hp dm1z undervolting and (limited) fan control

StApostol · **Joined:** Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:57 am **Posts:** 39

It is possible that GPU VID increases result in voltage increases.

Try the compiz benchmark plugin in compizconfig-settings-manager. I've been meaning to write simple GPU tester for linux, let me see if I can get something up and running quickly.

thierryg · **Posted:** Wed May 11, 2011 3:02 am

Well, Vid is specified in the same way for NbP0 / NbP1 and the cpu P-states in the AMD documentation, so it should be increase in Vid => decrease in voltage.

I tested with lightsmark, and there is no increase in temperature, instead maybe a small decrease. But, and I found that this morning, the TDP of the GPU part is low (probably around 5W) since the equivalent mobile radeon 5430 has a TDP of 7W at 550 MHz. So it makes it hard to measure anyway

I'll try with the compiz benchmark.

StApostol · **Joined:** Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:57 am **Posts:** 39

HP has just released a new BIOS for this laptop (F12) that solves the fan issue. There's still no direct fan control but initial impressions are that fan noise in quiet mode is significantly reduce under normal use.

I will test more when I return home, where ambient noise is lower.

StApostol · **Joined:** Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:57 am **Posts:** 39

Update on the F12 bios: the fan noise issue is completely fixed!

New thermal trip points (quiet coolsense profile):
62C: turn fan on (1400rpm)
55C: turn fan off

The system is 100% silent under normal use now. Kudos, HP!

thierryg · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 10:25 am

Unless you still have the 500GB/7200rpm HD, that is :wink:

The Lenovo T400 I have at work has the same HD noise...

porkchop · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 3:14 pm

the new bios sounds great, i'm pretty comfortable with 62C.
am i correct to presume then that the fan is quieter under constant full load as well? i was going to update last night but i wasn't connected at the outlet.

i can confirm that the included hdd (at least in my case) was very unimpressive acoustically, it was a seagate 7200.4, a 2 platter judging from the weight. i replaced it a few nights ago with a single platter hitachi 5400rpm and there's a big difference, though there is still a hum, i think the little metal cage it mounts to is contributing to the noise.
i tested both hdds in free air and while the hitachi was barely audible, the seagate sounded very much like a 7200rpm desktop hdd.

a thank you to hp... though it shouldn't have been an issue in the first place

soybean84 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:24 pm **Posts:** 4

Thank you to everyone for helping out. I'm trying to undervolt on a lenovo x120e now. I hope it works.

Edit: I tried the following tip below but it doesn't load at startup at all. The changes do not seem to be taking effect. Is there something I did wrong? (I'm on win 7 x64). Thanks.

StApostol wrote:

porkchop wrote:

i'm hoping StApostol has something for me

I have!

3 simple steps:

1. In the rw-everything folder, create a text file with the following contents:

Code:

>cpu 1
>wrmsr 0xc0010064 0x80000126 0x00003810
>wrmsr 0xc0010065 0x8000011A 0x00003C12
>wrmsr 0xc0010066 0x8000028C 0x00007430
>cpu 2
>wrmsr 0xc0010064 0x80000126 0x00003810
>wrmsr 0xc0010065 0x8000011A 0x00003C12
>wrmsr 0xc0010066 0x8000028C 0x00007430
>RwExit

(Note: replace the 38, 3C and 74 values with the ones you found in your undervolting tests! These are specific to the E-350 processor, so please make sure you use the correct MSR values if you use a different processor)

2. Rename this file to ZacateUndervolting.rw or something else equally descriptive.

3. Open the task scheduler and add a new scheduled task with the following parameters:
- Name: "Zacate Undervolting"
- Run whether user is logged in or not
- Run with highest privileges
- Action: C:\[Path to rw-everything here]\rw.exe /Command=ZacateUndervolting.rw /Logfile=log.txt
- Working directory (found when creating the action): C:\[Path to rw-everything here]
- Trigger: On Startup

And that's it! Restart and your undervolting will be applied automagically. Just stash rw-everything somewhere out of the way and make sure you modify the scheduled task if you ever move the program folder.

Quote:

just activating the quiet profile without hp thermal assistant is a big win for me. i could finally uninstall hp support assistant(big piece of poop) which it was part of, and activating it this way seems permanent. before, the profile would automatically go back to optimized after a reboot.

