Re: Linux won't do cpu hlt on idle with fic pa-2007 mobo?

Wayne O. Jackson (wjack@magicnet.net)
Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:32:23 -0400

> I have an FIC PA-2011 with a K6/233, and would like to know if it
> exhibits the same problem. How do you know your CPU is not doing
> hlt-on-idle?
>
> I'm pretty sure my CPU gets hotter when doing lots of consecutive kernel
> compiles. That's the only test of this kind that I've done. It's not
> exactly cool ever, but then last year's K6/233s do draw a lot of
> current.
>
> Ta,
> - -- Jamie

The reason I believe that Linux is not doing hlt-on-idle with my FIC
PA-2007 motherboard is that every other motherboard I've owned Linux has
always ran about 10 degrees cooler than Win95, and that is because Linux
does the hlt-on-idle, but Win95 doesn't. I have an Intel pentium 233MMX
cpu on my PA-2007 board, so you would think that the hlt-on-idle command
would work properly, but it's not. I have a temperature sensor in my
case with a digital readout on the outside so I can keep track of temp
changes, and Linux is running at the same temp as Win95. I tried a
program for Win95 called cpuidle that does the hlt-on-idle, and it works
and brings the temp down about 10 degrees in Win95, so now Win95 is
running about 10 degrees cooler than Linux, so I suspect it's got
something to do with the way Linux is calling the hlt-on-idle command,
and the architecture of the FIC's Apollo VIA VP2 chipset canceling out
the hlt-on-idle. I'm afraid my knowledge of assembly language isn't good
enough yet to figure this out, but I know there are some excellent
programmers out there working with the Linux kernel that could probably
fix this problem with a few keystrokes. If anybody can tell how to fix
this please let me know.

Thanks,
Wayne

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