I've had my /etc/power.conf file manually tweaked to contain the following lines since build 86 based on input from Mark Haywood (and his blog entry at http://blogs.sun.com/mhaywood/entry/introducing_speedstep_on_solaris):
cpupm enable cpu-threshold 15s This works quite well. If the system is idle after 15 seconds, the cpu frequency of my Core2 Duo CPU goes from 1330 to 1060 or 800 Mhz. After having upgraded to build 93, the power.conf file was modified and the cpu-threshold was changed from 15 to 1275 seconds. The result is that the CPU frequency virtually never come down from its maximum of 1330 Mhz. 30 minutes of a pegged CPU when the system is relatively idle is not optimal. I tracked this problem down to the newly introduced Gnome power manager. It turns out that whenever I click on the "Preferences" for the Gnome power manager in the notification area, it changes my power.conf settings in this way even if I don't change any settings. There are a couple of bugs here, I think. The first is it shouldn't change system-wide configuration without the user's consent. The second is that its setting of a CPU threshold of 1275 seconds doesn't work in practice. Where should I file a bug on this? -Seb
