Power Consumption reduced after installing “cpufrequtils” pkg on AntiX21

[Member InZane84]

Hello all,
After installing AntiX21 I noticed that my CPU frequency was scaling pretty high while the system was IDLE. This was unusual. So I installed the “cpufrequtils” pkg with the intention of setting a governor. cpufrequtils set the “ondemand” governor after it installed.

Now my CPU frequency is more normal. Not ramping up so high while the system is idling.

CPU: 8-Core AMD FX-8350 (-MCP-) speed/min/max: 1404/1400/4000 MHz Kernel: 5.10.57-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64

[Member ModdIt]

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Thanks for the tip InZane84,
hard to know if this really saves much energy, but it does govern frequency on demand nicely on my I5 2500K.
What we really have to appreciate is antiX is designed for much less powerful devices, many have fixed processor
frequency which is probably why the cpufreq utility is not distro standard.

• This reply was modified 12 months ago by ModdIt.

[Member InZane84]

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ModdIt wrote:

Thanks for the tip InZane84,
hard to know if this really saves much energy, but it does govern frequency on demand nicely on my I5 2500K.
What we really have to appreciate is antiX is designed for much less powerful devices, many have fixed processor
frequency which is probably why the cpufreq utility is not distro standard.

Yeah, if your cpu frequency is fixed then this is of no benefit.

[Member Robin]

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ModdIt wrote:

why the cpufreq utility is not distro standard

At least in antiX 19 full 32bit I see it is installed on my system:

$ apt-cache policy cpufrequtils
cpufrequtils:
  Installiert:           008-1.1
  Installationskandidat: 008-1.1
  Versionstabelle:
 *** 008-1.1 500
        500 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian buster/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I can’t remember of having installed it manually, I believe it was present after creating the USB from full ISO, and it manages the cpu frequency properly on a pentium m:
0,800/1,067/1,333/1,733 GHz.

So was it removed from antiX 21 or was it never present and I simply have forgotten I’ve actually installed it long ago?

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member marcelocripe]

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Using the command that Robin taught us in antiX 21:
Utilizando o comando que o Robin nos ensinou no antiX 21:

antiX1@demo:~
$ apt-cache policy cpufrequtils
cpufrequtils:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 008-2
Version table:
008-2 500
500 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
antiX1@demo:~
$

antiX1@demo:~
$ inxi -S
System:
Host: cp Kernel: 5.10.104-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: IceWM 2.9.7 Distro: antiX-21_x64-full Grup Yorum 31 October 2021
antiX1@demo:~
$

[Member pierro78]

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Thanks for the info !

I am on 5.10 kernel (i5 10210u laptop : wifi and touchpad would not work with 4.9) and my governor was set to performance and I had high cpu frequencies

I apparently have only the 2 following governors :

root@antix1:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# more scaling_available_governors 
performance powersave

I set it to powersave :
cpupower frequency-set -g powersave
and now my frequencies are lower !

any idea how I can set my governor to “ondemand” ?? would “ondemand” improve my performance noticeably ??

thanks again !

PS : I installed the liquorix kernel and now my governor is “ondemand” 😉

• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by pierro78.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by pierro78.

[Member wildstar84]

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If you only have “performance” & “powersave” governors, then you might have “Intel P-state” active, so google that, b/c that’s a/b the ONLY thing I know a/b this governor is that it only has these 2 choices. I haven’t researched further b/c Intel P-state is not an option on my system/kernel.

[Member oops]

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pierro78 wrote:

…

PS : I installed the liquorix kernel and now my governor is “ondemand” 😉

Yes, but the liquorix kernel (a real time kernel) is not a power save kernel. (even with ondemande)

[Member Girafenaine]

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Hello,

For power management especially on laptops (but OK for desktop too), I suggest to use tlp – I believe this package is a default one on antiX, in any case easy to install from official repo.

With tlp you can set “governors” but also a lot of other power-related options.

The config file /etc/tlp.conf shows a lot of useful comments. The default config is efficient, and you can tweak it as you want (but researches on you own hardware are recommended as you can set strange options not suitable by your hardware).

In the config file, you can find thoses lines and comments :

# Select a CPU frequency scaling governor.
# Intel Core i processor with intel_pstate driver:
#   powersave(*), performance.
# Other hardware with acpi-cpufreq driver:
#   ondemand(*), powersave, performance, conservative, schedutil.
# (*) is recommended.
# Use tlp-stat -p to show the active driver and available governors.
# Important:
#   powersave for intel_pstate and ondemand for acpi-cpufreq are power
#   efficient for *almost all* workloads and therefore kernel and most
#   distributions have chosen them as defaults. If you still want to change,
#   you should know what you're doing!
# Default: <none>

#CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC=powersave
#CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=powersave

# Set the min/max frequency available for the scaling governor.
# Possible values depend on your CPU. For available frequencies see
# the output of tlp-stat -p.
# Default: <none>

#CPU_SCALING_MIN_FREQ_ON_AC=0
#CPU_SCALING_MAX_FREQ_ON_AC=0
#CPU_SCALING_MIN_FREQ_ON_BAT=0
#CPU_SCALING_MAX_FREQ_ON_BAT=0

# Set Intel CPU energy/performance policies HWP.EPP and EPB:
#   performance, balance_performance, default, balance_power, power
# Values are given in order of increasing power saving.
# Notes:
# - Requires an Intel Core i processor
# - HWP.EPP requires kernel 4.10 and intel_pstate driver
# - EPB requires kernel 5.2 or module msr and x86_energy_perf_policy
#   from linux-tools
# - When HWP.EPP is available, EPB is not set
# Default: balance_performance (AC), balance_power (BAT)

#CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC=balance_performance
#CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT=balance_power

# Set Intel CPU P-state performance: 0..100 (%).
# Limit the max/min P-state to control the power dissipation of the CPU.
# Values are stated as a percentage of the available performance.
# Requires an Intel Core i processor with intel_pstate driver.
# Default: <none>

#CPU_MIN_PERF_ON_AC=0
#CPU_MAX_PERF_ON_AC=100
#CPU_MIN_PERF_ON_BAT=0
#CPU_MAX_PERF_ON_BAT=30

# Set the CPU "turbo boost" feature: 0=disable, 1=allow
# Requires an Intel Core i processor.
# Important:
# - This may conflict with your distribution's governor settings
# - A value of 1 does *not* activate boosting, it just allows it
# Default: <none>

#CPU_BOOST_ON_AC=1
#CPU_BOOST_ON_BAT=0

# Minimize number of used CPU cores/hyper-threads under light load conditions:
#   0=disable, 1=enable.
# Default: 0 (AC), 1 (BAT)

#SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_AC=0
#SCHED_POWERSAVE_ON_BAT=1

An easier-to-manage tlp-ui package exists, but not available on antiX repo (it is in MX test repo just in case).

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by Girafenaine.

Girafenaine
----
Antix 19 - Fluxbox - Live USB stick and frugal / MX 19 - Fluxbox - Dell XPS 7590

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