Software options for thermal throttling?

Software options for thermal throttling? - Printable Version

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Software options for thermal throttling? - e1337 - 06-09-2020

Are there any daemons, kernel tweaks, ... available to have more aggressive thermal throttling on the PinePhone? It does get very hot if running demanding tasks, and I don't like it both for my hands as well as the possible impact on battery lifetime. However, making sure to limit all tasks one by one is lots of work, it'd be nicer if the whole system just throttled earlier when temperature crosses a certain threshold over a certain amount of time.

Does somebody happen to know if some throttling tweaks like that are available in the kernel or in some power management daemon that can be tweaked for use on the PinePhone? Or would any of you know a good place to request this for consideration?

RE: Software options for thermal throttling? - Der Geist der Maschine - 06-09-2020

(06-09-2020, 09:59 PM)e1337 Wrote: Are there any daemons, kernel tweaks, ... available to have more aggressive thermal throttling on the PinePhone? It does get very hot if running demanding tasks, and I don't like it both for my hands as well as the possible impact on battery lifetime. However, making sure to limit all tasks one by one is lots of work, it'd be nicer if the whole system just throttled earlier when temperature crosses a certain threshold over a certain amount of time.

Does somebody happen to know if some throttling tweaks like that are available in the kernel or in some power management daemon that can be tweaked for use on the PinePhone? Or would any of you know a good place to request this for consideration?

I don't own a PinePhone but I assume the kernel includes the thermal subsystem.

This would reduce the cpu frequencies to make sure the CPU temperature does not cross 55C. That works on my Pinebook Pro

Code:
# echo 55000 > /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_temp

You can check the current temperature

Code:
$ cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

35000

Here you can check what each termal_zoneX represents and throttle other blocks as well

Code:
$  cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone?/type

cpu

gpu

RE: Software options for thermal throttling? - e1337 - 06-10-2020

That sounds super promising! Sadly, there seems to be some issue with the sensors:

Code:
$ sudo cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

cat: read error: Invalid argument

$ sudo cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone1/temp

cat: read error: Invalid argument

$ sudo cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone2/temp

cat: read error: Invalid argument

Is this maybe why the device runs so hot? Is this normal...?

RE: Software options for thermal throttling? - Der Geist der Maschine - 06-10-2020

(06-10-2020, 12:27 AM)e1337 Wrote: That sounds super promising! Sadly, there seems to be some issue with the sensors:

Code:
$ sudo cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp cat: read error: Invalid argument $ sudo cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone1/temp cat: read error: Invalid argument $ sudo cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone2/temp cat: read error: Invalid argument
Is this maybe why the device runs so hot? Is this normal...?

I don't have a PinePhone and can't help you further. You are on your own. What I would do:

1. learn your thermal settings

$ zgrep -i thermal /proc/config.gz

2. understand what these settings mean (and look for interesting settings not in your kernel)

https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/drivers/thermal/Kconfig

3. understand the thermal driver's sysfs api (I don't understand why this file vanished from recent kernels) and see how to throttle

https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v5.2.21/source/Documentation/thermal/sysfs-api.txt

RE: Software options for thermal throttling? - e1337 - 06-10-2020

(06-10-2020, 01:08 AM)Der Geist der Maschine Wrote: I don't have a PinePhone and can't help you further. You are on your own.

I wasn't necessarily asking you since I think devs frequent here, so I would assume someone might know: If anyone knows why the temperature sensor doesn't want to work, feel free to jump into the conversation Wink

RE: Software options for thermal throttling? - dukla2000 - 06-10-2020

(06-10-2020, 06:22 AM)e1337 Wrote:
(06-10-2020, 01:08 AM)Der Geist der Maschine Wrote: I don't have a PinePhone and can't help you further. You are on your own.

I wasn't necessarily asking you since I think devs frequent here, so I would assume someone might know: If anyone knows why the temperature sensor doesn't want to work, feel free to jump into the conversation

A little bird told me it is supported standard (/fixed) in 5.7 kernel. So I am anxiously awaiting a new release with a 5.7 kernel Big Grin