FreeBSD runs a lot hotter than Linux on Core 2 Duo laptop

K

kriptomahsun

I even remember playing Wow wotlk on this laptop like 6 months ago on Devuan, it was barely 60C. Tbh it plays on stable 30-40 FPS too. But on FreeBSD ZFS, it's kinda hot up to 72C while doing some web surfing. Now I am back to Devuan, just compiling some modules for kernel. Looking at the temps it's barely 55 C. It never gets hot.
The laptop I am talking about is this Samsung R518. Some 2009 era laptop.

CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Core2 Duo P7450 bits: 64 type: MCP cache:
L2: 3 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1645 min/max: 800/2133 cores: 1: 1695 2: 1596
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD RV710/M92 [Mobility Radeon HD 4330/4350/4550] driver: radeon
v: kernel
Device-2: Z-Star Micro Namuga 1.3M Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 driver: X:
loaded: radeon unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: r600 gpu: radeon
resolution: 1680x1050~60Hz
API: OpenGL v: 3.3 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: AMD RV710 (DRM 2.50.0 /
6.12.18-x64v2-xanmod1 LLVM 15.0.6)
 
Laptop power management on FreeBSD is not as good. There may be specific brand/model exceptions, but my experience with various business-class Dell and one Lenovo laptop in my office all exhibit the same higher power drain and therefore higher heat output issue you are experiencing. Combined with a lack of support for hibernation (ACPI S4) or "modern idle" S0[1], this deficiency makes it impossible to deploy FreeBSD on a truly mobile device.

[1] Being worked on by the LDWG. Maybe the outputs of the Laptop Desktop Working Group will also make progress on power draw, at some point.
 
Bucky said:
Between this and your other, ChatGPT-based posting, these look like thinly veiled, "Linux is better than FreeBSD because..." bashings.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately not, I am trying to be of help here. I even made a small software for backlight control around here in this forum. I am curious and how this FreeBSD works and all.

Also I reinstalled with UFS, instead of ZFS on the same SSD: It seems significantly faster. Even pkg downloads packages a lot faster. Like by a lot. Why people still recommend ZFS like too much? UFS works quite well actually. Data loss is very overrated anyway. Just backup things. HDD's die for a lot of other reasons too. Then you can't save data when that happens, at least not without a lot of money.
 
kriptomahsun said:
Also I reinstalled with UFS, instead of ZFS on the same SSD: It seems significantly faster. Even pkg downloads packages a lot faster. Like by a lot. Why people still recommend ZFS like too much? UFS works quite well actually. Data loss is very overrated anyway. Just backup things. HDD's die for a lot of other reasons too. Then you can't save data when that happens, at least not without a lot of money.
Click to expand...
Certainly true that both UFS and ZFS have their specific uses. I don't see either going away anytime soon.
 
kriptomahsun said:
Data loss is very overrated anyway.
Click to expand...
Depends on the usage. For a desktop system, where little work gets done (meaning few files with valuable content are created), that statement might be true. For most other uses, it is untrue. Often massively so.

kriptomahsun said:
Just backup things.
Click to expand...
Great idea. Except that backup isn't just about data loss due to hardware malfunction, but much more about user malfunction.

kriptomahsun said:
HDD's die for a lot of other reasons too.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. With ZFS checksums, you get to cover 80% of all disk failure modes for 20% of the cost (I made up the percentages as a didactic example). It also allows you very easily to use redundant disks, which catches 99% of disk failures, for a mere doubling of the disk drive cost. If your data or time is valuable, those are typically very good investments.
kriptomahsun said:
Then you can't save data when that happens, at least not without a lot of money.
Click to expand...
Yes, you can. For example, the big cloud storage providers advertise (and in the case of big commercial contracts guarantee, within limits) a data durability of 11 nines, a claim that I find completely believable. And while they are more expensive per byte-second than a single disk drive, their cost is reasonable compared to the value of the data in many cases. At the other extreme, setting up mirrored disks at home does not cost a lot of money, about an extra $100.
 
HI, did you add power management to your rc.conf ?

-----------------------------
powerd_enable="YES"
powerd_flags="-n adaptive -a hiadaptive -b adaptive"
-----------------------------------

my laptop drops to 900 Mhz when idle

# sysctl dev.cpu | grep freq
dev.cpu.11.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.11.freq: 903
dev.cpu.9.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.9.freq: 903
dev.cpu.7.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.7.freq: 903
dev.cpu.5.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.5.freq: 903
dev.cpu.3.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.3.freq: 903
dev.cpu.1.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.1.freq: 903
dev.cpu.10.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.10.freq: 903
dev.cpu.8.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.8.freq: 903
dev.cpu.6.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.6.freq: 849
dev.cpu.4.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.4.freq: 903
dev.cpu.2.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.2.freq: 903
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.0.freq: 903

while maxing out at 4.2 Ghz when actually doing some work
# sysctl dev.cpu | grep freq
dev.cpu.11.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.11.freq: 4117
dev.cpu.9.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.9.freq: 4057
dev.cpu.7.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.7.freq: 4118
dev.cpu.5.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.5.freq: 4228
dev.cpu.3.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.3.freq: 4318
dev.cpu.1.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.1.freq: 4234
dev.cpu.10.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.10.freq: 4217
dev.cpu.8.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.8.freq: 4217
dev.cpu.6.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.6.freq: 4232
dev.cpu.4.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.4.freq: 4218
dev.cpu.2.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.2.freq: 4160
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2700/-1
dev.cpu.0.freq: 4212
 
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