HW problem, not my processors won't run above 800MHz

[SamuraiMark]

Something happened to my laptop today. On boot I get some error from the BIOS about not being able to determine my AC adapter type and wattage. Doesn't stop me from booting, but as a result of the above error, the system is forced into low-power mode. I'm running at 800MHz.

I'm running XFCE Maya and I don't appear to have any means of forcing the CPUs up. Tried the XFCE cpufreq applet but it just crashes. Tried installing cpufreqd but that hasn't helped and I have no idea if that if the supported method of dealing with CPU freq scaling or not.

Any pointers?

Thanks,
Mark

[SamuraiMark]

I spaketh too soon? After my most recent restart, I did not get the BIOS error about the power supply on boot up. Now my CPUs seems to be stuck at max clock speed, running constantly at 2.6GHz.

The xfce4 cpufreq applet is now running in my taskbar, but has the circle-slash error icon on it, and trying to modify the governor or CPU speed from there does nothing.

*sigh*

[Jamesc359]

You might need to edit /etc/cpufreqd.conf

This is all that I have in mine.

[General]
pidfile=/var/run/cpufreqd.pid
poll_interval=2
verbosity=4
[/General]

[Profile]
name=On Demand
minfreq=MINFREQ
maxfreq=MAXFREQ
policy=POLICY
[/Profile]

[Rule]
name=AC On
ac=on
profile=On Demand
[/Rule]

[Rule]
name=AC Off
ac=off
profile=On Demand
[/Rule]

You can get a list of policies and frequencies available from;
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

For some reason cpufreq mistakenly thinks that my system is always on a battery. Which is odd since it's a desktop. So it's possible that it's mistaken about your laptops battery/ac status too.

[jjaythomas]

About Battery and BIOS... PROBALLY NOT SAME THING (disclaimer)

I have a Thinkpad and when I got new AC adapter (not Lenovo) the BIOS would notify 'not certified Lenovo battery). Could disable that notifier in BIOS,but was default (if reloaded default settings in BIOS).

The CPUfrq bug don't know, but seen it before being asked in forums here (search maybe solved?).

J.Jay

[SamuraiMark]

Thanks for the responses guys. Before I started seeing this battery related error, I didn't have any of the cpufreqd stuff installed. It isn't part of the default Mint Maya XFCE install. But I'm pretty sure there was still something managing the CPU because the clock rate was changing. I installed the cpufreqd stuff just yesterday hoping it would help me troubleshoot the problem. I'll try configuring cpufredq but I'm concerned it might be stepping on the toes of something else?

[Jamesc359]

I'm not sure what would have been controlling your frequency before, but I wouldn't worry about cpufreq stepping on any toes. Just remember that if your battery sensor is messed up you might have to point both the on ac and off ac rules to the same profile.