Cool your athlon

[CTho9305]

I was reading up on various things around the web, and came across this tool (S2kctl). What it does is enable "bus disconnect", so when the CPU is idle, it can reduce it's internal frequency, lowering power usage. Check out this temperature graph to see the difference it made (this is with the CPU idle). I went from 50C idle to 39C idle. This is with a 1/8 divider. The graph update interval is 15 seconds.

Note that this may lock up your system if you have one of the earlier athlons / thunderbirds(?) due to a hardware bug. More info on K7 CLK_CTL here.

This has no (or minimal) effect on temperature when the CPU is under load.

edit: with the divider set all the way down, it's fallen to 36C.
edit2: This locks up my friend's thoroughbred B on an a7n8x. Save your work before you tell it to enable bus disconnect.

 

[Frozen7]

Yah, but if it does this on and off wouldn't the change in temperature cause stress on the chip?

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Frozen7
Yah, but if it does this on and off wouldn't the change in temperature cause stress on the chip?

The only CPU-intensive stuff I do is gaming, or occasionally divx-encoding. During the entire time gaming/encoding, the CPU will be busy, so the only temp changes will occur at the start and stop of the activity. You'd have temperature changes anyway, just less significant.

I've never heard of parts failing from temperature cycling - I'm sure AMD designs the package with temperature in mind (given that the storage temperature range for an Athlon is -40 to 100C).

Given that my computer is on 24/7 and idle most of the time even when I'm using it (winamp + mozilla is negligible), I'd think that running at a lower average temperature would overall be beneficial (for a variety of reasons). I'm sure pm would be able to give a conclusive answer to that question.

 

[Budman]

It works very well,I use it on my little duron box who's idle most of the time,I use it maily to download stuff so I dont tie up my main box & this little util really helps keep it running cooler.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

If AMD was worried about termperature swings from idle to full load they surely wouldn't have had Cool n Quie t:beer::laugh::beer:[/quote]

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33
If AMD was worried about termperature swings from idle to full load they surely wouldn't have had Cool n Quie t:beer::laugh::beer:

[/quote]

Good point .

 

[n0cmonkey]

My machines are at 100% cpu usage 24/7, so I don't think this would help me. Kinda neat though.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

the athlon XPs are know to be rather in-effiecent when compared to the P4s and AMD 64s. their temperatures differ very little between idle and load compared to the latter. they tend to always draw almost a full load whenever on.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
the athlon XPs are know to be rather in-effiecent when compared to the P4s and AMD 64s. their temperatures differ very little between idle and load compared to the latter. they tend to always draw almost a full load whenever on.

That's why you need to use this util.

give it a try,it's free.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
the athlon XPs are know to be rather in-effiecent when compared to the P4s and AMD 64s. their temperatures differ very little between idle and load compared to the latter. they tend to always draw almost a full load whenever on.

That's because BIOS writers often disable bus disconnect rather than keep a table of what settings to use on which CPU steppings. Enabling it on systems that support it results in dramatically lower idle temperatures. Athlon XPs aren't inheren't power-hungry while idle.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
the athlon XPs are know to be rather in-effiecent when compared to the P4s and AMD 64s. their temperatures differ very little between idle and load compared to the latter. they tend to always draw almost a full load whenever on.

I got from low 40's to low 50's between idle and full load on my newest athlon.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

i fold and always run at least 4 programs that draw a moderate load,i don't think it would help me :\

 

[Compddd]

This better then Cool & Quiet?

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Cool n Quiet is great for the AMD 64's but the xp's don't have anything like this program so it could definitely help. How much I don't know

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Compddd
This better then Cool & Quiet?

it's not the same,from what I understand cool & quiet lowers the multiplier & slows the cpu MHZ down.

but this util only enables the Halt command that's disabled by default on most Athlon systems.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
i fold and always run at least 4 programs that draw a moderate load,i don't think it would help me :\

Correct.

Originally posted by: Compddd
This better then Cool & Quiet?

I don't know what exactly Cool'n'Quiet does. I think Cool'n'Quiet actually does even more, such as lowering the core voltage and variably lowering frequency even in "C0" (not halted, while executing code)... more like PowerNow.

Originally posted by: Budman

Originally posted by: Compddd
This better then Cool & Quiet?

it's not the same,from what I understand cool & quiet lowers the multiplier & slows the cpu MHZ down.

but this util only enables the Halt command that's disabled by default on most Athlon systems.

No, HLT is always enabled. What this program does is allow the CPU to disconnect from the bus and lower its internal clock frequency while halted. Without bus disconnect enabled, the CPU is still halted after a HLT instruction is received (most execution units do nothing when the CPU is halted), but the clock grid is still firing away at normal speed (2GHz or whatever), burning ridiculous amounts of power for nothing.