Hi, On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 5:39 AM, Zoltán Bacskó <zbac...@gmail.com> wrote: > > First and foremost thanks for the feedback. > I'm sorry if it was not clear. This is not a release, just an experiment. > Its draft status can only change if I get some feedback about its usability > and 'universality' among Speedstep enabled processors.
Of course, I assumed as much. It just wasn't totally obvious how to use it since there was no readme. On this laptop, under Windows, the only two (default) power options are "Balanced" and "Power Saver". The BIOS says minimum clock speed is 1.2 Ghz (vs. 2.2 Ghz). > I could only test it with exactly 2 processors. > > 1.Intel Atom N455 1.66Ghz - 1 core 2 threads. FreeDos kernel 2041. > 2. Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93 Ghz 2 Cores. MS-DOS 7.1 (Win98 SE). > > It worked in both cases, but only the single core Atom was adjustable freely > (I mentioned the multicore problem previously). I don't think it is kernel > dependent. > > I used this Intel document: > http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/64-ia-32-architectures-software-developer-vol-3b-part-2-manual.html I still have not yet read this. Just FYI! :-) Probably too technical for me anyways. > The relevant part is the CHAPTER 14 - POWER AND THERMAL MANAGEMENT. > As I said before there were no exact descriptions about the necessary coding > of the MSR's. > > My findings: > (... snip, confusing! ...) > > So the usage of the (draft status) program. > > 1. First run the program without any argument. Both 16-bit and 32-bit versions returned the same value here (see below). I didn't test the 32-bit one any further, just assumed 16-bit was equivalent and good enough for now. > 2. Look at the output. The program checks the Speedstep support by checking > CPUID ECX feature bit 7. If this bit is not set then you get 'CPU not > supported'. No further things to do :) (You demanded the exact CPU > /models/steppings that are supported. The essence is I don't know and I need > your help to determine this.) I don't know either without aimlessly searching the Internet. My Dell (f/m/s = 6 / 7 / a) laptop's BIOS (A13?) had an explicit setting for enabling/disabling Intel SpeedStep (under "Battery", IIRC), and it was already enabled. I didn't see anything about "lowering p states". The only Power Management stuff was related to Wake USB and Wake on LAN. Okay, this is a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop calling itself "Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU T4400 @ 2.20GHz_" (sigh, yes, horribly misleading name, but anyways). Wikipedia calls this "Core based Pentium", aka Penryn-3M or Penryn-L (45nm). They say it has "Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST)". However, as you implied, here it doesn't seem to work under DOS (with multiple cores). ===================================== G:\TONY>sstep Speedstep 1.0 by Falcosoft usage: sstep [multiplier] [voltageid] -without parameters shows CPU info LastTriedFid: 11 LastTriedVid: 35 CurrentFid: 11 CurrentVid: 35 MaxFid: 11 MaxVid: 35 MinFid: 6 MinVid: 31 ===================================== Trying "sstep 6 31" didn't work (LastTried was changed but not Current). So I guess by default it's just always max clock speed (worse battery life) under non-ACPI OSes (DOS). > 3. If Speedstep is supported then you get the current, and possible > minimum, maximum values. So you can run the program with the necessary 2 > arguments: FID(multiplier), VID (processor specific voltage id). You shuld > try values given in the minimum/maximum range. If p-state transition > succeeded then you should see the > LastTriedFid/Vid and CurrentFid/Vid values are equal. If not then likely the > LastTriedFid/Vid values are the ones you defined, but CurrentFid/Vid are > unchanged. This is the situation I described before as flawed multi core > logic of speedstep. In this case you should lower your initial p-state in > BIOS. I see no way to lower "p states". It just isn't supported here, by default anyways. > Any feedback is still welcome. Mainly from single core CPU users (Pentium M, > Core Solo, Atom) to verify my theory that the multicore problem really > affects only multiple core processors. My main P4 is disconnected and not within reach, and I don't have any other recent (single core) cpus. I'm not sure even that would support SpeedStep, that PC is comparatively old by now (2002). Battery life is quite a mixed bag on this laptop. I don't know what helps or hurts. Normal light use lasts a few hours, but using Flash or running Eternity (Win32) + FreeDoom seems to eat up 2x quicker. (Presumably graphical-intensive stuff can't help it, which I usually avoid unless really bored.) I have never really benchmarked in DOS how long the battery lasts, e.g. with FDAPM (but no APM in BIOS, doh) or without. So I really, for good or bad, just don't use DOS much on this particular machine. (No VT-X either. Sure, I could probably run Fedora liveUSB with DOSEMU, but last time it just mysteriously hosed itself. Nah, I just use my other PC [main desktop] with native FreeDOS. My RUFUS USB is only for larks on rare occasion like this, heh.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WatchGuard Dimension instantly turns raw network data into actionable security intelligence. It gives you real-time visual feedback on key security issues and trends. 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