Bug#438934: thermal documentation confusing; doesn't seem to perform as described

[Michael Biebl]

Frederik Eaton wrote:

Package: powersaved
Version: 0.14.0-7
Severity: normal

I have been trying to understand this document:

/usr/share/doc/powersaved/html/Thermal.html

It seems out of date. For instance, it suggests

ENABLE_THERMAL_MANAGEMENT="yes"

but in the comments in /etc/powersave/thermal, "yes" doesn't appear to
be an option:

# userspace:      not supported yet
# kernel:         the values in /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/*/trip_points are
#                 overridden with the THERMAL_*_X values from the
#                 current active scheme see powersave_manual.html

# off:            the kernel's default trip_point values are still active

Also, when I set THERMAL_PASSIVE_0 or any of the other temperatures to
reasonable values, they are not reflected in the output of "powersave
-T", and when the system exceeds these temperatures the CPU is not
throttled as I requested by setting either COOLING_POLICY="passive" or
COOLING_POLICY="active", and ALLOW_THROTTLING="yes". Also, what is the
difference between COOLING_POLICY and COOLING_MODE? The latter is only
mentioned once in Thermal.html. Similarly for THERMAL_HOT, what does
that do? It is never explained, and only appears in one example:



Here is some system information. You can see that even though the
temperature has exceeded THERMAL_PASSIVE_0 and even THERMAL_HOT_0, the
CPU is still running at its maximum speed.


Temperature: 55
Critical: 93
Passive: 90

Presentation
Acoustic    battery_default_scheme
Powersave
AdvancedPowersave

# also see the ENABLE_THERMAL_MANAGEMENT variable in the thermal file
THERMAL_CRITICAL_0="63"
THERMAL_HOT_0="54"
THERMAL_PASSIVE_0="45"

# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq
1700000


Do the features described in the documentation for this package
actually exist?

# kernel_passive: like kernel, but only thermal zones with a valid # passive trip point defined by BIOS are modified. # grep THERMAL_HOT /usr/share/doc/powersaved/ /usr/share/doc/powersaved/html/Thermal.html: <code>THERMAL_HOT_0="90"</code><br> # powersave -T Thermal Device no. 0: # powersave -x Performance active AC_default_scheme # grep THERMAL /etc/powersave/scheme_performance # THERMAL_TRIP_POINTS AUTOMATICALLY CREATED - DO NOT EDIT THIS LINE # grep -i mhz /proc/cpuinfo cpu MHz : 1700.000 # cat /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal temperatures: 55 45 30 50 32 -128 27 -128

Cheers,
Michael

--
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?

According to the code, they do. Unfortunately I can't test it myself, as my laptop doesn't have thermal support. You could try to run powersaved -d 15 and check the output in the syslog if there is relevant information.

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