More info: I controlled the speedstepping by running BOINC (http://climateprediction.net). After login or when I use sudo /etc/init.d/powernowd start the CPU goes up to highest speed as soon as the BOINC project starts running, and it stays there. Nice value of the process is 19.
When I stop and start powernowd like I wrote in my initial posting: sudo powernowd -q -m 2 -l 40 -u 90 -s 100000 then the speedstepping is done in that mode and the CPU stays at low frequency when BOINC is running. The output is: powernowd: verbosity:Settings: powernowd: verbosity: 1 powernowd: mode: 2 (PASSIVE) powernowd: step: 100 MHz (100000 kHz) powernowd: lowwater: 40 % powernowd: highwater: 90 % powernowd: poll interval: 1000 ms powernowd: Found 1 scalable unit: -- 1 'CPU' per scalable unit powernowd: cpu0: 800Mhz - 1866Mhz (12 steps) powernowd: step1 : 1866Mhz powernowd: step2 : 1766Mhz powernowd: step3 : 1666Mhz powernowd: step4 : 1566Mhz powernowd: step5 : 1466Mhz powernowd: step6 : 1366Mhz powernowd: step7 : 1266Mhz powernowd: step8 : 1166Mhz powernowd: step9 : 1066Mhz powernowd: step10 : 966Mhz powernowd: step11 : 866Mhz powernowd: step12 : 800Mhz If I just do sudo powernowd passing no parameters to it, the output is just powernowd: Found 1 scalable unit: -- 1 'CPU' per scalable unit powernowd: cpu0: 800Mhz - 1866Mhz (5 steps) which looks like the AGRESSIVE mode and not the one I saved in /etc/default/powernowd. However, starting powernowd that way results in the CPU staying at lowest frequency as well when BOINC is running. So, there are two issues actually: 1. Options set in /etc/default/powernowd arent used at all, no matter how powernowd is started 2. There's a difference in speedstepping behaviour, depending on the way powernowd is started: sudo /etc/init.d/powernowd start => nice value ignored sudo powernowd => nice value respected -- powernowd doesn't use /etc/default/powernowd anymore https://launchpad.net/bugs/67341 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
