How to get SpeedStep working on Coppermine-piix4-smi based ThinkPads
Contents
RELAXED_CAP_CHECK
On a Thinkpad T20 using Debian unstable and a stock kernel.org kernel 2.6.11.6, building the kernel with CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_RELAXED_CAP_CHECK=y doesn't seem to show the error you're experiencing while loading speedstep-smi. So that means loading speedstep-smi module results to no error at all.
Jan Alonzo 02:36 5-07-2024
From the kernel config help:
Don't perform all checks for a speedstep capable system which would normally be done. Some ancient or strange systems, though speedstep capable, don't always indicate that they are speedstep capable. This option lets the probing code bypass some of those checks if the parameter "relaxed_check=1" is passed to the module.
02:36 5-07-2024
Foreword
- APPLYING THIS HOWTO MAY MAKE YOU DUMB, CRASH YOUR CPU, YOUR MOTHERBOARD, MAKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND LEAVE YOU, OR MAYBE WORSE, USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISKS, I'M NOTHING OF A KERNEL HACKER, NEITHER A SMART GUY, THIS IS HOW I TRYED TO GET IT WORK, AND TILL NOW IT IS WORKING, MY PROPOSITION ARE ALMOST GUARANTED TO BE DUMB.
- This HowTo is intended for people having trouble getting SpeedStep working via CpuFreq on their Coppermine CPU with a piix4 mainboard.
- Thinkpads known to have this configuration are the X20, X21, X22, X23, X24, T20, T21, T22 and possibly A2x models.
- These CPUs support (as i could notice) at least 3 different running speed, but it seems that the SpeedStep driver (and maybe the SpeedStep Data Sheet) only allows 2 diffrent running modes.
- This Document is under the GNU/GPL v2+ Licence.
My case
- This is what i get:
- I have a x21 IBM ThinkPad, and when trying the SpeedStep implementation of 2.6 kernels i got:
[xaiki@gonzo]:~% sudo modprobe speedstep-smi FATAL: Error inserting speedstep_smi (/lib/modules/2.6.10-rc1-mm4-xa1/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-smi.ko): No such device
- Rebooting with cpufreq.debug=7 ( 1 is for core, 2 is for ??, and 4 is for drivers, 7 = 1 + 2 + 4 ) gave:
[xaiki@gonzo]:~% sudo modprobe speedstep-smi FATAL: Error inserting speedstep_smi (/lib/modules/2.6.10-rc1-mm4-xa1/kernel/arch/i386/kernel/cpu/cpufreq/speedstep-smi.ko): No such device [xaiki@gonzo]:~% sudo tail /var/log/syslog [...] Nov 11 19:54:20 localhost kernel: speedstep-lib: x86: 6, model: 8 Nov 11 19:54:20 localhost kernel: speedstep-lib: Coppermine: MSR_IA32_EBL_CR_POWERON is 0x44080020, 0x0 Nov 11 19:54:20 localhost kernel: speedstep-lib: Coppermine: MSR_IA32_PLATFORM ID is 0x0, 0x540000 Nov 11 19:54:20 localhost kernel: speedstep-smi: No supported Intel CPU detected.
How to get it work
- Easy =) just disable the speedstep-lib checks
[xaiki@gonzo]:~% sudo modprobe speedstep-lib relaxed_check=1 [xaiki@gonzo]:~% sudo modprobe speedstep-smi
- Hurrah !!
How to use it
Using the sys interface
- speeds are in Khz.
- your max speed is at: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
gonzo:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq 700000
- your min speed is at: /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq
gonzo:~# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq 500000
- echo to /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed to change the speed
gonzo:/home/xaiki# echo 700000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed gonzo:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "cpu MHz" cpu MHz : 697.252 gonzo:~# echo 900000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed gonzo:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "cpu MHz" cpu MHz : 976.152
- don't trust no-one, my cpu is a 200-450-500-750 Speedstep capable... i'd like it to run at 1Ghz ...
What's not working
- Obviously, what's not working is the other steps, and the current-speed reconignition.