk, fresh system.
>    My Kill-a-watt shows 41 watts idle and when I enable powerd then it
>    climbs to 43 watts idle.
>    It shows that the freq is controlled well, goes down to 365 mhz but
>    the tdp is not decreased, rather it increases.
>    If I disable eist, c1 and c3 helpers in bios, as per suggestion in
>    mail archive, then it adds 1 watt to both figures. I was hoping to get
>    this total tdp down to a very low amount, and it is but it should
>    theoretically go lower with powerd, right?
>    The bios reports 1.268V and 26C temp. I was hoping that the voltage
>    would go down to .85 or so when powerd lowered the freq to 365 etc.
>    Healthd does not seem to know what monitoring chip it is and I have no
>    idea unless I install xp (ugh) and run something from cpuid.com on it.
>    What is a good/better/best monitoring program, mbmon and bsdhwmon are
>    untried for they are not current I see. Or what do I do from here to
>    fix this problem?
>    thx,
>    John
>    dmesg shows
>    cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
>    est0: <Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control> on cpu0
>    est: CPU supports Enhanced Speedstep, but is not recognized.
>    est: cpu_vendor GenuineIntel, msr 6160b2506000b25
>    device_attach: est0 attach returned 6
>    p4tcc0: <CPU Frequency Thermal Control> on cpu0
>    cpu1: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
>    est1: <Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control> on cpu1
>    est: CPU supports Enhanced Speedstep, but is not recognized.
>    est: cpu_vendor GenuineIntel, msr 6160b2506000b25
>    device_attach: est1 attach returned 6
>    p4tcc1: <CPU Frequency Thermal Control> on cpu1
>    powerd -v
>    powerd: unable to determine AC line status
>    load   0%, current freq 2926 MHz ( 0), wanted freq 2834 MHz
>    load   0%, current freq 2926 MHz ( 0), wanted freq 2745 MHz
>    .......
>    load   3%, current freq  365 MHz ( 7), wanted freq  365 MHz
>    load   0%, current freq  365 MHz ( 7), wanted freq  365 MHz

Your ACPI BIOS seems not reporting tables required to control EIST. So
powerd probably uses only thermal throttling, which is not really
effective for power saving on modern CPUs. You should check your BIOS
options or may be update BIOS.

If you have no luck with EIST - try to use C-states if BIOS reports at
least them. It also can be quite effective.

-- 
Alexander Motin



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