'Athcool' for lower temperature and power consumption on Athlon/Duron processor

[kubicle]

Here's an optimization tip for Athlon/Duron processors:

Important notice:
I've been using athcool on my Athlon system for six months, and have not witnessed any adverse effects on my system. However the author has provided the following warning:

WARNINGS
athcool only sets/unsets the "Disconnect enable when STPGNT detected" bit in the northbridge  of  the  chipset. To  save power, someone has to send the STPGNT signal when the CPU is idle.  This is done by the ACPI subsystem when the C2 state is entered.  Hence, you need ACPI support in your kernel to achieve power savings.

Depending on your motherboard and/or hardware components, enabling power-saving mode may cause:
              * noisy or distorted sound playback,
              * a slowdown in disk performance,
              * system freezes or instability,
              * massive corruption of the filesystem (rare, but observed at least once).

Before use athcool, you must recognize these potential DANGERS.  Please use athcool AT YOUR OWN RISK.

athcool is supplied "as is". The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or  implied.  The  author  and  any other  persons  assume no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of athcool.

On my system, with athcool the core temperature on an 'idle' machine has dropped from 47°C to 30°C. During high cpu usage the temperature of course rises, but quickly drops again when cpu usage drops.

Howto get/enable athcool:
1. Check that your chipset is supported:

Supported Chipsets:
        [Reg ID]  chipsets name
        [ 0x00 ]  AMD-751
        [ 0x00 ]  AMD-761
        [ 0x01 ]  AMD-762
        [ 0x10 ]  VIA KX133
        [ 0x10 ]  VIA KX133
        [ 0x10 ]  VIA KLE133
        [ 0x10 ]  VIA KT133/KM133/KL133/KN133[A]
        [ 0x11 ]  VIA KT266/333[A]
        [ 0x11 ]  VIA KM266[A]/KL266/KM333
        [ 0x11 ]  VIA KN266
        [ 0x12 ]  VIA KT400[A]/KT600
        [ 0x12 ]  VIA KM400[A]
        [ 0x13 ]  VIA KT880
        [ 0x20 ]  SiS 730
        [ 0x20 ]  SiS 733
        [ 0x21 ]  SiS 735
        [ 0x21 ]  SiS 740
        [ 0x21 ]  SiS 741/741GX/M741
        [ 0x21 ]  SiS 745
        [ 0x21 ]  SiS 755
        [ 0x22 ]  SiS 746[FX]
        [ 0x22 ]  SiS 748
        [ 0x30 ]  nVIDIA nForce
        [ 0x31 ]  nVIDIA nForce2

2. Install 'athcool' package from 'universe'
3. Test athcool on your machine:
- to enable, run

sudo athcool on

- to disable, run

sudo athcool off

4. If you find out it works (without problems), you can set athcool to start at boot by enabling it's init-script for your defaul runlevel:
Go to SystemSettings>Advanced>SystemServices>AdminMode
and enable 'Start During Boot' for 'athcool'

Enjoy.

Once again, I haven't seen any adverse effects, but use at your own risk

[lgharriman]

Re: 'Athcool' for lower temperature and power consumption on Athlon/Duron proces

Thanks Kubicle,
It works for me. My CPU is AMD Athlon XP 2000+
The id in the list is: [ 0x12 ] VIA KM400[A]

I read the readme.debian and followed instructions to allow athcool to run at startup.
The LCD display on my computer showed a drop from 114 deg. Fahrenheit to 91 deg. Fahrenheit.

I'm always looking for ways to keep temp at a minimum to prolong life of CPU.
I haven't noticed any performance problems from it.

Larry H

[wilberfan64]

Re: 'Athcool' for lower temperature and power consumption on Athlon/Duron proces

This looks VERY cool... Is there an (easy) way to look up my chipset?? (n00b here, sorry.)

[lgharriman]

Re: 'Athcool' for lower temperature and power consumption on Athlon/Duron proces

Hello wilberfan64
Open a console and type 'lspci' and press [enter]
Here is my listing. It shows my host bridge and chipset host which I beleive its what the athcool program is looking for.
Hope this helps.
Larry H

larry@hamstation:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8378 [KM400/A] Chipset Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI Bridge
00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
00:08.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port (rev 04)
00:08.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04)
00:09.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture ( rev 11)
00:09.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11 )
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/ C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 A C97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2 Model 64 /Model 64 Pro] (rev 15)