Ubuntu
powernowd package

CPU wrongly recognized - regular 1s freezes - Dell C600

Bug #66558 reported by Nico
6
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
powernowd (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Hi,

Install upgraded from 6.06 (which was a fresh install) to Edgy with the update-manager (Oct. 13). The packages are up to date as of Oct. 17 13:30 GMT with a dist-upgrade. The bug was there since the upgrade to Edgy.

As much as it pains me to tell you, Edgy still has this bug on my Dell C600 P3 Coppermine notebook.

The CPU is wrongly recognized and powernowd tries to adjust the CPU frequency regurlarly. Its failure to do so creates 1s freezes of the whole system (interrupts and all) at regular intervals.

This is linked to the following old bugs:

43797
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/powernowd/+bug/43797

10813
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/powernowd/+bug/10813

I first witnessed this bug in Hoary, talk about legacy! I have now manually done an update-rc.d to remove powernowd from the startup sequence.

For a while the specific Dell machine was placed in a blacklist, and things were fine, could it be so again?

Thanks,

Nico

Revision history for this message
Nico (nico-rdo) wrote :

hmm...

I'm probably going to sound a tad passive-aggressive...

But wasn't Edgy just released?

This bug is still there, for how many releases now?

Nico
a bit sad, and asks for excuses for the tone

Revision history for this message
Matthew Woerly (nattgew) wrote :

I apologize that no one has gotten back to you about this yet. Is this still the case in Hardy?

Revision history for this message
Mike Evans (mike-evans) wrote :

I've been using Ubuntu on a C600 (with a 1Ghz coppermine processor) since 6.06, and can confirm that the 1s pauses when changing speed were present right up to 7.10. For versions up to 7.10, the default governor was userspace, but now in 8.04 it's set to performance. I'm asuming that what actually happens is that an attempt is made to set it to ondemand, which fails, and it falls back to performance.

I'd love to see this issue resolved, as I know (when I used to run Windows XP) that the machine is capable of changing speed without these annoying freezes, and am happy to provide whatever assistance I can to assist. That said, I realise that these machines are getting old now, and that it's likely that this will never get worked on :(

--
Mike

RJ Clay (rjclay)
Changed in powernowd:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

The powernowd package is obsolete, please do not use it. CPU frequency scaling is now handled by the kernel, so if you still have issues on a modern release, file a bug against the linux package.

Changed in powernowd (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

This is not an appropriate way to declare a package "obsolete". If you think a package should not be used, file a bug to get it removed from the archive and *then* invalidate the bugs.

Changed in powernowd (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Phillip Susi (psusi) wrote :

This package is obsolete and has been removed from the archive. Closing associated bugs.

Changed in powernowd (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
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