Re: power consumption (was: xorg +XGI Volari XP5)

[Freddie Cash <fcash-ml@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On April 26, 2005 03:57 pm, Matthew Dillon wrote:
> :On Tue, Apr 26, 2005, Matthew Dillon wrote:
> :>     above and beyond basic cpu frequency controls, and I'm fairly
> :> sure that the Turion just has the basic stuff.

> :What about Cool&Quiet? (you might remember that I asked before
> :whether it's supported in DragonFly to which the answer was "No"
> :(not yet); it seems only FreeBSD 5.x supports it; setting it in
> :the BIOS does not have an effect).

>     Not sure what you mean.   The fan controls are automatic.  Cpu
>     frequency is controlled by ACPI.  It's possible that FreeBSD 5 has
>     some support in there that we could port beyond the frequency
>     controls we already have, so the question is... in what way does
>     FreeBSD 5.x support cool and quiet?

FreeBSD 6-CURRENT includes the cpufreq(4) framework that supports absolute 
and relative CPU frequency control, via SpeedStep, Enhanced SpeedStep, 
PowerNow!, Cool'n Quiet, P4 Thermal Control Circuitry, and a few others I 
don't recall offhand.  There's also work underway to support a few others 
like Transmeta's LongRun and whatever VIA's CPUs use.

There's also the acpi_perf(4) support (merged into cpufreq(4) recently) for 
ACPI Throttling support, as well as other relative CPU frequency controls.

The cpufreq(4) framework was MFC'd to RELENG_5, although none of the actual 
drivers were MFC'd (scheduled for after 5.4).  acpi_perf(4) and 
kernel-levek P4TCC support is included in RELENG_5 and provides for ACPI 
throttling and P4TCC throttling.

CPU frequency is controlled manually via sysctl (and rc.conf), or 
automatically via the powerd(8) daemon.

No idea how hard / easy / worthwhile it would be to bring these over to 
DFly.  Would depend on close the ACPI support is between the two, I'd 
think.

-- 
Freddie Cash, CLCP CNCP            Network Support / Helpdesk
School District 73                 (250) 377-4357
fcash-ml@xxxxxxxxxx