[PATCH v2] cpufreq/amd-pstate: Bail out early if !X86_FEATURE_HW_PSTATE
From: Rong Zhang
Date: Sat Jul 18 2026 - 11:16:18 EST
When booting a VM that simulates or passes-through a relatively new CPU
model, these warning messages are printed to kmsg:
amd_pstate: The CPPC feature is supported but currently disabled by the BIOS.
Please enable it if your BIOS has the CPPC option.
amd_pstate: the _CPC object is not present in SBIOS or ACPI disabled
Technically the check is not wrong and acts as a safetynet that prevents
the driver from being registered incorrectly, but the warning messages
are noisy and incorrect, as the CPPC feature is neither supported in a
VM nor disabled by the VM's BIOS.
The CPPC feature is disabled by the hypervisor as it makes no sense to
expose them to guests. It creates a paradox that the same kernel both
disables CPPC as a hypervisor (KVM) and warns about it being disabled
as a guest.
X86_FEATURE_HW_PSTATE indicates if the platform supports frequency
scaling or not. It is disabled on virtualized platforms (namely, KVM and
Hyper-V have been reported to do so) and is always set on physical
platforms that support frequency scaling.
Check for X86_FEATURE_HW_PSTATE as a prerequisite and bail out early if
it's unsupported.
Fixes: cb817ec6673b ("cpufreq: amd-pstate: show CPPC debug message if CPPC is not supported")
Signed-off-by: Rong Zhang <i@xxxxxxxx>
---
Changes in v2:
- Check for X86_FEATURE_HW_PSTATE instead of X86_FEATURE_HYPERVISOR
(thanks K Prateek Nayak)
- Remove the check against Xen dom0, as it doesn't need the amd-pstate
driver (thanks Jason Andryuk)
- Reword comments and the commit message
- Remove Gautham R. Shenoy from the To list due to email bounces
- Link to v1: https://patch.msgid.link/20260716-amd-pstate-vm-v1-1-2ac97d3cf6e7@xxxxxxxx
---
drivers/cpufreq/amd-pstate.c | 7 +++++++
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)
diff --git a/drivers/cpufreq/amd-pstate.c b/drivers/cpufreq/amd-pstate.c
index a74a4cf99d22..877b4b30ecd0 100644
--- a/drivers/cpufreq/amd-pstate.c
+++ b/drivers/cpufreq/amd-pstate.c
@@ -2228,6 +2228,13 @@ static int __init amd_pstate_init(void)
if (boot_cpu_data.x86_vendor != X86_VENDOR_AMD)
return -ENODEV;
+ /*
+ * Do not continue on the following checks and emit bogus warning
+ * messages if the platform doesn't support frequency scaling at all.
+ */
+ if (!cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_HW_PSTATE))
+ return -ENODEV;
+
/* show debug message only if CPPC is not supported */
if (!amd_cppc_supported())
return -EOPNOTSUPP;
---
base-commit: 94515f3a7d4256a5062176b7d6ed0471938cd51a
change-id: 1cc24037-amd-pstate-vm-d6ab4c959bd3
Thanks,
Rong