Greetings Red Hat Partners, Intel has debuted a new CPU feature in their most recent processors called "hardware p-states" (HWP) which allows CPUs to determine the most efficient speed at which to run based on environmental parameters such as heat and power usage. The autonomous behavior of this feature lead to our hardware certification CPU frequency scaling test reporting failures as it expects the CPU to behave exactly as requested when told to select a specific speed. Rather than running at 700MHz when instructed to do so, the HWP feature could, for example, determine that running at 900MHz is more efficient with the current thermal and electrical loads and choose that speed instead. The inability to attain the requested speed would be interpreted by our test as a failure.
After thoroughly researching the topic and working with Red Hat's CPU frequency experts to determine the appropriate testing for these CPUs, the certification team will update the certification policy and test suite to no longer fail certification due to a failure of the minimum speed portion of the test if the CPU has HWP enabled. Starting today, certifications will no longer be blocked for a failure to meet the low-speed portion of the current cpuscaling test if they meet this criteria. A manual review of the cpuscaling test result will be performed to override the failure and provide credit when appropriate until the updated test suite is made available. We value your ongoing participation in Red Hat software development, testing, and certification efforts. Thank you for your continued partnership. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact your Partner Manager or Engineering Account Manager. Regards, The Red Hat Certification Team -- Hwcert-announce-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/hwcert-announce-list
