Re: [sensors] system slow since ~ 2.6.7

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

Hello and thanks for the help!

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Jean Delvare wrote:

> > This reminds me: about a year ago my CPU fan burnt down. Then too,
> > shortly after booting the PC, it slowed down. Then by accident I
> > noticed in BIOS CPU temperature 98 deg C. With a new fan problem
> > disappeared.
> 
> Wow, 98, no less. You're lucky it didn't catch on fire, you know.

Yep, I do:-) I read some hot reports about hot AMDs right after that 
adventure:-)

> There were some significant changes to the via686a driver in 2.6.6 and
> 2.6.7.
> 
> 2.6.6: Limit initialization was removed from the driver. The same was
> done for most other drivers. The limits have to be set by either the
> BIOS or user-space, not kernel drivers. Also, chip initialization is now
> less agressive (previous version would possibly arbitrarily overwrite
> BIOS settings).
> 
> 2.6.7: Conversion formulas were reworked for a better accuracy. Errors
> were previously introduced by incorrect rounding.
> 
> I think that the changes in 2.6.6 are the ones affecting you.

In the meantime I tried 2.6.5 - same behaviour as 2.6.7.

> > Yes, some coefficients are definitely wrong. Here are a
> > couple of snapshots:
> > 
> > via686a-isa-e200
> > Adapter: ISA adapter
> > CPU core:  +1.09 V  (min =  +2.00 V, max =  +2.50 V)   ALARM
> > +2.5V:     +1.16 V  (min =  +3.10 V, max =  +1.57 V)   ALARM
> > I/O:       +3.40 V  (min =  +4.13 V, max =  +4.13 V)   ALARM
> > +5V:       +5.55 V  (min =  +6.44 V, max =  +6.44 V)   ALARM
> > +12V:      +4.81 V  (min = +15.60 V, max = +15.60 V)   ALARM
> > CPU Fan:  5443 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, div = 2)          
> > P/S Fan:     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, div = 2)          
> > SYS Temp:  +45.4 C  (high =   +45 C, hyst =   +40 C)   ALARM
> > CPU Temp:  +34.5 C  (high =   +60 C, hyst =   +55 C)   
> > SBr Temp:  +28.4 C  (high =   +65 C, hyst =   +60 C)   
> 
> Blame your BIOS! It did not properly configure voltage limits, among
> others. BTW, Vcore, +2.5V and +12V look awfully wrong anyway. I/O and
> +5V are acceptable but even +5V is a bit too high IMHO. Never heard of
> your motherboard model before, seems to be a rare one. Maybe Asus didn't
> put much support on it. 

Well, don't know how rare it is - I did find it on the ASUS site.

> Notice the ALARM in SYS Temp, which is probably causing the system to
> throttle.

Yep. However, I saw ALARM without throttling sometimes too.

> > via686a-isa-e200
> > Adapter: ISA adapter
> > CPU core:  +1.09 V  (min =  +2.00 V, max =  +2.50 V)   ALARM
> > +2.5V:     +1.16 V  (min =  +3.10 V, max =  +1.57 V)   ALARM
> > I/O:       +3.40 V  (min =  +4.13 V, max =  +4.13 V)   ALARM
> > +5V:       +5.55 V  (min =  +6.44 V, max =  +6.44 V)   ALARM
> > +12V:      +4.81 V  (min = +15.60 V, max = +15.60 V)   ALARM
> > CPU Fan:  5487 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, div = 2)          
> > P/S Fan:     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, div = 2)          
> > SYS Temp:  +45.2 C  (high =   +91 C, hyst =   +40 C)   ALARM
> > CPU Temp:  +34.4 C  (high =   +60 C, hyst =   +55 C)   
> > SBr Temp:  +28.4 C  (high =   +65 C, hyst =   +60 C)   
> > 
> > Notice how SYS Temp high changed...
> 
> Did it change *on its own*?

Hm, at least, I certainly didn't do anything to change it.

> Weird. Note that 91 = 45 << 1 + 1. I wonder
> if it could be some kind of read error. Will the value change 

Sorry? Did you mean "will it change again after that?" Well, not sure any 
more, but, I think, it did.

> > Can my guesses be correct and how can the situation be fixed?
> 
> Pick the latest default configuration file for sensors here:
> http://www2.lm-sensors.nu/%7Elm78/cvs/lm_sensors2/etc/sensors.conf.eg
> Save as /etc/sensors.conf, edit the via686a-* section, especially the
> "set temp1_high" and set temp1_hyst" values. I'd suggest:
> 
>     set temp1_hyst 55
>     set temp1_over 60
> 
> Save the changes and run "sensors -s". Your system should hopefully be
> back to full speed right after that. So all you have to do is make sure
> that "sensors -s" is called after you load the via686a driver at boot
> time.

Indeed! Just modifying these 2 values in my sensors.conf brought the 
system back to normal under 2.6.9! I'll get the latest config later. 
Thanks!

> You should take a look at the hardware monitoring options in your BIOS
> setup screen if it has any. Maybe you can configure the boot value of
> temp1_high directly there, and it may provide hints about voltages as
> well.

In BIOS one can only monitor sensors.

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski

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