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Installing Squeeze. CPU slow?

I'm upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze and during the installation process I noticed the CPU is operating at 600MHz. Is it normal for the lowest Speedstep setting to be used during installation? The laptop is a Pentium M @ 1.8GHz.

I don't think there is a normal speed for laptop cpus, especially if working from battery.

Installs are not cpu intensive. What kernel governor is in use? 'performance' uses full speed, all the others vary.

Honestly, I don't know if a kernel governor is even loaded. It is plugged into the wall though. There's still a lot of downloading, decompression, and copying going on. I imagine if it was running at full speed I'd still see 100% CPU usage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mpyusko (Post 4394480)

...There's still a lot of downloading, decompression, and copying going on. I imagine if it was running at full speed I'd still see 100% CPU usage.

It is probably the case that this is an example of a task which wouldn't go any faster if the cpu was running at a higher clock speed. When the cpu is waiting for network or disk IO, all that will happen by turning the clock speed up is that it will wait faster (and use more power).

Depending on how you are measuring the speed, the clock speed may also be altering and your measurement may only be telling you that it is low at the instant that you are measuring it. How are you doing that?

I thought about that and continued to keep track of it during the installation. But now that the machine is up and running, I'm still not getting the speed I should be.

Code:

mpyusko@hal9000:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor      : 0

vendor_id      : GenuineIntel

cpu family      : 6

model          : 13

model name      : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.80GHz

stepping        : 6

cpu MHz        : 600.000

cache size      : 2048 KB

fdiv_bug        : no

hlt_bug        : no

f00f_bug        : no

coma_bug        : no

fpu            : yes

fpu_exception  : yes

cpuid level    : 2

wp              : yes

flags          : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up bts est tm2

bogomips        : 1199.23

clflush size    : 64

cache_alignment : 64

address sizes  : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual

power management:



mpyusko@hal9000:~$ cpufreq-info

cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009

Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: acpi-cpufreq

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.

  hardware limits: 600 MHz - 1.80 GHz

  available frequency steps: 1.80 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.20 GHz, 1000 MHz, 800 MHz, 600 MHz

  available cpufreq governors: userspace, ondemand, performance

  current policy: frequency should be within 600 MHz and 600 MHz.

                  The governor "userspace" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 600 MHz.

mpyusko@hal9000:~$

I ran into a similar issue with my PDC E6700@3.2GHz, and I managed to get it working in Slack 13.37 but I can't remember how. That and my Slackware desktop runs it and configures it in different ways. I tried using a few Debian/Ubuntoo guides, but I still can't seem to make it work.

Edit: I should note that no matter what governor I load, it always keeps coming up between 600 and 600.

What is you actual problem? Doesn't the speed go up when the machine is under load?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4394881)

What is you actual problem? Doesn't the speed go up when the machine is under load?

No. It's not scaling at all. It's stuck at 600MHz.

Which governor is loaded?
May it be that the powersafe-governor is loaded?

If I'm reading what I pasted correctly, then I'm pretty sure userspace is loaded. But honestly, Performance, Userspace, ondemand, etc... they all have the same end result 600MHz.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mpyusko (Post 4394890)

If I'm reading what I pasted correctly, then I'm pretty sure userspace is loaded. But honestly, Performance, Userspace, ondemand, etc... they all have the same end result 600MHz.

There's all sorts of frequencies measured at all sorts of places. How are you measuring cpu speed?

I posted outputs above for "cat /proc/cpuinfo" and "cpufreq-info".

I'm not an expert, but have you checked the BIOS? What frequency does it report? Could you check that all the CPU settings in the BIOS are OK? Maybe someone played with the CPU frequency configuration or SpeedStep settings? (My SpeedStep settings are set to "Disabled", but I'm using a desktop, not a laptop, so I'm not sure how they should be in a laptop) :)

Regards.

Speedstep is set to enabled in the Bios and is reported at 600MHz (but then again the computer is idle). Also I just uninstalled the cpufreqd and cpufrequtils packages, rebooted twice, then reinstalled them. No change. However, during boot the cpufreqd line returns "failed". The acpi-cpufreq module is loading and has been all along (except when I uninstalled).

