# ondemand + cpufrequtils ... lower idle speed?

## Genewb

Ok, I've finally got cpufrequtils working (thanks to the fix in this bug) ... But I'm a bit disappointed that ondemand only takes the processor (C2Q) down to 1.6GHz when the core is completely idle.

I haven't had an Intel processor for a long time, and I certainly haven't had one with SpeedStep, but I was under the impression that SpeedStep clamped down really hard compared with PowerNow.

Is it possible to get ondemand to automatically set each core lower than 1.6GHz on idle?

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## vaxbrat

on a Turion laptop.  cpufreqd goes ondemand on ac-adapter but I still see the freq maxxed even tho it's sitting around with its thumb up its posterior.  I may switch it to conservative on next boot to see what happens.

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## Ingmarv

 *vaxbrat wrote:*   

> I may switch it to conservative on next boot to see what happens.

 

You can just do :

```
cpufreq-set -g conservative
```

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## vaxbrat

I changed my profile to switch to conservative but the freq was still maxxed out when I looked at it in /sys<mumble>

It didn't actually clock downward until I pulled the plug and it switched to powersave profile.  Curious thing, since I was seeing well below the 20% trigger that I thought would get ondemand and conservative to switch things downward.  I think I need to take another look at the docs.

To add further insult, it looks like the latest laptop-mode update has borked suspend when I close the lid.  <sigh>

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## vaxbrat

kde got me again.  Every once in a while, a kde update will want to have me back into control panel to reset the helper app for acpi support.  It would appear that the kde controls take precedence for profile adjustments.

Strange thing now is my keyboard goes away every once in a while when doing a resume from suspect and I have to do a full restart.  Mouse is still fine.  Not sure if it's something with kernel 21 or what.

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## Genewb

Does anyone know whether this is possible?

Available frequencies only lists 240000 and 160000, even though logically with 9*fsb and 6*fsb available, 3*fsb should be available as well. Does it just require a configuration, or a simple hack of ondemand/conservative?

Another question: If I overclock it, will ondemand automatically adjust and set it 6* and 9* of that frequency without throwing an error?

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## Genewb

This is very strange:

When clocked at 2.7GHz, scaling_available_frequencies gives 900000 600000 (900MHz, 600MHz) Surely something's wrong there?

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## eccerr0r

A lot of these depend on the hardware.

On my P4 it has hardware support for ( 1-8 )/8 clock frequency scaling, and in cpufreq it shows the un-overclocked scaling frequencies (i.e. it ignores overclock to show frequencies).

On my P-M, it uses speedstep and shows 600MHz-1600MHz in 8 steps which is kind of weird.

Basically it boils down to whatever the hardware says it can support (depending on the driver, P4-modulation, speedstep, acpi, powernow, etc.).  FSB multiples do not necessarily correspond to frequencies available...

(oh btw, I've found my p4 does not seem to noticeably use much more power when running HLT at 2.4GHz or 300MHz, so I stopped clocking down with cpufreq.)

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