intel_pstate vs acpi-cpufreq freq scale

[Julian Brooks]

Hi all,

I've got a new machine:
LENOVO ThinkPad X230 i5 23252GG

To replace my ol' trusty x61s.

Fresh install of Sid, with
liquorix 4.9-3 (2017-01-07) x86_64 kernel (for RT audio work).

Have also installed linrunner's TLP.

My understanding is that the x230's Ivy Bridge processor should make use of intel_pstate for frequency scaling but I can't seem to load the kernel module at boot.

TLP (and other sources) are telling me the system has acpi-cpufreq running the frequency scaling.

Have tried adding 'intel_pstate=enable' to grub (+ update-grub), no change (liquorix should load intel_pstate by defualt anyway, according to the docs).

Have blacklisted the acpi-cpufreq module (which leaves me without any scaling - unsurprisingly:).

Installed & uninstalled cpufreqtools & sysfsutils - no change either way.

And am now going round in (ever frustrating) circles with this.

Any advice gratefully received, and hope I've provided enough info - please let me know if not.

Regards to all,

Julian

[Luis Felipe Tabera Alonso]

On lunes, 16 de enero de 2017 1:13:09 (CET) Julian Brooks wrote:
> Hi all,

Hi Julian,

> Fresh install of Sid, with
> liquorix 4.9-3 (2017-01-07) x86_64 kernel (for RT audio work).
> Have also installed linrunner's TLP.

Have you tried to see if this happens with debian's official kernel?

> My understanding is that the x230's Ivy Bridge processor should make use of
> intel_pstate for frequency scaling but I can't seem to load the kernel
> module at boot.

Is it a module? At least on debian kernels, intel_pstate is inside the kernel,
not as a separate module.

$ grep -i pstate config-4.8.0-2-amd64
CONFIG_X86_INTEL_PSTATE=y

however, on liquorix

$ grep -i pstate config-4.9.0-3.2-liquorix-amd64
# CONFIG_X86_INTEL_PSTATE is not set

So it seems that liquorix kernel has not compiled intel_pstate. So could try
to recompile it as a module for your running kernel of rebuild liquorix kernel
with intel_pstate support.

Luis

[Julian Brooks]

Dear Luis,

Many thanks for your input and guidance here.

'Have you tried to see if this happens with debian's official kernel?'

Doh! Of course.

Yes I have now, and intel_pstate is active - yay.

Complete newb with any kind of kernel config/tweaking/rebuilding - need to do some reading-up.

Thanks again,

Julian

[Julian Brooks]

After some discussion with Liquorix people (who are still not convinced by intel_pstate)
http://techpatterns.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=12509#12509

I'm going to try out the new 'schedutils' option with acpi-cpufreq

See how it goes eh.

Regards,

Julian