the clock frequency is not that crippling an issue, because all modern processors can go into sleep mode and wake up on interrupt (so that would be 100 times per second on Linux).
sure down-clocking helps, but the 100-times-a-second-sleep helps even more. i don't think it's worthwhile to try to squeeze any more power savings out. an I/O bound activity like network downloading will certainly produce a lot of sleeps. FWIW my core duo notebook only goes down to 1GHz, never lower. On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Slim Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I know that "over"-clocking is the rage among some hardware geeks. However, > I'm more interested in conserving electricity when all my computer is doing is > downloading a 4GB iso. > > I remember reading a post by a FreeBSD user that there's an OS feature > that allows FBSD to be underclocked to Pentium I speeds, something > like 100/200 MHz. Is there a similar feature in Linux for aggressive software- > based underclocking? > > According to "cpufreq-info | grep Hz", I can slow down my AMD X2 4800 > to "at most" 1GHz. That's still way faster than the system it replaced > a Duron 600: > > hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.50 GHz > available frequency steps: 2.50 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 2.20 GHz, 2.00 GHz, > 1.80 GHz, 1000 MHz > current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.50 GHz. > current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz. > cpufreq stats: 2.50 GHz:3.60%, 2.40 GHz:0.17%, 2.20 GHz:0.17%, 2.00 > GHz:0.12%, 1.80 GHz:3.59%, 1000 MHz:92.36% (3262) > hardware limits: 1000 MHz - 2.50 GHz > available frequency steps: 2.50 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 2.20 GHz, 2.00 GHz, > 1.80 GHz, 1000 MHz > current policy: frequency should be within 1000 MHz and 2.50 GHz. > current CPU frequency is 1000 MHz. > cpufreq stats: 2.50 GHz:3.60%, 2.40 GHz:0.17%, 2.20 GHz:0.17%, 2.00 > GHz:0.12%, 1.80 GHz:3.59%, 1000 MHz:92.36% (3262) -- Orlando Andico +63.2.976.8659 | +63.920.903.0335 _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List http://lists.linux.org.ph/mailman/listinfo/plug Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
