Controlling CPU frequency - no 2GHz?

[jimsurvak]

Hello Pine64 community!
I've been reasonably happy with my PbP since receiving it early this year. However, I was tinkering around with some things & installed the former Debian-based factory OS & noticed that there's a CPU frequency widget that lets me set the CPU to 2GHz. I forgot this was a thing, so tried to set my CPU frequency (using the "cpupower" terminal utility) but the max I seem to be able to manage is 1.42GHz. I've tried a few different distros on a microSD but run Manjaro as my daily, so I'd like to know a couple things:

1) is it possible to set the CPU to 2GHz?
2) is it known why 1.42GHz is (or at least, is reported as) the maximum?

I thought maybe it was just an oddity with the Debian distro but it seems that 2GHz is reported in Pine64's documentation as the maximum frequency.

Any insight and/or suggestions would be appreciated!

[poVoq]

Hello Pine64 community!
I've been reasonably happy with my PbP since receiving it early this year. However, I was tinkering around with some things & installed the former Debian-based factory OS & noticed that there's a CPU frequency widget that lets me set the CPU to 2GHz. I forgot this was a thing, so tried to set my CPU frequency (using the "cpupower" terminal utility) but the max I seem to be able to manage is 1.42GHz. I've tried a few different distros on a microSD but run Manjaro as my daily, so I'd like to know a couple things:

1) is it possible to set the CPU to 2GHz?
2) is it known why 1.42GHz is (or at least, is reported as) the maximum?

I thought maybe it was just an oddity with the Debian distro but it seems that 2GHz is reported in Pine64's documentation as the maximum frequency.

Any insight and/or suggestions would be appreciated!

Isn't that the max frequency of the 4 smaller a53 cores? I think only the two a72 cores can go to 2ghz or at least 1.8ghz.

[as400]

@poVoq - exactly. 1.42 GHz is small cores frequency.

[MeLikeyTacos]

On my machine using cpupower, cores 0-3 are the A53 cores running at 1416MHz. Cores 4-5 are the A72's at 2000MHz. I have also noticed that if you change the governor, the A72's setting drops to 1800MHz and I have to bump them back up to 2000 manually, not sure why. The governor setting also will not persist through reboots, I would like to make it that way if possible.

[jimsurvak]

@poVoq - exactly. 1.42 GHz is small cores frequency.

 Thank you @poVoq and @as400 - I actually had that thought driving home from work today. I appreciate the insight!

@MeLikeyTacos - how do you use cpupower to get that level of detail? I usually just set "governor" and let it ride, having it report that core 0-5 are set. But I haven't played around with it enough to determine how to see each core.

[MeLikeyTacos]

@poVoq - exactly. 1.42 GHz is small cores frequency.

 Thank you @poVoq and @as400 - I actually had that thought driving home from work today. I appreciate the insight!

@MeLikeyTacos - how do you use cpupower to get that level of detail? I usually just set "governor" and let it ride, having it report that core 0-5 are set. But I haven't played around with it enough to determine how to see each core.

I'm using the "cpupower-gui" app that's available through AUR, it gives a nice interface with sliders for setting frequencies and dropdown boxes for selecting the governor settings.

[jimsurvak]

@poVoq - exactly. 1.42 GHz is small cores frequency.

 Thank you @poVoq and @as400 - I actually had that thought driving home from work today. I appreciate the insight!

@MeLikeyTacos - how do you use cpupower to get that level of detail? I usually just set "governor" and let it ride, having it report that core 0-5 are set. But I haven't played around with it enough to determine how to see each core.

I'm using the "cpupower-gui" app that's available through AUR, it gives a nice interface with sliders for setting frequencies and dropdown boxes for selecting the governor settings.

 Was rooting around looking for how to do this & ran across this article you might like. Apparently the newest version does allow frequency setting at power on or user log on:
https://www.linuxuprising.com/2020/10/ch...es-on.html

[MeLikeyTacos]

@poVoq - exactly. 1.42 GHz is small cores frequency.

 Thank you @poVoq and @as400 - I actually had that thought driving home from work today. I appreciate the insight!

@MeLikeyTacos - how do you use cpupower to get that level of detail? I usually just set "governor" and let it ride, having it report that core 0-5 are set. But I haven't played around with it enough to determine how to see each core.

I'm using the "cpupower-gui" app that's available through AUR, it gives a nice interface with sliders for setting frequencies and dropdown boxes for selecting the governor settings.

 Was rooting around looking for how to do this & ran across this article you might like. Apparently the newest version does allow frequency setting at power on or user log on:
https://www.linuxuprising.com/2020/10/ch...es-on.html

Ah, neato. Thanks for the heads-up!

[rimaille]

You can even go to 2,1Ghz, safely, at 1,25V instead of 2Ghz@1.3V by default.
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...king#CPU_2
This require kernel compilation, but it worth it !

[xmixahlx]

the cpupower config script in pbp-tools shows the many ways you can manipulate the cores