Fan running with Intel Graphics

Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Johannes Bauer]

Hi list,

I hope that this is the right place to come. I have a Dell Latitude
E5520 Laptop (Sandy Bridge, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2520M CPU @ 2.50GHz)
and I'm using the Intel graphics driver that ships with Ubuntu (3.0.0
kernel):

joelaptop [~]: lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd
Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
[8086:0126] (rev 09)

joelaptop [~]: dpkg -l | grep xorg | grep int
ii  xserver-xorg-video-intel               2:2.15.901-1ubuntu2.1
           X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver

I have one problem with this setup, however: The fan is running all the
time. It annoys the shit out of me. The reason why I suspect that
something might be off with the graphics card driver is that in
framebuffer mode, the fan is off. Only when I type in the password to my
cryptofs (which leaves the framebuffer and starts Xorg) the fan starts
running almost instantaniously.

And it's not even doing *anything*, the CPUs are all at almost 0%
(therefore I don't think there's much heat coming from there). I'm not
doing heavy graphics (not even light graphics, not even moving the mouse!).

How can I measure the graphics card load? Would it improve anything if I
compiled a kernel myself and switched to 3.1? Is there anything at all I
can do?

Best regards,
Joe

Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Jesse Barnes]

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On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:12:12 +0100
Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> wrote:
> And it's not even doing *anything*, the CPUs are all at almost 0%
> (therefore I don't think there's much heat coming from there). I'm not
> doing heavy graphics (not even light graphics, not even moving the mouse!).
> 
> How can I measure the graphics card load? Would it improve anything if I
> compiled a kernel myself and switched to 3.1? Is there anything at all I
> can do?

In the console, as root, can you:

$ cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_cur_delayinfo | grep Lowest

then echo that value into the max freq file, e.g.:

$ echo 400 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_max_freq

then try logging in and doing stuff.  If that fixes your fan issue, it
means the GPU frequency is to blame.  I think Eugeni is working on a
nice API to let users control perf vs power a bit better than our
current default of "try to run as fast as possible under any load, even
a tiny one".

-- 
Jesse Barnes, Intel Open Source Technology Center

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Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Johannes Bauer]

Hi Jesse,

wow - that was fast! :-)

Am 13.12.2011 22:23, schrieb Jesse Barnes:
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:12:12 +0100
> Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> wrote:
>> And it's not even doing *anything*, the CPUs are all at almost 0%
>> (therefore I don't think there's much heat coming from there). I'm not
>> doing heavy graphics (not even light graphics, not even moving the mouse!).
>>
>> How can I measure the graphics card load? Would it improve anything if I
>> compiled a kernel myself and switched to 3.1? Is there anything at all I
>> can do?
> 
> In the console, as root, can you:
> 
> $ cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_cur_delayinfo | grep Lowest

Okay:

joelaptop [/sys/kernel/debug/dri]: cat
/sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_cur_delayinfo | grep Lowest
Lowest (RPN) frequency: 650MHz

> then echo that value into the max freq file, e.g.:
> 
> $ echo 400 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_max_freq

This doesn't work for

joelaptop [/sys/kernel/debug/dri]: uname -a
Linux joelaptop 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 20:28:43 UTC
2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Since i915_max_freq does not exist -- do I need to switch to a more
recent kernel version?

I also noted that dri/ has two subdirectories, 0 and 64. Does this mean
anything?

Best regards and thank you for your help,
Joe

Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Jesse Barnes]

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On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:30:42 +0100
Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> wrote:
> > then echo that value into the max freq file, e.g.:
> > 
> > $ echo 400 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_max_freq
> 
> This doesn't work for
> 
> joelaptop [/sys/kernel/debug/dri]: uname -a
> Linux joelaptop 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 20:28:43 UTC
> 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> 
> Since i915_max_freq does not exist -- do I need to switch to a more
> recent kernel version?

Yes.  Try running drm-intel-next from Keith's git tree:
git://people.freedesktop.org/~keithp/linux

> I also noted that dri/ has two subdirectories, 0 and 64. Does this mean
> anything?

You can ignore the "64" directory, it's currently unused.

-- 
Jesse Barnes, Intel Open Source Technology Center

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Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Eugeni Dodonov]

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On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 19:23, Jesse Barnes <jbarnes@virtuousgeek.org>wrote:

>
> If that fixes your fan issue, it
> means the GPU frequency is to blame.  I think Eugeni is working on a
> nice API to let users control perf vs power a bit better than our
> current default of "try to run as fast as possible under any load, even
> a tiny one".
>

Slowly, but yes :).

But so far, setting the max_frequency manually is the only way to control
this. This will make your card run on the slowest frequency at all time and
in theory should improve the power consumption.

But meanwhile, for better understanding what is going on with your machine,
could you setup some thermal sensors and check what do they say about
temperature? And also check with powertop about what is using the most
power out there?

