[REGRESSION] Intel Turbo Boost stuck disabled on some Clevo machines (was: [PATCH] cpufreq: intel_pstate: Unchecked MSR aceess in legacy mode)

Aaron Rainbolt
2025-09-10T16:37:13Z

On Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:29:09 +0200
"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@kernel.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 11:07 PM Srinivas Pandruvada
> <srinivas.pandruvada@linux.intel.com> wrote:
> >
> > When turbo mode is unavailable on a Skylake-X system, executing the
> > command:
> > "echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo"
> > results in an unchecked MSR access error: WRMSR to 0x199
> > (attempted to write 0x0000000100001300).
> >
> > This issue was reproduced on an OEM (Original Equipment
> > Manufacturer) system and is not a common problem across all
> > Skylake-X systems.
> >
> > This error occurs because the MSR 0x199 Turbo Engage Bit (bit 32)
> > is set when turbo mode is disabled. The issue arises when
> > intel_pstate fails to detect that turbo mode is disabled. Here
> > intel_pstate relies on MSR_IA32_MISC_ENABLE bit 38 to determine the
> > status of turbo mode. However, on this system, bit 38 is not set
> > even when turbo mode is disabled.
> >
> > According to the Intel Software Developer's Manual (SDM), the BIOS
> > sets this bit during platform initialization to enable or disable
> > opportunistic processor performance operations. Logically, this bit
> > should be set in such cases. However, the SDM also specifies that
> > "OS and applications must use CPUID leaf 06H to detect processors
> > with opportunistic processor performance operations enabled."
> >
> > Therefore, in addition to checking MSR_IA32_MISC_ENABLE bit 38,
> > verify that CPUID.06H:EAX[1] is 0 to accurately determine if turbo
> > mode is disabled.
> >
> > Fixes: 4521e1a0ce17 ("cpufreq: intel_pstate: Reflect current
> > no_turbo state correctly") Signed-off-by: Srinivas Pandruvada
> > <srinivas.pandruvada@linux.intel.com> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> > ---
> > drivers/cpufreq/intel_pstate.c | 3 +++
> > 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/drivers/cpufreq/intel_pstate.c
> > b/drivers/cpufreq/intel_pstate.c index f41ed0b9e610..ba9bf06f1c77
> > 100644 --- a/drivers/cpufreq/intel_pstate.c
> > +++ b/drivers/cpufreq/intel_pstate.c
> > @@ -598,6 +598,9 @@ static bool turbo_is_disabled(void)
> > {
> > u64 misc_en;
> >
> > + if (!cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_IDA))
> > + return true;
> > +
> > rdmsrl(MSR_IA32_MISC_ENABLE, misc_en);
> >
> > return !!(misc_en & MSR_IA32_MISC_ENABLE_TURBO_DISABLE);
> > --
>
> Applied as a fix for 6.15-rc, thanks!
>

FYI, this seems to have broken turbo boost on some Clevo systems with
an Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU. These CPUs obviously support turbo boost,
and kernels without this commit have turbo boost working properly, but
after this commit turbo boost is stuck disabled and cannot be
enabled by writing to /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo. I
made a bug report about this against Ubuntu's kernel at [1], which is
the only report I know that is able to point to this commit as having
broken things. However, it looks like an Arch Linux user [2] and a
Gentoo user [3] are running into the same thing.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-hwe-6.14/+bug/2122531

[2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=305564

[3] https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8866128.html?sid=e97619cff0d9c79c2eea2cfe8f60b0d3