Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-amd64 (380 mails)

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stuck in first gear
  • From: Jonathan Breeze <breezejd@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 13:40:45 +0000 (UTC)
  • Message-id: <403F4A91.2060902@xxxxxxxxxx>
I have installed SuSe 9.0 x86_64 on a laptop with AMD64 3200+ cpu. The machine is based on a Mitac motherboard (Radeon 9600 etc.).

Installation was fine, but when I did 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' it only registered a speed of 800MHz. Oh dear! Where's the rest of the speed? Running an intensive application quickly confirmed my fears, no increase in speed at all. In Windows XP the speed increased according to the load (as did the the noise from the fan). But I don't want to work in Windows ...

I tried 'rccpufreqd start' but the daemon wouldn't start ... 'starting cpufreqd skipped' . grep cpugreqd /var/log/messages revealed 'CPU frequency scaling not supported with current settings! Is this machine supporting speedstep or powernow technology? Please have a look in /etc/sysconfig/powermanagement'.
So I tried setting CPUFREQD_MODULE to "powernow-k8". rccpufreqd start resulted in 'failed' ... grep -> "CPU frequency scaling not supported".

I checked the kernel configuration which says that frequency scaling is supported as a loadable module.
I checked for the module and there it is at /lib/


A quick check using insmod revealed that the powernow-k8.o module woud not load into the kernel.

Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

a look with dmesg revealed something interesting;

amd64-cpuf: version 1.00.06 - August 13, 2003
amd64-cpuf: Found AMD Athlon 64 / Opteron processor supporting p-state transitions
amd64-cpuf: voltage stabilization time: 5 (units 20us)
amd64-cpuf: p states on battery: 0 - all available
amd64-cpuf: ramp voltage offset: 2
amd64-cpuf: isochronous relief time: 0
amd64-cpuf: maximum voltage step: 0 - 0x1
amd64-cpuf: BIOS error - numpst must be 1

numpst : number of p state is wrong ... a problem with the BIOS it would seem. The BIOS is Insyde Software MobilPro Revision 4.00.05 BIOS version 1.02 .

I've reached as far as my meager knowledge will take me.

Is there anything I can do to get my computer into top gear ??


--
Jonathan Breeze
Research Fellow
Centre for Physical Electronics and Materials
London South Bank University
103 Borough Road
London
SE1 0AA

Tel: +44(0)20 7815 7582
Fax: +44(0)20 7815 7599



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