Re: MCP limit log messages, 2.6.36-rc4

From: Tim Gardner
Date: Thu Sep 23 2010 - 18:47:11 EST


On 09/24/2010 05:54 AM, Jesse Barnes wrote:
On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:48:16 -0700
Jesse Barnes<jbarnes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:47:45 -0600
Tim Gardner<tim.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've been getting regular MCP limit log messages on a Dell Studio 1458
(i5 CPU) with an A02 BIOS. With the attached debug hack it prints the
following values:

[ 33.605098] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP limit exceeded: Avg power
30123, limit 1023
[ 38.597998] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP limit exceeded: Avg power
21697, limit 1023
[ 43.590917] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP limit exceeded: Avg power
15390, limit 1023
[ 48.583821] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP limit exceeded: Avg power
43370, limit 1023
[ 53.576740] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP limit exceeded: Avg power
64728, limit 1023

This is an idle machine which starts printing these messages about 30
seconds after boot. Any thoughts?

Actually, it looks like you have some non-upstream patches to the IPS
driver, maybe one of Joe's patches to add more debug output when limits
are exceeded?


Its just a debug hack which I wrote (that I mentioned in the first email) so I could figure out why the driver was complaining.

At any rate, I think we're setting the MCP power limit incorrectly.
The BIOS must be giving us a limit in 0.1W units (though even then it
looks bogus); we need to clamp it to one of the available defaults.

Joe has some code for that as well, I've just asked him to update his
patch, which we should get into 2.6.35.x.

Just posted some fixes for this to the x86 driver list, in particular
the "[PATCH 2/2] IPS driver: verify BIOS provided limits" should help a
bit here, but I still have a bug to fix in the i915 driver to really
make things work.


I'll be back from Asia by Monday and will give these patches a try.

rtg
--
Tim Gardner tim.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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