Indeed, that's a big win already!

EC values are permanent. However, if you ever need to reset them (because e.g. the system doesn't boot), remove the power cord, remove the battery, remove all USB devices and press the power button for 10-15 seconds. This will reset them to their defaults.

porkchop · **Posted:** Wed May 18, 2011 5:06 pm

mmm... so it doesn't run at all huh?
i would guess that the problem lies within when you set the task to run or the location of the program, another unlikely possibility is that the task isn't enabled.

i'm using w7 64bit too and i also ran into problems when i first tried it, mine was with the 'action'. right now mine is set to:
action: start a program
program/script: "C:\Program Files (x86)\RW-Everything\Rw.exe"
add arguments: /Command=ZacateUndervolting.rw /Logfile=log.txt
start in: C:\Program Files (x86)\RW-Everything

now a question from me:
i don't suppose there's a way to disable some of the more annoying leds through software?
namely the power and wifi leds, i'm getting pretty close to using a permanent marker.

soybean84 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:24 pm **Posts:** 4

porkchop wrote:

mmm... so it doesn't run at all huh?
i would guess that the problem lies within when you set the task to run or the location of the program, another unlikely possibility is that the task isn't enabled.

i'm using w7 64bit too and i also ran into problems when i first tried it, mine was with the 'action'. right now mine is set to:
action: start a program
program/script: "C:\Program Files (x86)\RW-Everything\Rw.exe"
add arguments: /Command=ZacateUndervolting.rw /Logfile=log.txt
start in: C:\Program Files (x86)\RW-Everything

now a question from me:
i don't suppose there's a way to disable some of the more annoying leds through software?
namely the power and wifi leds, i'm getting pretty close to using a permanent marker.

I tried as you have suggested, basically exactly what you and StApostol wrote but still can't get it to work. It states that the program is running but when I look at cpu-z it shows that the undervolt wasn't working. Also, when I try to run rw everything it states that the driver is cannot be loaded and I have to disable the task before I can run rw everything again. Any other settings that you suggest? Thank you.

porkchop · **Posted:** Wed May 18, 2011 7:21 pm

it's a long shot, but i don't suppose you skipped over this:

StApostal wrote:

This tool can be used to read/write the MSRs on Windows: http://jacky5488.myweb.hinet.net/

It's clean (tested with on http://virustotal.com), run it as admin, select the MSR tab and click the "user defined" button (can't recall the name exactly, it's something like that) and add the addresses 0xC0010064/65/66/71. This will appear at the bottom of the MSR tab, so scroll down and double click each value to modify it. For each value you double-click, a new window will appear. You need to modify the second value on this window, starting from down-right. Concrete example:

for register 0xC0010064 the values will be something like: 80|00|..|..|..|00|28|10. You need to modify the '28' (increase the value to undervolt). Do note that these values are in hex, so you count 28, 29, 2a, ..., 2f, 30 (i.e. 28->30 is eight steps!)

Note that you need to change pstate before your changes 'take'. I think rw-everything is scriptable, so you can make it apply the undervolted values automatically (you can even add it as a scheduled task on startup to avoid the UAC prompt!)

another thing i can think of is if you didn't change the extension of the .txt file, windows hides known file types so if you only renamed the file it will actually be a .rw.txt file. also the p states have to change to take effect, but this shouldn't be a problem unless your cpu is always under load or if you set something in power options.

that's all i've got.

soybean84 · **Joined:** Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:24 pm **Posts:** 4

Thank you porkchop!!! That was exactly the problem. I guess I haven't fully gotten use to win7 yet, I forgot about the hiding of extensions. Again thank you and thanks to everyone on this forum. I now have a pretty darn silent laptop.

vstehle · **Joined:** Fri Jun 10, 2011 3:24 pm **Posts:** 2

Hi,

I had a try at the undervolt-0.1 program on my EeePC 1015B with C-50.
FYI, here are the values I found:

Code:

P state | Default VID | Lowest safe VID | Errors VID | Lockups VID
  P0    |     0x1F    |     0x35        |    0x36    |     0x37
  P1    |     0x2E    |     0x3B        |    0x3C    |     0x3D

I have posted some more details on my website here: http://vincent.stehle.free.fr/1015b/ind ... dervolting

Also, here is a patch against undervolt to add frequency support and allow to underclock.

