Disable CPU scaling or force CPU speed not working in 12.04

**elfuego** · July 28th, 2012

I already noticed that many people have the same or similar issue, like here but I found no decent answers so far.

I have a reliable but very slow Asus eeepc 901. In all the previous ubuntu versions I had on this netbook locking CPU speed to maximum (1.6Ghz) worked flawlessly. After the update to 12.04, the best I can get is "performance", which as you can see from the cpu-info drops the speed to 1.3Ghz. I tried forcing the governor with

Code:

# cpufreq-set -u 1.6Ghz -d 1.6Ghz

and it sets the speed to 1.6Ghz for a random amount of time which can vary from 3 seconds to 5 minutes and then I have to repeat the command. This speed droping issue also occurs with 100% CPU usage which is really annoying. I guess I could write a script that repeats this command every 3 sec while the computer is active to make sure it stays at maximum, or I could just destroy all governors and leave only 1.60Ghz as available speed,
but is there a more elegant solution or at least an explanation why the speed drop occurs?

Code:

cpufrequtils 007: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.
  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 1.60 GHz
  available frequency steps: 1.60 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1.07 GHz, 800 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1.60 GHz and 1.60 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1.60 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
  cpufreq stats: 1.60 GHz:60.39%, 1.33 GHz:39.61%, 1.07 GHz:0.00%, 800 MHz:0.00%  (458)
analyzing CPU 1:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 1
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 1
  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.
  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 1.60 GHz
  available frequency steps: 1.60 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1.07 GHz, 800 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1.60 GHz and 1.60 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1.60 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).
  cpufreq stats: 1.60 GHz:59.61%, 1.33 GHz:40.39%, 1.07 GHz:0.00%, 800 MHz:0.00%  (460)

**sid0972** · July 28th, 2012

maybe 12.04 supports the concept of turbo, in which case the speed is max (1.6 GHz) when there is process going on consuming CPU cycles, and drops to 1.3 when near idle??
just a thought,
try installing GPU-G, and see the clocks of your processor at two times
1) While compressing a file
2) when doing ABSOLUTELY nothing

from the log you have shown above, speed should be 1.6GHZ when compressing, and 1.33 or 1.07GHz or 800Mhz when idle

solution apart from your's?
no idea mate

**elfuego** · July 29th, 2012

Originally Posted by sid0972

maybe 12.04 supports the concept of turbo, in which case the speed is max (1.6 GHz) when there is process going on consuming CPU cycles, and drops to 1.3 when near idle??

The problem is, as I said, the CPU speed also drops when CPU load is 100% or close to 100% (compiling/flash playing/SQL query/PHP script executing etc.)

I guess I'll just remove all the governors and see if that brings something. BTW, thanks for CPU-Z, never knew it existed for linux

Update: CPU drops *only* under load. In idle, its 1.60Ghz. Now this really, really sucks.

**Yellow Pasque** · July 29th, 2012

Make sure your CPU temp isn't getting too high and causing it to throttle back.

**elfuego** · July 31st, 2012

Originally Posted by Temüjin

Make sure your CPU temp isn't getting too high and causing it to throttle back.

Thanks for the reply. The CPU isnt overheating, we are talking about intel Atom first generation here - he is as cold as mother-in-laws heart.

The problem was solved elegantly by disabling speed step in BIOS and general tardiness of the system was solved by installing Lubuntu instead. Now the system feels as if the small atom is a pure-blooded core i7 - it feels faster then Core 2 Duo w/NVIDIA GT355 on gnome

Great job Lubuntu devs!