graysky
March 30th, 2009, 07:24 PM
If I'm not mistaken, Intrepid comes pre-configured with powernowd which dynamically controls your CPU scaling based on your actual CPU load. CPU scaling = throttling or speedsteping of your processor. Most modern processors have this native as a power-savings/heat reduction feature.
The defaults for powernowd are low multiplier when CPU load is <=20 % and high multiplier when CPU load >=80 %. I don't like these settings because there are times when an application uses my CPU but the load doesn't hit 20 % (tar for example) and therefore my CPU multiplier is only 6x when it could be 8.5x.
Changing these 20/80 options is trivial. Simply edit your /etc/defaults/powernowd to select a more responsive range. I'm using 10/20 on my system. In other words, low multiplier when load is <=10 % and high multiplier when load is >=20 %.
Physically, edit your /etc/defaults/powernowd:
OPTIONS="-q -u 20 -l 10"
If 20/10 isn't to your liking, use whatever you want. A more agressive setting might be "-q -u 10 -l 5" for example. As you can infer, the -u defines the upper range (i.e. when load hits this value, full power) and -l defines the lower range (i.e. when load drops to this value, drop the multiplier).
Enjoy!
The defaults for powernowd are low multiplier when CPU load is <=20 % and high multiplier when CPU load >=80 %. I don't like these settings because there are times when an application uses my CPU but the load doesn't hit 20 % (tar for example) and therefore my CPU multiplier is only 6x when it could be 8.5x.
Changing these 20/80 options is trivial. Simply edit your /etc/defaults/powernowd to select a more responsive range. I'm using 10/20 on my system. In other words, low multiplier when load is <=10 % and high multiplier when load is >=20 %.
Physically, edit your /etc/defaults/powernowd:
OPTIONS="-q -u 20 -l 10"
If 20/10 isn't to your liking, use whatever you want. A more agressive setting might be "-q -u 10 -l 5" for example. As you can infer, the -u defines the upper range (i.e. when load hits this value, full power) and -l defines the lower range (i.e. when load drops to this value, drop the multiplier).
Enjoy!