I could change P1 div from 5 to 5.25 and keep dynamic frequency scaling functional. 5.5 and below break it. Strange. This allows to lower the VID even further. See http://vincent.stehle.free.fr/1015b/ind ... erclocking

Best regards,

V.

thierryg · **Posted:** Sun Jun 12, 2011 12:15 am

Vstehle, thanks for the C-50 test and patches; I'll integrate them.

Ok, some things that may be of interest : I have seen a presentation by colleagues whose focus is compilation techniques for minimizing power use, and they did a short state of the art on power for current CPU tech (< 90nm).

First, power use at idle increase with temperature :-(

Which makes silent and hot systems potentially less efficient than a not so silent, but cooler system.

Second, there may be a way to get better than the ondemand governor (for Linux system), reducing power use under load by a significant amount (~25%) by using a governor which switches more often between the max performance P-state and a lower performance P-state. Maybe we'll try writing a userspace governor for Linux to test that idea.

Thierryg.

vstehle · **Joined:** Fri Jun 10, 2011 3:24 pm **Posts:** 2

Hi thierryg,

For 'undervolt', I wonder if the next thing would not be to add the ability to access those PCI registers. That would allow to change NBP0 and NBP1 VID more easily than with e.g. setpci. I had a look at libpci and it seems a good way. Also, I did a few tries already with setpci and pm-suspend, and setting NBP0 VID has indeed an effect on my machine (i.e. you can lockup during the pm-suspend return path when too "aggressive").

The power use increasing with temperature you mentioned can even lead in extreme cases to a strange phenomenon called 'thermal runaway'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_runaway Your only option is to pull the plug

About the governor, did you try the existing 'conservative' governor? I did not look at it seriously but in the few tries I did I think it stayed more in P1 than 'ondemand' already. Anyway a custom userspace governor can be fun

My last experiment was with the PLL using setpci, but I saw no change in the performances ever.

Ciao,

V.

jaydeee · **Joined:** Thu Aug 04, 2011 11:10 pm **Posts:** 2

looks good...
however I am worried about HP stopping its PC business or something similar case.

porkchop · **Posted:** Wed Aug 31, 2011 4:29 pm

just got myself a 2nd hand kill a watt clone so here'e some numbers!
(wifi off, lan plugged in, 50% bright, bt off, wirelss rf mouse plugged in, no battery, camera off)

idle, chrome open with one tab no activity no flash, 800mhz:
stock v: 11-12w, undervolted (0.8v): 11-12w

load, ssf4ae cpu vs cpu, 1600mhz:
stock v: 27-29w, undervolted (1.125v): 23-24w

not a big change, but i guess for a system like this the apu only accounts for a fraction of the total power draw.

doshu · **Joined:** Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:23 pm **Posts:** 3

Hello guys,

I'm kinda noobish with CPU control on linux, and I need some help here. I found out what voltages are best for my E-350 running Brazostweaker under Windows, but I can't get Thierryg's Underclock program running to apply those settings in linux >_<.

Fist of all, while followingthis tutorial, I found out that I can't even get through the first step cause there's no "configure" file in the archive I downloaded.

Still, I tried to build the program and to go on, and I got a "Failed reading msr register. Is the msr module loaded?" when trying to edit the voltages...

Any help would be greatly appreciated !!!

thierryg · **Posted:** Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:21 am

Hi Doshu,

doshu wrote:

Hello guys,

I'm kinda noobish with CPU control on linux, and I need some help here. I found out what voltages are best for my E-350 running Brazostweaker under Windows, but I can't get Thierryg's Underclock program running to apply those settings in linux >_<.

Fist of all, while followingthis tutorial, I found out that I can't even get through the first step cause there's no "configure" file in the archive I downloaded.[\quote]

I went to see the tutorial, and, yes, I never did add something to be able to configure. Doing make is enough, still.

doshu wrote:

Still, I tried to build the program and to go on, and I got a "Failed reading msr register. Is the msr module loaded?" when trying to edit the voltages...

Any help would be greatly appreciated !!!

Ok, then the problem, from your answers on the other forum, is that I have only tested it on 64bits Linux and it breaks on the 32 bits... My bad.

