PST tables and Sonys Bios

Hi developer and user,

Sony Bios (and the PST tables) maybe don't like the powernow feature, because yesterday I have updated my FX705 from Bios (R0117K5) to the latest one (R0121K5) and then I dump all PST tables (with powernow infos) and found that they do not fix the "PST:26" for my CPU (all VIDs are 1.3V), no they change the correct (?) "PST:27" (maybe for the 1600+) from:

PST:27 (@0x401906ce)
cpuid: 0x780 fsb: 100 maxFID: 0x16 startvid: 0x11
num of p states in this table: 6

   FID: 0x4 (5.0x [500MHz])    VID: 0x19 (1.050V)
   FID: 0x6 (6.0x [600MHz])    VID: 0x19 (1.050V)
   FID: 0x8 (7.0x [700MHz])    VID: 0x19 (1.050V)
   FID: 0xc (9.0x [900MHz])    VID: 0x19 (1.050V)
   FID: 0x0 (11.0x [1100MHz])  VID: 0x15 (1.150V)

FID: 0x16 (14.0x [1400MHz]) VID: 0xe (1.300V)

to:

PST:27 (@0x401906be)
cpuid: 0x780 fsb: 100 maxFID: 0x16 startvid: 0xe
num of p states in this table: 6

   FID: 0x4 (5.0x [500MHz])    VID: 0xe (1.300V)
   FID: 0x6 (6.0x [600MHz])    VID: 0xe (1.300V)
   FID: 0xa (8.0x [800MHz])    VID: 0xe (1.300V)
   FID: 0xe (10.0x [1000MHz])  VID: 0xe (1.300V)
   FID: 0x2 (12.0x [1200MHz])  VID: 0xe (1.300V)

FID: 0x16 (14.0x [1400MHz]) VID: 0xe (1.300V)

Now the VIDs for this cpu are also all 1.3V :-(

Is there a chance to include a fix in the powernow-k7 code "for broken PST tables" or should everybody make it's own patch like "Luigi Belli" in "Acer Aspire 1300 buggy BIOS - hardcoded patch" (http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/private/cpufreq/2003-June/002171.html)?

Ciao Lars

My Sony Vaios (I no longer have them) both were in the FXA series (same as the FX series) and both had completely correct Powernow tables for the Mobile Athlon 4 part for both of the BIOSs you mentioned.

Fact 1: the PSTs weren't broken at all in any BIOS for my Mobile Athlon 4 CPUs.

Fact 2: the PSTs for some models of Mobile Athlon XP started off kinda "broken" and got more "broken" with the lastest BIOS.

Fact 3: that BIOS update supposedly fixes several lockup problems due to "system conflicts" according to the docs.

Conclusion: my guess is that Sony purposely bumped up the voltage for _some_ CPUs because they were having system stability problems related to voltage scaling with them. It's possible that the PSTs are like this to actually get your machine to run properly.

You might want to consider that the PST as it is in the BIOS might be required to keep your machine from locking up occasionally. Also rememeber that with those PSTs CPUFreq will still scale the CPU speed and save you power, it just won't scale voltage too. Maybe getting the extra few minutes of battery power that scaling the voltage might give you isn't worth the hassle?

Of course, on those Sonys, the battery life is so crappy that you may be willing to put up with some system instability to go longer...

It's also possible that the problem may be Windows specific and Linux / CPUFreq work fine scaling the voltage of your processor.

Just some food for though,
Carl Thompson

Quoting Lars Gemeinhardt <[email protected]>:

My machine (Sony Vaio FX805, Linux 2.4.2[01]+acpi+swsusp+cpufreq) locks up occasionally. The BIOS PST is a "new one" with the voltage of 1.3V for all frequencies. I have not yet found out, what the reason(s) for the lock-ups is/are. Is it a problem with the standard kernel, a problem with one of the patches, or a problem with the softmodem driver hsflinmodem-5.03.whatever? Unfortunately, the BIOS PST is not sufficient to keep the machine from locking up;-)

On my laptop the effect of scaling only the frequency is not sufficient to keep the CPU fan from occasionally turning on. I have the hope to get the machine quiet (for low-load situations as text editing or mp3 playing) by scaling the voltage too.

Therefore it seems desirable to me to have a means to override the BIOS PST in order to test upto what voltage the machine does not lock up much more often than with 1.3V.

Regards

Johannes

Quoting Johannes von Loewis <[email protected]>:

My experience with the Sonys is that their fans alone are insufficient to maintain an equilibrium under high load and they overheat _very_ quickly. On these machines you _must_ run a program to monitor CPU temperature and scale/throttle the CPU down when it gets too hot or the system _will_ lock up. (My cpuspeed daemon does that as well as automatically adjust the the speed depending on the demand on the processor. After adding this to my program I never experienced a lock up on my Sonys again.)

Do your lock ups coincide with heavy CPU use? I ran exactly what you are running (including the modem driver) and did not experience any lock ups except for heat related ones.

The only other issue I had is that rarely ACPI would "freak out" when battery power was extremely low (<2% IIRC). And I only experienced that problem when running multiple batteries.

In my experience on the Sonys (and most every other modern desktop replacement laptop) even with full CPU scaling and ACPI C2 if you are doing anything at all the fan will be on a good portion of the time even if the CPU at at minimum speed and voltage. Lower powered CPUs are better at keeping the fan off; my Mobile Duron based Sony had the fan on much less than my Mobile Athlon 4 based Sonys. Playing MP3s is probably enough to keep the fan running constantly on your Mobile Athlon XP machine. Be happy though-- the fans on the Sonys are quiter than most and _much_ quiter than some (Compaq Presarios are horribly noisy).

Yes, I'm kind of a laptop junkie and over the last 3 years I've owned 7!
Best: my current eMachines M5305 Widscreen. Worst: KDS Valiant 6480iPTD- actually fell apart from 6 months of normal use.

Carl Thompson