OK... I've been monkeying around with things the last few days. Memory seems to be working about like it should now. I'm starting out around 146M with a few things open, and sometimes I get closer to 512mb when I really start opening things up (I have 755MB). My Mobile AMD Athlon 2000 is running at 1667Mhz. However, when the temps get around 80C or higher, it is apparently automatically throttling the CPU. Ksensors is great at telling me almost all of that, but I only found the throttling after I was trying it myself (right-clicking on the klaptopdaemon and selecting cpu throttling) and I noticed that when it was warm I couldn't select less than 6% or 24%, etc... I then checked more often and realized it's already throttling that much. However, doing that doesn't seem to affect that actual speed that the processor is running at (or have too much impact on cpu temps). I tried powernowd, powersaved and a few other apps I found for cpu speed stepping and got the processor speed to drop to around 1200, and then I got it stuck at around 500mhz for a while. That was rather annoying. All of the apps are supposed to automatically adjust the speed, however, the only thing I could get to happen was sometimes they would lower it when installed. They never changed otherwise. The only way I got back to full speed was with a reboot.
Can anyone give me some hints on: -Real-time monitoring of cpu throttling (not speed in mhz which is apparently different)? -Automatic adjustment of CPU speed? -Manual adjustment of CPU speed? -The safe temps for a Mobile AMD Athlon 2000? Thanks! Levi On 5/2/06, DJA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Levi Smith wrote: > On 4/28/06, DJA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >> It sounds like your laptop is working pretty much as it should. ACPI >> controls both fan speed and CPU throttling based on several factors, >> such as load and heat. How well ACPI works on your laptop depends very >> much on how recent the software controlling it is. Generally, the more >> recent the kernel, the better ACPI works - assuming your laptop is >> supported (doing >> cat /proc/acpi/info may give some clues). > > Are you referring to the "obvious" options in the BIOS such as shut-down > temps? or are these functions that are just built into the ACPI that take > care of things without any obvious front-end? There are things that ACPI manages which have no user-accessible interface in the BIOS. Those are controlled by a file unique to each motherboard, and sometimes to each single laptop using that mobo, called the DSDT. Here's more info: http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php >> ANYWAY... My laptop works just fine in Windows, but in Mepis it starts >> out fine, but at some point it starts lagging incredibly badly. Generally >> at that point the CPU is at 100%. >> >> But is the CPU running at full speed? > > Dunno, but it sure seems doggedly slow. And some apps like kicker that > take up about 3% normally, seem to be taking up about 30% at that point... There are ways of finding out what the current throttling point is. But I can't remember where to look. /proc/acpi? I know that Gnome has an applet which tells you what speed your CPU is currently running. Windows will also let you look at that. The Pentium M in my laptop usually runs at about 70% speed until I do something like compile or run a game (e.g. FarCry). When the CPU speed increases, I can also hear both CPU and Graphics Card fans speed up. This is all controlled through ACPI based on the code in your DSDT file. One of the problems with this file is that it is very often compiled with Microsoft's ASL compiler. That compiler is known to be very forgiving if given bad code (e.g. syntax errors, bad parameters, etc.): it happily compiles bad code anyway. However Linux is not at all tolerant of that same bad code - and that causes it to barf on many DSDT files. One solution for many is to disassemble the DSDT, fix any errors, and recompile it with Intel's compiler which is ASL-compliant. Again, more info is at the URI above. >> [A]nd the memory seems to be used more than it should (like sometimes >> it's got almost 500MB used with nothing open), >> but I can't really see anything that's using the processor or memory >> (at least not in ksysguard or top). >> Since trying athcool yesterday it seems to work better, but not >> flawless like it used to... >> >> Maybe the thermal trip points need to be tweaked. Maybe that's what >> Athcool is doing; or is it just running the fan faster/more? At the risk >> of being insulting, are you keeping all the fan ducts clear when you are >> using the laptop? > > >> From what I read on athcool, it's simply allowing the cpu to idle >> down or some such thing during idle periods. Whereas without it, it's basically >> running full-on all the time. (at least in linux) >> Even with it on, I never hear the fan slow down like it does in Windows... > >> Is it possible I'm somehow more stressing the cpu and it's overheating >> and slowing to a crawl? (that still doesn't explain the memory usage).... >> > >> > Any ideas? >> > >> > Thanks! >> > Levi >> >> Abnormal memory usage is another animal altogether. >> >> -- >> Best Regards, >> ~DJA. I don't know. I think some CPU's will slow down if they overheat, and if the problem is severe enough, just shut themselves down. But that still doesn't account for the apparently excessive RAM use. Unless you are doing something really unusual, with 512MB RAM, swap should never even be used anymore in Linux. -- Best Regards, ~DJA. -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
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