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AMD Powernow.... how? [solved]


Guest HudsonHawk
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Guest HudsonHawk

Sorry for being terribly n00bish.... but i hear its possible to get powernow running under linux.

 

im running Mandrake 2005 SE (download) on an AMD64 3000+("desktop-replacment" not "mobile" chip) notebookand and it sounds like a hoover most of the time under linux.... can any one give me a pointer on setting up powernow under Mamdrake 2k5?

 

Cheers.

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Nothing on the AMD site indicates that they are working with any other os on this. It says you must use their windows based software to make it work.

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Right it's acctually quite easy to get working.

 

This is all you need to do if your using one of the standard kernels.

 

Open a terminal as su

 

Then run

modprobe powernow-k8

That loads the drivers for the Athlon64 CPU next run

modprobe cpufreq_ondemand

 

next you should run these two commands

 

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

echo 800000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq

 

What that does is inform the CPU that it should adjust it's speed to whats currently needed and secondly that the lowest speed it can scale to is 800Mhz.

Then run

cat /proc/cpuinfo

And have a look at the CPU speed it should drop after a min or two to a lower speed if your not doing alot of stuff on your computer.

 

Once you seen it drop or increase then you need to do this.

 

open /etc/modprobe.preload as su

and add to the bottom of the file these two lines.

powernow-k8

cpufreq_ondemand

 

Then save the file and open /etc/rc.local

to which you should add the lines

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

echo 800000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq

Then save it. Your system should now throttle the cpu as is required by the apps your using.

 

If you want to control exactly what speed the cpu is running at all the time instead of having it auto adjust you can do this instead.

 

Get an app like CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor (A gnome applet) which allows you to adjust CPU speed or write a couple of bash files to do so.

 

Then change the the command used above from

echo ondemand > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

To

echo userspace > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

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My first post! Cool... :afro:

 

Anyway, I'm also fairly new to Linux and have been toying with it off and on now for several months. I'm also looking to use the "Cool N' Quiet" function in Linux as it works perfectly in Windows. I tried the above steps, but didn't get far. Here's what I got after trying the "modprobe powernow-k8" command:

 

FATAL: Error inserting powernow-k8 (/lib/modules/2.6.8.1-12mdk/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/powernow-k8.ko.gz): No such device

 

I guess that's referring to missing software? I'm using MandrakeLinux 10.1 Official. Please help.

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Not sure if Mandrake 10.1 supported K8 powernow architecture. It uses an older kernel after all. I know for a fact that Mandriva 2005 LE does support K8 powernow architecture. Either that or Mandrake 10.1 is too new for Newcastle Core.

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Hello Falcdragon. I see you were one of the MUBs earliest members. Welcome back.

That was an excellent post, and even though I do not need the info I was at least able to clearly follow it.

I do hope we get to see more posts from you and get to know you better.

Cheers to you from across the Tasman. John.

 

And Neonsox, a great big welcome to MUB also. John.

Edited by AussieJohn
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Well neonsox, I can tell you one thing from using Cool and quiet in my 2005 LE. It doesn't really help that much. Newcastle core is still quite hot compared to newer cores such as Winchester or Venice due to the 130 nm die. I basically removed the cpufreq packages because it is not worth it for me. Besides, I am running Folding at Home so the cpu usage is always 100% :)

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Thanks for the warm welcome.

 

Yeah I know about this NewCastle core running a bit hotter, but then again, I do get 2 GHz... whatever that's worth... I notice a good 8 degree (Celsius) difference in Windows using RightMark, but even with basic CNQ there was enough of a difference to warrant using it. So nobody has any answers on this? It's the one thing keeping me from using Linux more than Windows right now (other than the TV card, AGP support, and WebCam support).

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