Quote:

First, when I try to build the program :
undervolt.c: In function ‘main’:
undervolt.c:303:21: warning: passing argument 2 of ‘divtomsr’ from incompatible pointer type
undervolt.c:180:6: note: expected ‘int64_t *’ but argument is of type ‘long int *’

I think the problem is there. I'll try to find a way to test on a 32 bits version and update the code. Wellcome to the black art of portable C...

Thierry

doshu · **Joined:** Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:23 pm **Posts:** 3

Thanks for the answer Thierry

As I said on the other two forums (I asked on blogeee.net too), I'll upgrade to 11.10 64 bits when it comes out. I could have gone for 11.04 64 bits from the start, but various reasons made me install the 32 bits version.

Anyway, if you ever find the time and courage to try and solve the 32 bits install problem, I would still greatly appreciate it. And I'm sure that it will help a few other people too

By the way, do you know of a way to undervolt the NB/GPU ? Even Brazostweaker under Windows doesn't seem to do the trick (the option is there, but undervolting doesn't apply...).

thierryg · **Posted:** Wed Sep 21, 2011 3:18 am

I still have to set up an environment 32 bits on the dm1, and haven't been able to do that yet.

Regarding the NB/GPU, I suspect the problem is that we really change the NB voltage, which leads to crashes, but we don't change the GPU voltage. The latter may have it's own registers and control; maybe working with the opensource Radeon driver and BIOS would give us the GPU registers needed.

witteks · **Joined:** Sun Sep 25, 2011 4:34 am **Posts:** 1

Hi Thierry,

the NB and the GPU are sharing the same voltage supply. The voltage can be changed through PCI/NB commands, which works for a few models (shown on IdeaPad 205 / Asus 1015B / Acer W500), but some netbooks just don't like the way I've set it up and I'm running out of ideas. You can check out the source code from BrazosTweaker (specifically the NB/GPU voltage changing part) and give it a try on Linux, if you have the time. I would be interested, if it works through Linux.

Greets,
witteks

wastedtime · **Joined:** Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:25 pm **Posts:** 1

Hello all, just registered to thank you for the undervolt tool. It is really usefull for my dm1: I gained almost 5°C using
undervolt -p 0:0x1A -p 1:0x1C -p 2:0x35

But can't we take this one step further by integrating this directly in the kernel ? This should be done inside the cpufreq driver ?
For the timebeing, I just added a script in my rc level, but this is not "clean".

Anyway, great job, now I have a real silent laptop

By the way, i never messed with fan control. Just updated to bios F12 when I received it.

thierryg · **Posted:** Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:34 pm

doshu wrote:

Anyway, if you ever find the time and courage to try and solve the 32 bits install problem, I would still greatly appreciate it. And I'm sure that it will help a few other people too

Ok, I have put a new version (0.3) which seems to compile fine under 32 bits, But I haven't tested it yet. I'll do a code clean-up soon for the 32 / 64 bits portability problem, after being on the right end of some collective knowledge of my colleagues. If you can test the latest version, that would be great.

wastedtime wrote:

But can't we take this one step further by integrating this directly in the kernel ? This should be done inside the cpufreq driver ?
For the timebeing, I just added a script in my rc level, but this is not "clean".

Well, I think having a simple script is nice; it allows you to play with things like having different profiles depending on being plugged in or on the battery, and it is a lot easier to try and maintain than trying to have it inside the kernel source. For the "inside the cpufreq" driver approach, just have a look at linux-phc: I did try using that for two laptops, and I just gave up. I also had a look at the Intel doc for doing an Intel undervolt, and I gave up.

doshu · **Joined:** Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:23 pm **Posts:** 3

thierryg wrote:

Ok, I have put a new version (0.3) which seems to compile fine under 32 bits, But I haven't tested it yet. I'll do a code clean-up soon for the 32 / 64 bits portability problem, after being on the right end of some collective knowledge of my colleagues. If you can test the latest version, that would be great.

I've been both awfully busy and deprived of internet for the past 2/3 weeks, so I haven't tried it yet. I'll do it tonight if I can find the time. If not, since I'll probably got for ubuntu 11.10 64 tomorrow (release date), I may not test it...

edit : well, I tested it, and it works better than before... except that I'm still having this "Failed reading msr register. Is the msr module loaded?" message. I hope I won't get it with the 64bit version.

edit2 : just installed 11.10 64b, and it works perfectly

hp dm1z undervolting and (limited) fan control

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