freebsd stable - May 2015 - CPU frequency doesn't drop below 1200MHz (like it used to)

On Fri, 22 May 2015 20:26:40 +0300, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
 > On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 8:19 PM, Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au>
wrote:
 > > On Fri, 22 May 2015 16:28:49 +0300, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
 > >  > On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 10:42 AM, Ivan Klymenko <fidaj at
ukr.net> wrote:
[..]
 > >> Try changing the options in /boot/device.hints
 > >> hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled="0"
 > >> hint.p4tcc.0.disabled="0"
 > >
 > >  > Thanks, those also fixed powerd(8) for me that stopped working
after
 > >  > upgrading to stable/10 from releng/10.1. Why are those setting
 > >  > suddenly needed now?
 > >  >
 > >  > -Kimmo
[..]
 > > Can you say exactly in what way powerd stopped working then?
 > 
 > Powerd(8) complained (excerpt from dmesg -a):
 > 
 > Starting powerd.
 > powerd: no cpufreq(4) support -- aborting: No such file or directory
 > /etc/rc: WARNING: failed to start powerd
 > 
 > Putting those two settings in loader.conf and rebooting fixed the
 > problem and powerd started working again apparently because cpufreq(4)
 > device was available again.

Ok, if anabling acpi_throttle and/or p4tcc made cpufreq - and thus 
powerd - work for you, then it seems likely that you do not have EST 
enabled in your BIOS.  Or at least, we've seen another instance where 
that was the case, which was fixed by enabling EST (or however your
particular BIOS refers to it .. AMD for example use different terms).

What CPU is this?  In what machine?

If EST (ono) IS enabled in your BIOS, this needs further investigation.  

As is, powerd may be running, but it's doing so highly inefficiently; 
refer to Stefan, Adrian and Kevin's responses for details.

cheers, Ian

On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au>
wrote:
> On Fri, 22 May 2015 20:26:40 +0300, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
>  > On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 8:19 PM, Ian Smith <smithi at
nimnet.asn.au> wrote:
>  > > On Fri, 22 May 2015 16:28:49 +0300, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
>  > >  > On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 10:42 AM, Ivan Klymenko <fidaj
at ukr.net> wrote:
> [..]
>  > >> Try changing the options in /boot/device.hints
>  > >> hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled="0"
>  > >> hint.p4tcc.0.disabled="0"
>  > >
>  > >  > Thanks, those also fixed powerd(8) for me that stopped
working after
>  > >  > upgrading to stable/10 from releng/10.1. Why are those
setting
>  > >  > suddenly needed now?
>  > >  >
>  > >  > -Kimmo
> [..]
>  > > Can you say exactly in what way powerd stopped working then?
>  >
>  > Powerd(8) complained (excerpt from dmesg -a):
>  >
>  > Starting powerd.
>  > powerd: no cpufreq(4) support -- aborting: No such file or directory
>  > /etc/rc: WARNING: failed to start powerd
>  >
>  > Putting those two settings in loader.conf and rebooting fixed the
>  > problem and powerd started working again apparently because
cpufreq(4)
>  > device was available again.
>
> Ok, if anabling acpi_throttle and/or p4tcc made cpufreq - and thus
> powerd - work for you, then it seems likely that you do not have EST
> enabled in your BIOS.  Or at least, we've seen another instance where
> that was the case, which was fixed by enabling EST (or however your
> particular BIOS refers to it .. AMD for example use different terms).
>
> What CPU is this?  In what machine?
>
> If EST (ono) IS enabled in your BIOS, this needs further investigation.
>
> As is, powerd may be running, but it's doing so highly inefficiently;
> refer to Stefan, Adrian and Kevin's responses for details.
>
> cheers, Ian
It's an Intel Atom running amd64 version of FreeBSD stable/10:

FreeBSD firewall.rdnzl.info 10.1-STABLE FreeBSD 10.1-STABLE #1
r283292: Sat May 23 01:08:03 EEST 2015
root at firewall.rdnzl.info:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64

CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D510   @ 1.66GHz (1666.68-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin="GenuineIntel"  Id=0x106ca  Family=0x6  Model=0x1c 
Stepping=10
 
Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE>
 
Features2=0x40e31d<SSE3,DTES64,MON,DS_CPL,TM2,SSSE3,CX16,xTPR,PDCM,MOVBE>
  AMD Features=0x20100800<SYSCALL,NX,LM>
  AMD Features2=0x1<LAHF>
  TSC: P-state invariant, performance statistics

Powerd was working on 10.1-RELEASE but stopped working after upgrade
to 10-STABLE and nothing was changed in BIOS settings.

However, reading the other replies to this thread I get the impression
that powerd(8) doesn't actually save energy on this platform and I'm
better off without it?

-Kimmo