[LAU] Balance between performance and noise

Leigh Dyer lsd at wootangent.net
Sat Nov 27 12:15:01 UTC 2010


On Sat, 2010-11-27 at 11:24 +0100, rosea.grammostola wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> When I set cpu scaling with sudo cpufreq-set -g performance, I have the 
> best proaudio performance on my thinkpad T61. But, that will also heat 
> things up very quickly with as consequence more sound from the fans.
> 
> The laptop is more silent when I use, sudo cpufreq-set -g ondemand, but 
> I get more xruns then.
> 
> Is it possible to adjust the ondemand settings to find more balance 
> between performance and noise? How?

You'll almost certainly be getting xruns not because the CPU is running
slower sometimes in "ondemand" mode, but because the CPU is changing
between fast and slow speeds. This speed change causes the CPU to pause
momentarily, and can very easily cause xruns; I've found that this is a
really common cause of JACK xrun issues with laptops.

The good thing is that, unless you're doing something quite CPU
intensive, you might be able to run your CPU at its lowest speed -- as
long as it's not changing speeds, you still shouldn't see xruns. Setting
the CPU governor to "conservative" will lock you in at your CPU's lowest
speed.

If that's not enough, you might be able to set your CPU to a specific
speed that's still lower than its maximum -- I know my 2.4Ghz laptop has
both 800Mhz and 1.6Ghz settings, for instance.

Thanks
Leigh
> 
> 
> Btw., I use thinkfan to control the temperature and fan speed
> http://thinkfan.sourceforge.net/
> 
> My /etc/thinkfan.conf settings are:
> 
> sensor /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal (2, 7, 8, 0, 0, 0, 7, 0, 12, 5, 5)
> 
>   
>   (0,    0,    54)
>   (1,    50,    57)
>   (2,    52,    59)
>   (3,    54,    63)
>   (4,    56,    65)
>   (5,    59,    66)
>   (7,    63,    32767)
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> /r
> 
> 
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> Linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
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