[LAU] Balance between performance and noise

[rosea.grammostola]

On 11/27/2010 01:15 PM, Leigh Dyer wrote:
> 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.
>    
Hmm when I read about the conservative mode, I wouldn't expect it to be 
useful for audio work (playing pianoteq in this case), but I must say, 
no xruns...

And it looks like my thinkfan configuration does more harm then good atm...

I will explore a bit more.

Thanks!

\r