Way-OT: CPU frequency question
Hiisi
saippua5 at gmail.com
Mon Jan 17 13:32:08 UTC 2011
Dear list!
Recently I became unsatisfied with productivity of my computer. I always
thought it is Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz (32 bit) with hyper-threading. At
least so lshw states. But when I get to BIOS setup I was surprised to
discover under frequency scaling menu that hyper-threading was off and
memory frequency was set to something like 256 while it's DDR2 333 MHz.
First of all I changed memory frequency to 333 MHz and now when the
computer starts it show 400 MHz memory frequency. I don't know why.
Probably it's some kind of simulation. That alone was enough to improve
productivity of this machine. But I went further and changed CPU clock
value from 100 to 200 MHz. Saved that setting, rebooted and during
initial startup testing saw that CPU freq was 199x15=2985 MHz.
Surprisingly the system boots about one and a half time slower than
before. And when it booted in run level 3 it took ages for Gnome to
start. Everything were working remarkable slower than before. And
mozilla constantly crashed while I was trying to search the web for
suggestions. Then I rebooted, changed clock frequency back to 100 MHz
and now I have higher performance compare to prior level with
hyper-threading off.
What I would like to know is why the system was working slower instead
acceleration? Is 100x15=1500 MHz is optimal for my setup? Currently I'm
running Fedora 12 (yes, I know!):
2.6.32.26-175.fc12.i686
Here goes some specification of this machine:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 3000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 5
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat
pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pebs
bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl cid xtpr
bogomips : 3024.88
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 128
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 4
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 3000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 5
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat
pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pebs
bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl cid xtpr
bogomips : 3024.09
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 128
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
sudo lshw
[sudo] password for Sampo:
kello.ru
description: Desktop Computer
product: PROD00000000
vendor: OEM00000
width: 32 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.3 dmi-2.3 smp-1.4 smp
configuration: boot=normal chassis=desktop cpus=1
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: S651MPRZ
vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
physical id: 0
version: F7 (09/06/2004)
size: 128KiB
capacity: 192KiB
capabilities: pci pnp apm upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect
socketedrom edd int13floppy360 int13floppy1200 int13floppy720
int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer
int10video acpi usb agp ls120boot zipboot
*-cpu:0
description: CPU
product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 4
bus info: cpu at 0
version: 15.4.1
serial: 0000-0F41-0000-0000-0000-0000
slot: Socket 478
size: 3GHz
capacity: 4GHz
width: 32 bits
clock: 100MHz
capabilities: boot fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae
mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse
sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl cid
xtpr cpufreq
configuration: id=0
*-cache:0
description: L1 cache
physical id: 9
slot: Internal Cache
size: 32KiB
capacity: 32KiB
capabilities: synchronous internal write-back
*-cache:1
description: L2 cache
physical id: a
slot: External Cache
size: 1MiB
capacity: 1MiB
capabilities: synchronous internal write-back
*-logicalcpu:0
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 0.1
width: 32 bits
capabilities: logical
*-logicalcpu:1
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 0.2
width: 32 bits
capabilities: logical
*-cpu:1
description: CPU
vendor: Intel
physical id: 5
bus info: cpu at 1
version: 15.4.1
serial: 0000-0F41-0000-0000-0000-0000
slot: Socket 478
size: 3GHz
capacity: 4GHz
clock: 100MHz
capabilities: ht cpufreq
configuration: id=1
*-logicalcpu:0
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 1.1
capabilities: logical
*-logicalcpu:1
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 1.2
capabilities: logical
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 19
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 2GiB
capacity: 2GiB
*-bank:0
description: DIMM 200 MHz (5.0 ns)
physical id: 0
slot: A0
size: 1GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 200MHz (5.0ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM 200 MHz (5.0 ns)
physical id: 1
slot: A1
size: 1GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 200MHz (5.0ns)
<snip>
Here's the link to motherboard manufacturer:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=1792#sp
Any thoughts?
--
Windows without the X is like making love without a partner.
-- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm at at8.abo.fi
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