[antiX M12] brand new install CPU problem

Posts: 96
melodie
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
#1
Hello,

I have been very impressed by the way antiX M12 behaved in a live session on this machine. So I installed it. However there is a problem with the CPU being used at 36% minimum by a process having for name:

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/usr/bin/perl -w /usr/sbin/sysv.rc.conf
I tried to renice it to +10, then to +19, but it seems to have no effect at all. Here are the specs of the machine:

Laptop HP Omnibus 6000
CPU PIII Coppermine 796 Mhz (approxmately, and it is sometimes described as providing 800 Mhz)
RAM : PC133 SODIM 192 Mo (should be upgradable, but it didn't see more ram when I tried to switch one barrette or the other to 256 MB, in fact this machine has a crummy hardware base).

Any advice might help me solve this.

And while I am here, I could as a little bit more : would you happen to know what driver is needed to be able to cool down the cpu with a cpufreq governor ? None is seen for now, just after install. I have looked at this page:

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://powersave.sourceforge.net/powersave/Cpufreq.html"
linktext was:"http://powersave.sourceforge.net/powersave/Cpufreq.html"
====================================


but I didn't find the same model in the examples provided. However there is some information here:

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU_Frequency_Scaling"
linktext was:"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CP ... cy_Scaling"
====================================


and I am not yet sure which one of the two drivers will be the one, and if they are compiled in the 3.5.0 default kernel:

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speedstep-ich     CPUFreq driver for certain mobile Intel Pentium III (Coppermine), all mobile Intel Pentium III-M (Tualatin) and all mobile Intel Pentium 4 P4-M on systems which have an Intel ICH2, ICH3 or ICH4 southbridge.
speedstep-smi     CPUFreq driver for certain mobile Intel Pentium III (Coppermine), all mobile Intel Pentium III-M (Tualatin) on systems which have an Intel 440BX/ZX/MX southbridge.
I'll be back after I try both drivers.

Thanks,
Mélodie

PS:
"modprobe speedstep-ich : No such device"
"modprobe speedstep-smi : No such device"

Too bad. __{{emoticon}}__
Posts: 609
dark-D
Joined: 02 Jun 2008
#2
i don't use cpufreq, so i can't help you there. as for the process, that is the command to enable/disable start-up programs. it is somewhere in the control center, manage start-up something. if you open it and close the terminal from the X button sometimes the process stays opened and consumes cpu power. the solution is to use htop and kill the process, or use killall command, or reboot the system.
Posts: 516
oldhoghead
Site Admin
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
#3
melodie,

To see which governor is loaded in terminal as root do

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cpufreq-info
you should get an output like this:

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alyzing CPU 0:
  driver: acpi-cpufreq
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
  hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 1.83 GHz
  available frequency steps: 1.83 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 1000 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: userspace, powersave, conservative, ondemand, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 1.83 GHz.
                  The governor"ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).
  cpufreq stats: 1.83 GHz:10.34%, 1.33 GHz:0.62%, 1000 MHz:89.04%  (1068280)
This output will tell you which driver is loaded and what governor is running.
You can change the governor (also in root terminal) from ondemand to powersave by

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cpufreq-set -g powersave
The drivers are enabled as modules in the kernel, the default is acpi-cpufreq, to remove it and install the one you need

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modprobe -r acpi-cpufreq
modprobe speedstep-smi
If that fails then we will try another route.


cheers,
ohh
Posts: 96
melodie
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
#4
Hi oldhoghead,

Now I post from within the machine I am working on. So it will be easier to make obvious what works and not.

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# cpufreq-info 
cpufrequtils 008: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004-2009
Report errors and bugs to cpufreq@vger.kernel.org, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
  maximum transition latency: 0.00 ms.
#

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# modprobe -r acpi-cpufreq
#

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# modprobe speedstep-ich
ERROR: could not insert 'speedstep_ich': No such device
(returns silently)

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# modprobe speedstep-smi
ERROR: could not insert 'speedstep_smi': No such device
#
Does this mean the above modules are not compiled in the kernel, or something else ? I try to seek the answer to this question:

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# cat /proc/config.gz | zgrep SPEEDSTEP
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO=m
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO_TABLE=y
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_ICH=m
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_SMI=m
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_LIB=m
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_RELAXED_CAP_CHECK=y
#
checking which kernel is used:

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# uname -a
Linux camon 3.5.0-antix.2-486-smp #1 SMP Tue Jul 31 14:42:54 EEST 2012 i686 GNU/Linux
#
why are the needed modules not seen ?

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# pwd
/lib/modules/3.5.0-antix.2-486-smp/kernel/drivers
# find . -name"speedstep-*"
./cpufreq/speedstep-lib.ko
./cpufreq/speedstep-smi.ko
./cpufreq/speedstep-centrino.ko
./cpufreq/speedstep-ich.ko
root@camon:/lib/modules/3.5.0-antix.2-486-smp/kernel/drivers
#
???

Do you have any idea ?
Posts: 96
melodie
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
#5
Hi,

I have removed all the cpufreq packages, it looks like there is no solution. In a few days if I don't get another suggest from someone I will flag the topic as"abandoned".

Thanks anyhow.
Posts: 516
oldhoghead
Site Admin
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
#6
melodie,

From all I have researched, acpi-cpufreq is the standard, and the speedstep modules are deprecated.




cheers,
ohh
Posts: 96
melodie
Joined: 15 Feb 2008
#7
oldhoghead wrote:melodie,

From all I have researched, acpi-cpufreq is the standard, and the speedstep modules are deprecated.
cheers,
ohh
Anyhow the machine on which I have been working these days is very deprecated too, and probably never was able to benefit from a governor whatsoever. Just a pity I could not update it's bios... (the machine is really unfit for that with the shape of update provided by the constructor).
Posts: 119
wildstar84
Joined: 31 May 2014
#8
I'm a perl programmer, maybe post the script, so we could see what it does (I don't have this script on my Antix!)
Posts: 667
jdmeaux1952
Joined: 01 Nov 2013
#9
My JUNKBOX was almost constantly running near 100% with antiX 13.2 until I updated the kernel. Then my cpu usage dropped down to about 35 %.

On my MSI laptop, I updated from antiX 13.2 to antiX 13.4.4. My cpu memory use went from about 560 Mb down to 167 Mb. Now that's efficiency.