Gul Dukat Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 I have a Acer Ferrari 4005 WLMI laptop, which has a AMD Mobile Turion 64 ML37 onboard. This cpu is suppose to run @ 2.0 Ghz. But recently I found out that it doesn't run at 2.0 Ghz. As you can see with the following command: [guest@localhost ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 15 model : 36 model name : AMD Turion(tm) 64 Mobile Technology ML-37 stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 1024 KB fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow up pni lahf_lm bogomips : 1593.47 TLB size : 1024 4K pages clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc I've tried all kinds of different Live-CD's, both x86 and x86_64, but all of them let my cpu run at 800 Mhz. How on earth can I let run at 2.0 Ghz? Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 I don't believe that cpuinfo file. I find gkrellm and cpufreq-info the only accurate ways to see what the frequency is doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gul Dukat Posted October 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 I'vre tried it on other computers, non-laptops. And there the cpu-frequency does match the frequency there supposed to run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdunn Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 (edited) I don't believe that cpuinfo file. I find gkrellm and cpufreq-info the only accurate ways to see what the frequency is doing. I agree I've had experience of /proc/cpuinfo just being "dead-wrong" See this post: /proc/cpuinfo weirdness... Edited October 1, 2007 by jimdunn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 I'vre tried it on other computers, non-laptops. And there the cpu-frequency does match the frequency there supposed to run. Maybe on the other computers it matches. But I know for sure that it doesn't on mine! Like I said, for me gkrellm gives numbers which match what the computer is doing and don't match cpuinfo. And the frequencies in gkrellm go up and down according to load, power supply etc. The frequencies make a huge impact on how long my battery lasts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdunn Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 (edited) But I know for sure that it doesn't on mine! Me too :D If my processor ran at the speed cpuinfo says it does (4.45 GHz), my fan would be on full time, and my temperature sky-high. This isn't the case, it doesn't, and the info I can get from /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq (2.25 GHz) is correct The funny thing is, that in my case, cpuinfo was correct for ages, and I used to use it in a Superkaramba widget on my desktop. Then one day it was just wrong, and has been ever since. No idea what caused it, couldn't work out why it changed - but I just changed my desktop widget to read from cpuinfo_cur_freq and that's always been accurate. Edited October 1, 2007 by jimdunn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 (edited) Everything is fine! The FSB of that CPU is 1600 MHz - AMD never puts in the box the real CPU FSB, and this applies for all AMD CPU's. Edited October 1, 2007 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gul Dukat Posted October 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 (edited) Everything is fine!The FSB of that CPU is 1600 MHz - AMD never puts in the box the real CPU FSB, and this applies for all AMD CPU's. I'm sorry Scarecrow. I don't fully comprehend what you mean by this. Edited October 1, 2007 by Gul Dukat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 (edited) I'm sorry Scarecrow. I don't fully comprehend what you mean by this. What is the thing you can't understand? The FSB speed of that CPU is NOT 2Ghz, but 1.6 Ghz, and while running without stress, the CPU goes into the so-called "idle mode": only 50% of the FSB is utilized, hence the 800 Mhz measurement. Is it more clear now? By the way this isn't something *nix-specific: that CPU would show as 800 Mhz under windows as well, when in idle mode. The only modern CPU's that don't throttle their FSB speed are Intel's Celerons ( although it's doubtful if a Celeron has to be called a CPU at all... :P ). Edited October 1, 2007 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gul Dukat Posted October 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 Yes it is, but I don't see the FSB listed. And you mean that as my cpu is idle it runs at 1,6 Ghz, and under stress it would probably run 2,0 Ghz. Right? Mmm, oke. So my "panic" was about nothing. Would gkrellm give me a better reflection of my cpu or/and are there better programs to keep this monitored? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 (edited) No, I mean that your CPU FSB is 1.6G, not 2.0G! The 2.0G is just AMD nomenclature... At idle mode it goes at 800 Mhz. Should be clear if you just consult the lappy manual. Your "cat /proc/cpuinfo" was absolutely accurate- what's wrong about that? Edited October 1, 2007 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gul Dukat Posted October 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 Your "cat /proc/cpuinfo" was absolutely accurate- what's wrong about that? Nothing. But I thought it would run at 800Mhz continuously. That's why I started this topic. Don't get me wrong. But the cpu runs at 800Mhz idle, but when it's under stress it should go up. Right? I hope I get it straight now. sorry and thank you for your time. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 Don't apologize, it was a perfectly good question. I spent ages trying to figure out what it was doing, and reading 800MHz when it should be 2GHz is certainly not obvious! I'll tell you what mine does, that may help. It's sold as a Centrino 1.6 GHz, but it's got frequency stepping so it has a range of frequencies that it can actually use. When it's running on battery and not doing very much, it runs at 600 MHz. When it's plugged in to the power and playing a movie it runs at 1600 MHz (its full, nominal frequency). I don't know anything about AMD's naming schemes so yours may be different (maybe it's 2GHz equivalent). My frequency is controlled by a daemon called cpufreqd, and this has rules about when to use which frequency, based on load and power source. I played with this a bit to work out what effect it had and even drew graphs of what happened to the battery charge for the different frequencies (you can see them here if you're interested). I found out that gkrellm gives a good indication of what its doing, it just needs an extra plugin to be able to read the CPU frequency. Or as I mentioned there's also cpufreq-info which is a command line tool linked to cpufreqd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gul Dukat Posted October 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 Ahh, oke. That makes things a little clearer for me. But when I ran the command cat /proc/cpuinfo my laptop wasn't running on the battery, but was plugged in to the power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted October 1, 2007 Report Share Posted October 1, 2007 But the cpu runs at 800Mhz idle, but when it's under stress it should go up. Right? I hope I get it straight now. Yes, this is perfectly sane and correct. Due to their different (and under strict technical terms, superior) bridge architecture, AMD mobos/CPU's deliver the same horsepower as Intel CPU's clocked at higher freqs. Consider that 2.0Ghz label as a rough equivalent of an Intel CPU with the same oomph, but the actual speed is "just" 1600 Mhz. In the past, the AMD processor nomenclature was even more confusing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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