-- 
Eugeni Dodonov
<http://eugeni.dodonov.net/>

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Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Johannes Bauer]

Am 13.12.2011 22:46, schrieb Jesse Barnes:
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:30:42 +0100
> Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> wrote:
>>> then echo that value into the max freq file, e.g.:
>>>
>>> $ echo 400 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_max_freq
>>
>> This doesn't work for
>>
>> joelaptop [/sys/kernel/debug/dri]: uname -a
>> Linux joelaptop 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 20:28:43 UTC
>> 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>>
>> Since i915_max_freq does not exist -- do I need to switch to a more
>> recent kernel version?
> 
> Yes.  Try running drm-intel-next from Keith's git tree:
> git://people.freedesktop.org/~keithp/linux

Hmmm:

joelaptop [~/intel-graphics]: git pull
git://people.freedesktop.org/~keithp/linux
fatal: Couldn't find remote ref HEAD

Is the server currently down? Can I fetch it somewhere else?

Best regards,
Joe

Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Johannes Bauer]

Am 14.12.2011 03:49, schrieb Eugeni Dodonov:

> But meanwhile, for better understanding what is going on with your machine,
> could you setup some thermal sensors and check what do they say about
> temperature? And also check with powertop about what is using the most
> power out there?

Well, temperature as read by coretemp is around 60°C for the CPU, which
appears to be quite high for a completely idle device. There seems to be
some second sensor that I'm unable to read out which controls the fan,
however.

powertop seems nice -- but I have no clue on how to read it actually. Or
how to get to know what power which process actually draws. I can just
see that by far the application with the highest "Usage" is the X server
(around 10 times that of the second largest, which usually is

  7,1 ms/s      50,2        Process        /usr/bin/X :0 -auth
/var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none
453,5 µs/s      19,9        Interrupt      [6] tasklet(softirq)

But since I have no clue on how to read those values, they mean next to
nothing to me. On the "Idle Stats" page, the CPU is 99.8% of the time in
C7 mode.

The "frequency stats" show the CPU is clocked at 800Mhz (the lowest
setting).

The "Device Stats" also mean little to me: It looks like a part of lspci
(with always 100% usage), i.e.


            100,0%        Radio device: btusb
            100,0%        USB Device: usb-device-8087-0024
            100,0%        USB device: DW375 Bluetooth Module (Dell
Computer Corp)
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation
Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
            100,0%        Radio device: dell-laptop
            100,0%        Radio device: dell-laptop
            100,0%        Radio device: iwlagn
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation
Core Processor Family DRAM Controller
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation Centrino
Advanced-N 6205
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1
            100,0%        PCI Device: O2 Micro, Inc. Device 8321
            100,0%        USB device: EHCI Host Controller
            100,0%        PCI Device: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme
BCM5761 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 6
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1
            100,0%        PCI Device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller
            100,0%        PCI Device: O2 Micro, Inc. Device 13f7

And a few others with 0%. The "Tunables" I don't get at all. Some are
"Bad", some are "Good" -- but I can somehow switch how they are rated?
I'm confused.

Best regards,
Joe

Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Johannes Bauer]

Hi Jesse,

Am 15.12.2011 23:04, schrieb Johannes Bauer:

>> Yes.  Try running drm-intel-next from Keith's git tree:
>> git://people.freedesktop.org/~keithp/linux
> 
> Hmmm:

Sorry about being a moron. I completely missed the drm-intel-next branch
and wondered :-/

Now that I have it running and decelerated the graphics card speed, the
system runs in perfect silence. Thank you SO much.

It's absolutely fantastic that Intel is supporting Linux so beautifully.
Finally Linux users aren't stuck to using solely Nvidia cards. Brings a
tear to the eye!

Should we ever meet in person, beers are on me!
Best regards,
Joe

Re: Fan running with Intel Graphics

[Jesse Barnes]

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On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:04:21 +0100
Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> wrote:

> Am 13.12.2011 22:46, schrieb Jesse Barnes:
> > On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:30:42 +0100
> > Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> wrote:
> >>> then echo that value into the max freq file, e.g.:
> >>>
> >>> $ echo 400 > /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_max_freq
> >>
> >> This doesn't work for
> >>
> >> joelaptop [/sys/kernel/debug/dri]: uname -a
> >> Linux joelaptop 3.0.0-14-generic #23-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 21 20:28:43 UTC
> >> 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> >>
> >> Since i915_max_freq does not exist -- do I need to switch to a more
> >> recent kernel version?
> > 
> > Yes.  Try running drm-intel-next from Keith's git tree:
> > git://people.freedesktop.org/~keithp/linux
> 
> Hmmm:
> 
> joelaptop [~/intel-graphics]: git pull
> git://people.freedesktop.org/~keithp/linux
> fatal: Couldn't find remote ref HEAD
> 
> Is the server currently down? Can I fetch it somewhere else?

Just do a "git checkout drm-intel-next" at that point to get the dev
branch.

-- 
Jesse Barnes, Intel Open Source Technology Center

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