Constant 20% CPU Usage
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Nope not using it for anything (not sure I saw any options relating to it but i'll give it a go tonight) also seem to be running into overheating issues running this board fanless :( - possbily due to one core being loaded at 80% constantly by the parallel port… we'll see! (extrapolating this from the fact that the web interface just timed out and I can't get back in!)
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Have you enabled powerd? That will reduce your power consumption and hence heating considerably. Without powerd running a lot of the atoms power saving features are not used.
Probably best to sort one thing at a time though. ::)Steve
Edit: Forgot to ask if you're using 1.2.3 or 2.0Beta?
Powerd is much easier to use under 2.0. -
I think at this precise moment Powerd is off - I did turn it on when I was messing around the other night but have since reinstalled a fresh copy I think, BETA 2.0 btw as 1.2.3 breaks my Vodafone Suresignal box thingy (PPPOA -> PPPOE bridge via a Draytek 2820n and have to have the pfSense WAN interface set to 1500 MTU and 1500 MSS clamping (god knows if this is a bad idea, probably but its the only way i've managed to get the fem-2-cell box working) - 1.2.3 didn't have separate fields for the two :()
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Hmm, Interesting.
So you have the Draytek in bridge mode as a pppoa to pppoe box into your pfsense box and your Vodaphone femtocell behind it? And the Vodaphone box requires special settings to make it work? ::)
That's another issue.Powerd requires that the kernel timecounter be set to something other than TSC (since this changes with cpu speed) which it was by default on my system. If you enable powerd without changing this you just get loads of errors on the console and no actual power action. See my post here.
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Yes i'm using the Draytek as a rather expensive true bridge :)
Double yes on the vodafone box being hopeless, it seems to setup the VPN with oversized packets and fails miserably if there is any fragmentation, it flat out refused to work under 1.2.3 no matter how much mtu messing, firewall messing, scrubbing settings, fragmented packet settings etc I did (never did try 1540 though so that the MSS would be 1500…)
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[Update]
Disabling the parallel port in the BIOS fixed the cpu usage issue, I enabled powerd and now have nice status messages like:
Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz
Current: 749 MHz, Max: 1499 MHzNone of this would stop it hitting the 75C shutdown temp within a matter of 45 mins to an hour and turning off when running totally passive.
I ordered a slim 100mm Kaze Scythe fan and 2x 40mm 3500 rpm ones too not sure what i'd need to get it working. As it turns out, 1x 40mm exhausting air out the top from above the heatsink and 1x40mm intake on the M350 cutout at the front makes it run luke warm instead of flesh-searingly hot :) can't hear the fans until your ear is around 15cm from the box so i'm happy now :)
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I wonder if it's adjusting the core voltage correctly as well as the frequency. Can you read that at all with a tool like mbmon?
Anyway I guess if you have to get within 15cm to hear it it's pretty quiet. 8)Steve
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I wonder if it's adjusting the core voltage correctly as well as the frequency. Can you read that at all with a tool like mbmon?
Anyway I guess if you have to get within 15cm to hear it it's pretty quiet. 8)Steve
I wonder this, too. I have powerd turned on, using an Atom D510, and while it says Current: 215 MHz, Max: 1667 MHz, my power meter reads around 30W no matter what I do. I was able to shave 3W off (26-27W now) by turning off Hyperthreading, though.
I was hoping to see more of a drop in power usage by enabling powerd, but since I don't, I wonder if the core voltage was still at maximum even though it is clocked down.
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Not on the D510. Desktop Atoms, DXXX, don't have speed step so it's not possible to reduce the core voltage dynamically. The speed reduction you are seeing is the result of throttling and doesn't provide much by way of power saving. :(
Steve
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Not on the D510. Desktop Atoms, DXXX, don't have speed step so it's not possible to reduce the core voltage dynamically. The speed reduction you are seeing is the result of throttling and doesn't provide much by way of power saving. :(
Steve
That is what I was afraid of. Thanks for clarifying. BTW, according to Intel, the D510 doesn't even have the ability to step down in clock. I wonder how pfSense is able to do it (or maybe it's just reporting incorrectly?).
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43098
If it's going to eat up power, I hope to see the ability to make it work with MagicJack, too, so I eliminate another box.
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BTW, according to Intel, the D510 doesn't even have the ability to step down in clock. I wonder how pfSense is able to do it (or maybe it's just reporting incorrectly?).
Like I said what you are seeing is CPU throttling using ACPI 'T' states. This is where some instructions are replaced by a 'clock stop' instruction and no processing is carried out. It doesn't actually reduce the CPU frequency. Surprisingly hard to find a decent explanation but here is something.
To stop it using throttling you can add hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled=1 to your loader.conf file.
Other than enabling speedstep the biggest single thing I found to reduce power consumption was to replace the PSU with a far more efficient one.
Steve
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BTW, according to Intel, the D510 doesn't even have the ability to step down in clock. I wonder how pfSense is able to do it (or maybe it's just reporting incorrectly?).
Like I said what you are seeing is CPU throttling using ACPI 'T' states. This is where some instructions are replaced by a 'clock stop' instruction and no processing is carried out. It doesn't actually reduce the CPU frequency. Surprisingly hard to find a decent explanation but here is something.
To stop it using throttling you can add hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled=1 to your loader.conf file.
Other than enabling speedstep the biggest single thing I found to reduce power consumption was to replace the PSU with a far more efficient one.
Steve
Thanks for the link. That helps explain things alot. Since you're not reducing power consumption, I guess it doesn't matter if powerd is on or off except the potential to reduce performance if it's left on and soemthing goes awry.