Code:

root@hal9000:/etc# lsmod |grep cpu

acpi_cpufreq            4915  0 

cpufreq_conservative    4018  0 

cpufreq_userspace      1444  0 

cpufreq_stats          1940  0 

cpufreq_powersave        602  0 

processor              26259  2 acpi_cpufreq

root@hal9000:/etc#

I just booted to XP, re-flashed the BIOS with A14 (same version), rebooted back to Squeeze and the computer started up running 1.8GHz. But now, an hour later, all governors max at 600MHz. WTF???

Code:

cpufreq-info

cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009

Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: acpi-cpufreq

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.

  hardware limits: 600 MHz - 1.80 GHz

  available frequency steps: 1.80 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.20 GHz, 1000 MHz, 800 MHz, 600 MHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative, userspace, powersave, ondemand, performance

  current policy: frequency should be within 600 MHz and 600 MHz.

                  The governor "userspace" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 600 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).

  cpufreq stats: 1.80 GHz:9.16%, 1.60 GHz:0.23%, 1.40 GHz:0.37%, 1.20 GHz:0.47%, 1000 MHz:0.49%, 800 MHz:0.56%, 600 MHz:88.71%  (21470)

root@hal9000:/etc#

BTW, it's a Dell Inspiron 8600, Pentium M @ 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB IDE

I just rebooted after editing the /etc/default/acpid file...

Code:

mpyusko@hal9000:/etc/default$ cat acpid

# Options to pass to acpid

#

# OPTIONS are appended to the acpid command-line

#OPTIONS=""



# Linux kernel modules to load before starting acpid

#

# MODULES is a space seperated list of modules to load, or "all" to load all

# acpi drivers, or commented out to load no module

#MODULES="battery ac processor button fan thermal video"

MODULES="all"

mpyusko@hal9000:/etc/default$

now I get....

Code:

mpyusko@hal9000:/etc$ cpufreq-info

cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009

Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: acpi-cpufreq

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.

  hardware limits: 600 MHz - 1.80 GHz

  available frequency steps: 1.80 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.20 GHz, 1000 MHz, 800 MHz, 600 MHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative, userspace, powersave, ondemand, performance

  current policy: frequency should be within 600 MHz and 1.80 GHz.

                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 600 MHz.

  cpufreq stats: 1.80 GHz:26.34%, 1.60 GHz:0.69%, 1.40 GHz:0.74%, 1.20 GHz:1.12%, 1000 MHz:1.30%, 800 MHz:0.78%, 600 MHz:69.04%  (902)

mpyusko@hal9000:/etc$

4 minutes after rebooting, and loading KDE, The CPU dropped to 600MHz and now I have this....

Code:

mpyusko@hal9000:/etc/default$ cpufreq-info

cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009

Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: acpi-cpufreq

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.

  hardware limits: 600 MHz - 1.80 GHz

  available frequency steps: 1.80 GHz, 1.60 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.20 GHz, 1000 MHz, 800 MHz, 600 MHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative, userspace, powersave, ondemand, performance

  current policy: frequency should be within 600 MHz and 600 MHz.

                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 600 MHz.

  cpufreq stats: 1.80 GHz:37.17%, 1.60 GHz:0.73%, 1.40 GHz:0.67%, 1.20 GHz:0.85%, 1000 MHz:1.34%, 800 MHz:1.02%, 600 MHz:58.21%  (2853)

mpyusko@hal9000:/etc/default$

I rebooted again and waited in the console for over 10 minutes and the CPU stayed happy at 600 - 1800 MHz. Within a few minutes of loading KDE the computer dropped and stayed locked at 600 - 600MHz. What is KDE loading that the console isn't?

Edit (several hours later): /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/94cpufreq ... I chmod'd to 644. We'll see if it works.

Edit (Seven more minutes later): Nope, didn't work.

Edit (Another hour later): I rebooted and started using Gnome. Not as much running, but eventually, while downloading updates, the fan kicked on and the processor dropped and locked 600/600 again. I noticed that happened the last time too. But the strange part is even after the CPU cools, won't restore the speed. Still searching.... I never had this issue with Lenny.

Have you a kernel source? run make -j10 in the kernel and see if the cpu sweats. If it does, relax. You have 'enough' cpu.