Re: powerd and nvidia drivers not playing nicely together (Was: Re: Systems running hot?)

From: Kevin Oberman <oberman_at_es.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:24:12 -0800
> Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:46:26 +0100
> From: Bernd Walter <ticso_at_cicely7.cicely.de>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org
> 
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 04:44:35PM +0200, Gleb Kurtsou wrote:
> > On (21/12/2009 19:18), Doug Barton wrote:
> > > b. f. wrote:
> > > > On 12/21/09, Doug Barton <dougb_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> > > >> b. f. wrote:
> > > >>>> no X! So I think to myself, what else did I change last night.... oh
> > > > 
> > > >>> acpi_perf? acpi_throttle? acpi_thermal? acpi_video?
> > > >> I haven't done anything special with the acpi stuff. The only thing
> > > >> that looks relevant from dmesg is: acpi_tz0: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
> > > >>
> > > > 
> > > > Yes, but which components show up in 'sysctl -a | grep -ie acpi' ?
> > > 
> > > It's a long list, but here you go:
> > > http://people.freebsd.org/~dougb/acpi-grep.txt
> > > 
> > > >>> Which nvidia driver?
> > > >> The latest.
> > > > 
> > > > Which video card?
> > > 
> > > nvidia0: <GeForce Go 7300>
> > I had similar problems with GeForce 8400M. GPU temperature could get up
> > to 100C in X, which increased CPU temperature in its turn.  I use
> > powerd, and had lockups with *_cx_lowest settings. I run amd64, i386 was
> > just fine on the same notebook. 
> 
> It is not just nvidia.
> I'm using two plain old PCI Matrox G400 and whenever I start X with
> powerd enabled I have a full freeze within 24 hours.
> It doesn't seem to be a problem to start powerd once X is runnning.
> Maybe it is something like tuning some delay loop with reduced clock
> rate, which then isn't long enough with increased speed.

Quick question...are you using throttling/TCC? If so, either turn it off
or limit how low it can run the CPU. When I was running throttling on
systems with old Matrox and Radeon cards, they would freeze if the
throttling went too low.

As mav pointed out at http://wiki.freebsd.org/TuningPowerConsumption,
TCC does little to conserve power and was not designed for that. TCC is
Thermal Control Circuit and is designed to keep the CPU form
over-temping. It works for this, but not power management. I'd love to
see it off (for power management) by default.
hint.p4tcc.0.disabled=1
hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled=1
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman_at_es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
Received on Thu Dec 24 2009 - 15:24:24 UTC

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