I'm starting a new thread since my problems do not seem directly related to the nvidia drivers, and the other thread(s) sort of diverged. :) I'm very grateful to everyone who has provided suggestions, and I am happy to report that I have powerd working fine about 90% of the time now that I have disabled throttling. About 1/10 boots I get the "X begins but doesn't finish" problem that I've described previously, and finally resulted in the panic that I just sent to the list. More below ... b. f. wrote: > On 12/21/09, Doug Barton <dougb_at_freebsd.org> wrote: >> Doug Barton wrote: >>> I did, but the problem got worse. With the following: >>> performance_cx_lowest="C2" # Online CPU idle state >>> economy_cx_lowest="C2" # Offline CPU idle state > > I don't see any obvious problems in your listings. But since > others have reported difficulties when using the nvidia driver with > both throttling and powerd(8), why don't you disable throttling, > and see what happens?: Ok, I did not only that, but I went the whole hog on the recommendations listed at http://wiki.freebsd.org/TuningPowerConsumption hw.pci.do_power_nodriver=3 hint.p4tcc.0.disabled=1 hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled=1 hint.apic.0.clock=0 kern.hz=100 hint.atrtc.0.clock=0 hint.pcm.0.buffersize=65536 hint.pcm.1.buffersize=65536 hw.snd.feeder_buffersize=65536 hw.snd.latency=7 I also have in rc.conf: performance_cpu_freq="NONE" # Online CPU frequency economy_cpu_freq="NONE" # Offline CPU frequency performance_cx_lowest="C3" # Online CPU idle state economy_cx_lowest="C3" # Offline CPU idle state The combination of all these has resulted in the hw.acpi.thermal.tz0.temperature at idle of around 68-72C, and in "normal" use between 75-80C, which is back to where it used to be. If I add powerd: powerd_flags="-a adaptive -b adaptive -n adaptive" It drops the temp further. It idles in the low 60s and gets up to the high 60s - low 70s for extra work (like "compact folders" in thunderbird). Also, the occasional "flicker" on the screen that I used to experience with powerd is gone, I assume because it and throttling are no longer fighting one another. > in /boot/device.hints or /boot/loader.conf. Make sure that > dev.cpu.0.freq_levels, dev.est.0.freq_settings, etc. show a > reasonable range of frequencies, Those 3 all show the same ranges: 2333/31000 2000/26000 1667/22000 1333/17000 1000/13000 > and that your cpus are using the lowest when lightly loaded. I assume that you mean dev.cpu.0.freq? That seems to stay at 1000 when the system is lightly loaded. If I toggle debug.cpufreq.verbose and watch the log I get something like this: cpufreq: skipping info-only driver acpi_perf1 cpufreq: adding abs setting 2333 at head cpufreq: adding abs setting 2000 after 2333 cpufreq: adding abs setting 1667 after 2000 cpufreq: adding abs setting 1333 after 1667 cpufreq: adding abs setting 1000 after 1333 cpufreq: setting abs freq 1000 on est1 (cpu 1) cpufreq: get returning known freq 1000 last message repeated 123 times Which all seems nice. > If they don't, or if there continue to > be problems, consider setting debug.cpufreq.lowest to remove > problematic frequencies, as in cpufreq(4). That one is a bit weird, since it's currently set to 0. > And keep an eye on the > reported temperatures, because the computer may run hotter without > throttling. Can you run X without problems? Yes, I've run X on it all along. > You may also want to try: > > hint.ata.0.pm_level=1 What will that do? > I also think that ~75C is a bit high for a lightly loaded machine. Agreed, the 65-70C that it is averaging now with all the settings above is a lot healthier in my opinion. This laptop has always run hot, it's endemic to the breed, but there is hot and then there is HOT. > Earlier, you said that you noticed an increase in operating > temperatures, beginning several weeks ago. Do you remember typical > values for the temperatures before the increase? Yes, it was common for the temp to stay somewhere in the 70s for typical light usage (X, thunderbird, firefox, pidgin) and jump into the high 80s to low 90s when building world, especially with -j2. > Did you increase the machine's workload, or change BIOS settings? No. > What temperatures > are reported under Windows with power-saving when the machine is > lightly loaded? I found an interesting utility called "Speed Fan." It has a very thorough list of temperatures from various things (assuming it is to be believed). Here is an "average" reading: GPU: 86C HD0: 48C Temp1: 76C Core0: 70C Core1: 71C Core: 80C DIMM: 80C Temp4: 64C That seemed to indicate (as someone else mentioned) that the GPU is actually the culprit in terms of the major heat source. > You said that you blew out the ducts and grilles, > but did you look to see that there were no remaining obstructions > afterward? I had some repair work done on this laptop almost a year ago where they removed everything to put in a new motherboard, although I haven't had the case open since. I visually inspected the ducts/grilles from the outside, but I haven't had it open yet. I plan to do that soonish, but I've been busy with the holidays, etc. > Have you looked to see if the heat sink is firmly > seated on the cpu, with no air gap, but only an adequate amount of > thermal interface material between the two? No, I don't know for sure. I will take a look at it when I have the case open. Thanks again, Doug -- Improve the effectiveness of your Internet presence with a domain name makeover! http://SupersetSolutions.com/Received on Sun Dec 27 2009 - 00:17:47 UTC
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