Turbo boost enabled under low load

[luispabon]

Looks like auto-cpufreq is a bit overzealous when deciding the system is under high load. You can see my debug below, 1% CPU usage and 0.62 system load. As a result, turbo is on probably when it shoudln't and the laptop is running a few degrees hotter than it could.

Under the same sort of load, without running auto-cpufreq the system temp is around 45/47 degrees C.

System information:

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Linux distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Linux kernel: 5.4.0-47-generic

Snap package: yes

Python: 3.8.2
psutil package: 5.7.2
platform package: 1.0.8
click package: 7.1.2
distro package 1.5.0

Battery is: charging

auto-cpufreq system resource consumption:
cpu usage: 0.0 %
memory use: 0.05 %

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz
Cores: 8
Architecture: x86_64
Driver: intel_pstate

------------------------------ Current CPU states ------------------------------

CPU max frequency: 3800 MHz
CPU min frequency: 800 MHz

CPU frequency for each core:

CPU0: 3616 MHz
CPU1: 3577 MHz
CPU2: 3574 MHz
CPU3: 3678 MHz
CPU4: 3573 MHz
CPU5: 3580 MHz
CPU6: 3422 MHz
CPU7: 3656 MHz

CPU usage per each core:

CPU0: 2.0 %
CPU1: 1.0 %
CPU2: 3.0 %
CPU3: 1.0 %
CPU4: 1.0 %
CPU5: 1.0 %
CPU6: 3.0 %
CPU7: 0.0 %

Temperature for each physical core:

CPU0 temp: 50°C
CPU1 temp: 49°C
CPU2 temp: 49°C
CPU3 temp: 47°C

Total CPU usage: 1.0 %
Total system load: 0.62 

Currently using: performance governor
Currently turbo boost is: on

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[AdnanHodzic]

Thanks for confirming this. As I mentioned in #109 currently auto-cpufreq is very "turbo mode" trigger friendly when charging.

I've marked this bug as duplicate, and if possible let's continue this discussion in #109.

[AdnanHodzic]

@luispabon I made some changes in turbo-lover branch, you can get them by installing auto-cpufreq from snap beta channel:

sudo snap install auto-cpufreq --beta

Now it's using more conservative settings and turbo isn't triggered as easily as before. Let me know how it works for you.

[luispabon]

Copy that, I will do so as soon as I'm back to charging tomorrow 👍

[luispabon]

@AdnanHodzic definitely much better than before.

[luispabon]

Do you want to keep this open until the change is released to non-beta? Or should I just close it?

[AdnanHodzic]

@AdnanHodzic definitely much better than before.

Good to hear, I could make turbo trigger even more conservative, but this seems like the right balance.

Do you want to keep this open until the change is released to non-beta? Or should I just close it?

Don't worry about it, once I've released 1.3.2 final and promoted build to snap stable channel, I'll close it myself. I want to test it more myself and for @marc0der to confirm the same in #109

[dnisyd]

How about making it configurable which lets us use the default turbo boost load balance trigger or use a self defined threshold?

[AdnanHodzic]

@dnisyd while I was working on this I was thinking about the same thing. This would be ideal candidate for #26, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to start working on it.

Also, until #26 is implemented, we need to have good "defaults" for triggering turbo. What was there before was too "trigger happy" in terms of turning on turbo.

[AdnanHodzic]

After thoroughly testing changes for few days, I've merged them with master branch and made 1.3.2 release. These changes have also been promoted to snap stable channel.

If you've been using beta channel you can switch to stable by running:

sudo snap switch --channel=stable auto-cpufreq