From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Len Brown Subject: Re: Information request about acpi Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:22:53 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: References: <20110716235937.56583bwlckigm4sp@webmail.ens-lyon.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Return-path: Received: from vms173013pub.verizon.net ([206.46.173.13]:49785 "EHLO vms173013pub.verizon.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751668Ab1GPWXN (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:23:13 -0400 Received: from localhost.localdomain ([unknown] [65.175.195.226]) by vms173013.mailsrvcs.net (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.02 32bit (built Apr 16 2009)) with ESMTPA id <0LOG00A7666607E1@vms173013.mailsrvcs.net> for linux-acpi@vger.kernel.org; Sat, 16 Jul 2011 17:23:11 -0500 (CDT) In-reply-to: <20110716235937.56583bwlckigm4sp@webmail.ens-lyon.fr> Sender: linux-acpi-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-acpi@vger.kernel.org To: Ghislain Landry Tsafack Chetsa Cc: linux-acpi@vger.kernel.org > Sorry for disturbing, I am Tsafack Ghislain Landry, Ph.D. student at Ecole > Normale Superieure of Lyon, France. I have been trying to scale the frequency > on my Intel E5506 Xeon processor via the cpufreq_acpi driver unfortunately (I > have tested that feature using the following linux kernel versions : 2.6.32, > 2.6.38, 2.6.39, 2.6.39.3, and 3.0.rc7). This a sample output > > # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq > 2128000 > #echo 1862000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed > # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed > 1862000 > # cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq > 2128000 > > I have tried using the cpufreq-set util as well, but the result is the same. > > bellow is the content of the /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/info file. I was > wandering whether the "no" value of the parameters throttling control, limit > interface can fully explain that behavior. they are unrelated to this issue. > cat /proc/acpi/processor/CPU0/info > processor id: 0 > acpi id: 1 > bus mastering control: no > power management: yes > throttling control: no > limit interface: no It is likely that you are obsering the effects of "hardware coordination." Although Linux treats all the cores as independent, and even treats HT threads as independent, they actually have dependencies. In particular, all threads inside a package share the same voltage regulator. So in a package if one core asks to go fast and another asks to go slow, the voltage will coordinated by hardware to support the most demanding request. Since it is always a good idea to go at he maximum speed suported by the available voltage, the cpu that requests slow will also go fast, the same speed as his peer. boot with "maxcpus=1" and try again -- or control the speeds of the other threads on the system accordingly. cheers, -Len Brown, Intel Open Source Technology Center