Debian 12 - High clock speed at idle

debtown

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I installed Debian Bookworm on my Lifebook U9310 CometLake today. Everything went very well. However, what I find quite peculiar is that the CPU clock speed is set to 2100 MHz. When I put a load on the CPU, the clock speed drops to 1600 MHz. The correct configuration would be for it to be at 800 MHz when idle and 1600 MHz under full load. It's very strange; I've never experienced something like this before. The configuration is as follows: Intel_pstate=active, HWP=active, Turbo_boost=off, powersave_mode. To avoid any misunderstandings... the CPU is not under load at 2100 MHz and remains fairly cool in terms of temperature."
 
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The release date of Debian 12 is June 10th 2023, I would wait the official release few more days
 
Yes, you're right. Somehow, I couldn't resist the temptation. I should have waited.
 
From what I understand of it, you should never have the Intel pstate stuff active at the same time as any system powersaving modes. As far as I'm aware, the pstate driver will control the CPU far more accurately than anything the distro builders can come up with......and if both are active, they're fighting each other.

(shrug)


Mike. ;)
 
It's the standard configuration after installation. The only thing I did was disable turbo_boost and enable HWP.

P.S.
What is this OP on my profile picture ?
 
I installed Debian Bookworm on my Lifebook U9310 CometLake today. Everything went very well. However, what I find quite peculiar is that the CPU clock speed is set to 2100 MHz. When I put a load on the CPU, the clock speed drops to 1600 MHz. The correct configuration would be for it to be at 800 MHz when idle and 1600 MHz under full load. It's very strange; I've never experienced something like this before. The configuration is as follows: Intel_pstate=active, HWP=active, Turbo_boost=off, powersave_mode. To avoid any misunderstandings... the CPU is not under load at 2100 MHz and remains fairly cool in terms of temperature."
You could have a look and see which governors are available and make selections to see if you can get what you want. On this machine there are 6 governors available:
Code:
[tom@owl ~]$ cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 008: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to [email protected], please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: intel_cpufreq
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 20.0 us.
  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 3.60 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: conservative, powersave, ondemand, userspace, performance, schedutil
  current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 3.60 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1.14 GHz.
<snip>
Frequency ranges can be set with cpufreq tools.

On the installation of Bookworm, the moment of its becoming the stable debian is so close, that its current state will be so near to the actual stable release, it will hardly matter. You can check out remaining bugs here to see if they are of concern to you: https://udd.debian.org/bugs/?releas...&rc=1&sortby=id&sorto=asc&format=html#results. An update and upgrade should adjust them in any case after stable is declared.
 
I don't have an issue with the frequency, but with the idle state. Additionally, intel_pstate is active on my system. However, I believe I know where the problem lies. I will test it this weekend and come up with a solution.

Power management
 
Today, I had some time to tinker with CPU frequency once again. I tried numerous methods to read the frequency, but it kept showing incorrect values. Eventually, I discovered that cpupower provides the most accurate readings. I can live with that. "I'm displaying the frequency with Conky.
 

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