est(4) Enhanced Speedstep Technology

SYNOPSIS

To compile this capability into your kernel place the following line in your kernel configuration file:
device cpufreq

DESCRIPTION

The interface provides support for the Intel Enhanced Speedstep Technology.

Note that capabilities are automatically loaded by the cpufreq(4) driver.

LOADER TUNABLES

The interface is intended to allow cpufreq(4) to access and implement Intel Enhanced SpeedStep Technology via acpi(4) and the acpi_perf interface accessors. If the default settings are not optimal, the following sysctls can be used to modify or monitor behavior.

hw.est.msr_info
Attempt to infer information from direct probing of the msr. Should only be used in diagnostic cases. (default 0)
hw.est.strict
Validate frequency requested is accepted by the cpu when set. It appears that this will only work on single core cpus. (default 0)

SYSCTL VARIABLES

The following sysctl(8) values are available

dev.est.%d.desc
Description of support, almost always Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control.
dev.est.0.%desc: Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control
dev.est.%d.driver
Driver in use, always est.
dev.est.0.%driver: est
dev.est.%d.parent
dev.est.0.%parent: cpu0
The cpu that is exposing these frequencies. For example cpu0
dev.est.%d.freq_settings
The valid frequencies that are allowed by this CPU and their step values.
dev.est.0.freq_settings: 2201/45000 2200/45000 2000/39581 1900/37387
1800/34806 1700/32703 1600/30227 1500/28212 1400/25828 1300/23900 1200/21613 1100/19775 1000/17582 900/15437 800/13723

DIAGNOSTICS

"est%d: <Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control> on cpu%d"

Indicates normal startup of this interface.

"est: CPU supports Enhanced Speedstep, but is not recognized."
"est: cpu_vendor GenuineIntel, msr 471c471c0600471c"
"device_attach: est%d attach returned 6"

Indicates all attempts to attach to this interface have failed. This usually indicates an improper BIOS setting restricting O/S control of the CPU speeds. Consult your BIOS documentation for more details.

COMPATIBILITY

is only found on supported Intel CPUs.

AUTHORS

This manual page was written by An Sean Bruno Aq [email protected] .