Feb21

CPU Speed issues on a Via Esther

Posted by Karanbir Singh on 21/Feb/2008  ~  Posted in: Linux, Hardware

I've got one of these machines, running CentOS-5/i386 : 

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : CentaurHauls
cpu family      : 6
model           : 10
model name      : VIA Esther processor 1200MHz
stepping        : 9
cpu MHz         : 1197.077
cache size      : 128 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm up pni est tm2 rng rng_en ace ace_en ace2 ace2_en phe phe_en pmm pmm_en
bogomips        : 2396.00
clflush size    : 64

And for some reason, the cpu speed was stuck at 

cpu MHz         : 399.00Mhz

which made no sense to me. Checked cpuspeed and tried signals that should / would make it move a bit faster. Considering its a 1200Mhz machine, I'd like to see it actually run at that speed. Anyway, it turns out that some of these Via MoBo/Cpu combo machines have a BIOS based cpu governor that sets the speed the CPU can run at - and setting defaults makes it run in 'Fanless mode' at 400Mhz, setting that to 'optimized' gets the cpu going to the max speed of 1200Mhz.

Just thought something that people in similar situations might be interested in.

- KB