Cpupower-gui running in dom0. Possible?

dispuser · November 3, 2023, 3:55pm

In order to decrease the power consumption of the laptop, which runs at a high CPU temperature and performance even when not in use, I would like to modulate the CPU frequencies. I am aware of CLI options but would like the ease and convenience of a GUI.

What is the best way to implement this?

Do I download cpupower-gui.rpm, check the hash, move it to dom0 and install it with sudo dnf install ./*.rpm?

fsflover · November 3, 2023, 6:54pm

Keep in mind these issues:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

AMD CPU Frequency Scaling Broken

opened 09:24AM - 30 Jan 23 UTC

Geblaat

T: bug C: Xen P: default hardware support needs diagnosis affects-4.1

### Qubes OS release 4.1 ### Brief summary CPU frequencies do not seem to… scale properly, at least for the lower frequencies. ### Steps to reproduce Tested on: Lenovo Thinkpad L14 Gen 3 AMD with Ryzen 7 Pro 5875u Latest BIOS from Dec. 2022 Kernel: 6.1.5-1 EFI install. (Also reported by @lunarthegrey on Ryzen 7 Pro 3700u on R4.0 with kernel 5.4.10-1: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/4604#issuecomment-583828413) In dom0, sudo xenpm get-cpufreq-para ### Expected behavior A low minimum frequency should be shown for powersaving and a maximum frequency of 4500MHz. Frequencies should be able to be used. Maybe implement `amd p-state` driver. ### Actual behavior Minimum frequency shown is 1600MHz and maximum is only 2000MHz: ``` cpu id : 0 affected_cpus : 0 cpuinfo frequency : max [2000000] min [1600000] cur [1600000] scaling_driver : powernow scaling_avail_gov : userspace performance powersave ondemand current_governor : ondemand ondemand specific : sampling_rate : max [10000000] min [10000] cur [20000] up_threshold : 80 scaling_avail_freq : 2000000 1800000 *1600000 scaling frequency : max [2000000] min [1600000] cur [1600000] turbo mode : enabled ``` Changing governor to performance does not work. BIOS setting to set CPU power usage to auto-saving does not make any difference. ``` Only 3 P states are reported: sudo xenpm get-cpufreq-states cpu id : 0 total P-states : 3 usable P-states : 3 current frequency : 1600 MHz P0 [2000 MHz]: transition [ 1467] residency [ 24856 ms] P1 [1800 MHz]: transition [ 96] residency [ 587 ms] *P2 [1600 MHz]: transition [ 1434] residency [ 90121 ms] ``` Just as the reporter of issue #4604 mentioned later, when using 'xenpm start 1', the average frequency reported under load are actually higher than the reported maximum. I've seen 4000-4100MHz under load. When idle, it is never lower than 1600MHz though. ### Notes It is also necessary to use `clocksource=tsc tsc=unstable hpetbroadcast=0` for proper performance. Not sure if related: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/6055

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/4604

renehoj · November 3, 2023, 7:14pm

Dom0 is the admin VM, but is just a VM, it can’t access the physical CPU.

Unless cpupower-gui can interface with Xen using xenpm you can’t use it to control the state of the CPU.

You can use xenpm from the command line in dom0 to change the performane of the CPU.

dispuser · November 4, 2023, 2:39pm

Can someone build a graphical application for xenpm? Adjusting it on the command line is very cumbersome.

It is difficult to determine all the frequencies quickly and is additional time and effort any time this needs to be adjusted.

dispuser · November 8, 2023, 4:59pm

I get errors when I run xenpm.

My system is a laptop and runs so damn hot. And it doesn’t happen with Parrot, or Kali, or Debian, or any other OS.

I don’t understand why I need to manually lower temperatures in Qubes so much. Xenpm takes so long to use and I get invalid responses. I get “failed to set max freq - invalid argument” and the arguments seem correct. I am typing "xenpm set-scaling-maxfreq ‘value’ " and ‘value’ is the lowest minimum frequency for all the CPUs.

Do I have a virus? Infected firmware?

Bearillo · November 8, 2023, 5:13pm

What scaling driver are you using? Have you tried hwp?

fiddler · November 8, 2023, 5:39pm

Are you running on an AMD cpu?

On my AMD system I get errors when I disable turbo mode like you’d think it doesn’t take effect. However, when I run

xenpm get-cpufreq-para

It shows turbo mode is indeed disabled.

I haven’t tried setting specific frequencies but disabling turbo makes my system run noticeably cooler and acceptable for my purposes.

dispuser · November 9, 2023, 4:10am

what is hwp

Bearillo · November 9, 2023, 1:22pm

It’s a CPU frequency scaling driver. You can check xenpm get-cpufreq-para in the scaling_driver lines to see if you’re using hwp or acpi or something else. It’s possible that your cores are not scaling down when there’s nothing to do and this might be why your laptop runs so hot.

If you want to give hwp a try you can add cpufreq=xen:hwp in your grub (in the Xen options) and reboot.