faq

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

• Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
  • Why CPU-X won't start?
  • Why some labels are empty?
  • Why CPU usage is high?
  • What is the "daemon"?
  • Why macOS is no more supported?
  • Why RAM timings are not reported?
  • Why Compute Unit (CU) / Workgroup Processor (WGP) / Execution Unit (EU) / Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) are not reported in Graphics tab?
  • Why the package naming is not consistent?
  • Why CPU multipliers are not accurate?
  • Why AppImage version does not use system theme?

---

Why CPU-X won't start?

• First of all, check binary permissions (do a chmod 755 cpu-x if they are wrong).
• If this doesn't solve the problem, run CPU-X with --verbose argument, and read produced output in terminal. If you are confronted to a bug, please open a new issue.

Why some labels are empty?

• If you manually build CPU-X, check dependencies.
• CPU-X needs root privileges to run fine. Opening CPU-X as regular user will lead of blank labels. You can start the daemon to avoid to run the UI as root user (on a graphical environment, use the Start daemon button; you can read how to start the daemon without asking password).
• If none of previous cases, your hardware is not recognized by a library.

Why CPU usage is high?

• You can decrease refresh time with --refresh argument to avoid CPU-X high CPU usage.
• If current tab is Caches or Bench (and a benchmark is running), this is a normal behavior.

What is the "daemon"?

Please refer to the following page: Daemon purpose

Why macOS is no more supported?

macOS was supported until v2.2.2, back in 2015. Then, support was dropped since v3.0.0. The reason behind this is because it was difficult to build, and poorly tested. You can find several issues about this topic: https://github.com/TheTumultuousUnicornOfDarkness/CPU-X/issues?q=is%3Aissue+macos

Why RAM timings are not reported?

It would have been a feature that would have had its place in CPU-X, but this is not feasible, read #96 for more information.

Why Compute Unit (CU) / Workgroup Processor (WGP) / Execution Unit (EU) / Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) are not reported in Graphics tab?

This information is provided by OpenCL library. OpenCL support was disabled by default since v4.5.3, read #318.
You can still enable OpenCL support by setting -DWITH_OPENCL=1 during CMake invocation, but if CPU-X crashes during start-up, you will have to disable it again.

Why the package naming is not consistent?

The Package label in CPU tab may be provided by the built-in dmidecode if available, otherwise it may be provided by a fallback database.
In case of dmidecode, information is decoded from SMBIOS table, in Processor Information (Type 4) structure, as Socket Designation, so the label may be not consistent across different board vendor.

Why CPU multipliers are not accurate?

By default, CPU multipliers are reported by libcpuid and read from CPU MSR (reading MSR requires privileges, so it requires the daemon). It may reports non-boost values.
The scaling driver may use different values as minimum and maximum multipliers. You can use values provided by the kernel by setting the CPUX_FORCE_CPU_FALLBACK=mult environment variable. Please note bus clock value is required to compute multipliers; if bus clock is not reported by CPU-X, you can set it by setting the CPUX_BCLK environment variable (e.g. CPUX_BCLK=100 for a 100MHz bus clock).

Why AppImage version does not use system theme?

Read #323.