Disabling Intel turbo on non IDA featured processor generally correct?

Hello Srinivas,

Since patch:
ac4e04d9e378f5aa826c2406ad7871ae1b6a6fb9

there is a user reporting turbo not working, while it worked before and he claims it works on Windows 11 as well.
No related BIOS option avail.

The patch mentions Skylake-X systems, while the user seem to have another CPU:
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1252385

Can someone from Intel please double check.

Thanks,

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

The BIOS shipped with system disabled turbo on boot and user had to manually force via the sysfs. With the new change that is not an option.

We are trying to contact the manufacturer, but no solution yet.

Thanks,
Srinivas

User (adding EZ, sorry for missing you out on initial post) claims that cpuid shows:
So I ran the cpuid commend and it returned:
Thermal and Power Management Features (6):
digital thermometer = true
Intel Turbo Boost Technology = true
...

Not sure whether this really is the same bit and whether this is prove that IDA feature bit has been switched by Linux OS (by SMI/firmware?) after initializing?

IDA cpufeature bit is not set in /proc/cpuinfo

EZ probably can do the one or other msr read/write if you need someone tests.

Good luck,

Thomas

That is appreciated!

If the BIOS does it correctly there is a way to know as the limits can be dynamic.

Here probably we need to reevaluate again. Try the attached change and check if this brings back the old hack.

Thanks,
Srinivas

From 405d27e871f7bc85a786f84877a35da54c813b39 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Srinivas Pandruvada <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2025 09:57:03 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] cpufreq: intel_pstate: Reevaluate IDA presence on no_turbo
attribute change

If hardware disabled IDA (Intel Dynamic Acceleration technology) feature before OS boot, turbo mode support will be disabled permanently. In this case CPUID.06H: EAX[1] reports 0 and attribute "/sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/no_turbo" will show "1" and status can't be changed to "0".

When no_turbo is written with 0, in this case evaluate CPUID.06H: EAX[1] again. If the feature status is changed to 1 post OS boot then allow to enable turbo mode.

---
 drivers/cpufreq/intel_pstate.c | 7 ++++++-
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

index 43e847e9f741..0ec45a610b45 100644
@@ -596,10 +596,15 @@ static void intel_pstate_hybrid_hwp_adjust(struct cpudata *cpu)
 
 static bool turbo_is_disabled(void)
 {
+	unsigned int eax, ebx, ecx, edx;
 	u64 misc_en;
 
-	if (!cpu_feature_enabled(X86_FEATURE_IDA))
+	eax = 0;
+	cpuid(6, &eax, &ebx, &ecx, &edx);
+	if (!(eax & BIT(1))) {
+		pr_info("Turbo is disabled\n");
 		return true;
+	}
 
 	rdmsrl(MSR_IA32_MISC_ENABLE, misc_en);
 

2.43.0