Improving thermal management with Intel Running Average Power Limit (RAPL) - junaruga/framework-laptop-config GitHub Wiki

This page is about setting up to improve the therm of the CPU with Intel Running Average Power Limit (RAPL). The benefit is to suppress the sound of the loud fan.

I followed the instructions on the Framework community page[1].

My environment

  • Fedora Linux 36
  • Kernel: 5.19.8-200 
    $ uname -r
5.19.8-200.fc36.x86_64

Install the powercap

Install the powercap[2] first. As it seems that there is no RPM package for powercap, install it by building the source. I built on the latest master branch commit 1af02708c0561a622291615e5ee2f3f06a697413, reading the README.md.

$ git clone https://github.com/powercap/powercap.git

$ cd powercap

$ git log --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit | head -1
1af0270 cmake: bump version to 0.6.1

$ mkdir build

$ cd build/

$ cmake .. -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=On -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --install-prefix=/usr/local/powercap-0.6.1-1af0270

$ make

$ sudo make install

The installed commands need to be able to find the library path.

$ /usr/local/powercap-0.6.1-1af0270/bin/powercap-info
/usr/local/powercap-0.6.1-1af0270/bin/powercap-info: error while loading shared libraries: libpowercap.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Add a symbolic file for the installed directory for convenience.

$ cd /usr/local

$ sudo ln -s powercap-0.6.1-1af0270 powercap

Set the library path, and activate it. See the [3] for details.

$ sudo vi /etc/ld.so.conf.d/powercap.conf
/usr/local/powercap/lib64 # <= Add this line.

$ sudo ldconfig

$ sudo ldconfig -v | grep powercap
ldconfig: Can't stat /libx32: No such file or directory
ldconfig: Path `/usr/lib' given more than once
(from <builtin>:0 and <builtin>:0)
ldconfig: Path `/usr/lib64' given more than once
(from <builtin>:0 and <builtin>:0)
ldconfig: Can't stat /usr/libx32: No such file or directory
/usr/local/powercap/lib64: (from /etc/ld.so.conf.d/powercap.conf:1)
  libpowercap.so.0 -> libpowercap.so.0.6.1

Set the symbolic link for convenience, as the powercap-set is used in the systemd config files in a later step.

$ cd /usr/local/bin/
$ sudo ln -s ../powercap/bin/powercap-set .

Set the PATH for convinience.

.bashrc

...
PATH="${PATH}:/usr/local/powercap/bin"
...
export PATH

Test the powercap commands.

You can see the status by the powercap-info command.

$ powercap-info > powercap_info_orig.txt

Stop the thermald service.

$ systemctl list-unit-files | grep thermald
dbus-org.freedesktop.thermald.service                                               alias           -
thermald.service                                                                    enabled         enabled

$ sudo systemctl stop thermald

$ sudo systemctl status thermald

Run the powercap-set commands.

$ sudo powercap-set intel-rapl --zone=0 --constraint=0 -l 14000000 -s 10000000
$ sudo powercap-set intel-rapl --zone=0 --constraint=2 -l 36000000

$ powercap-info > powercap_info_new.txt

Here is the difference.

$ diff -u powercap_info_orig.txt powercap_info_new.txt
--- powercap_info_orig.txt	2022-10-16 20:54:33.853487459 +0200
+++ powercap_info_new.txt	2022-10-16 21:03:01.636962970 +0200
@@ -22,8 +22,8 @@
     max_energy_range_uj: 262143328850
     Constraint 0
       name: long_term
-      power_limit_uw: 200000000
-      time_window_us: 31981568
+      power_limit_uw: 14000000
+      time_window_us: 9994240
       max_power_uw: 28000000
     Constraint 1
       name: short_term
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
       max_power_uw: 0
     Constraint 2
       name: peak_power
-      power_limit_uw: 121000000
+      power_limit_uw: 36000000
       time_window_us: 0
       max_power_uw: 0
     Zone 0:0

Register the powercap-set commands as systemd services

/etc/systemd/system/intel-rapl-balanced.service

[Unit]
Description=Set Intel RAPL power limits (balanced)
Conflicts=intel-rapl-powersave.service thermald.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 0 -l 14000000 -s 10000000 && powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 2 -l 36000000"
ExecStop=/bin/sh -c "powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 0 -l 200000000 && powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 2 -l 121000000"
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=sysinit.target

/etc/systemd/system/intel-rapl-powersave.service

[Unit]
Description=Set Intel RAPL power limits (powersave)
Conflicts=intel-rapl-balanced.service thermald.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 0 -l 10000000 -s 10000000 && powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 2 -l 20000000"
ExecStop=/bin/sh -c "powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 0 -l 200000000 && powercap-set intel-rapl -z 0 -c 2 -l 121000000"
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=sysinit.target

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl enable intel-rapl-balanced
$ sudo systemctl start intel-rapl-balanced
$ sudo systemctl disable thermal

Register the systemd services to the acpid events

The acpid is a daemon that dispatches ACPI events to user-space programs. The ACPI is is the acronym for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface.

$ sudo dnf install acpid

$ rpm -q acpid
acpid-2.0.33-2.fc36.x86_64

I enabled the intel-rapl-powersave service, as it will be used.

$ sudo systemctl enable intel-rapl-powersave

$ systemctl list-unit-files | grep intel-rapl-powersave
intel-rapl-powersave.service                                                        enabled         disabled

/etc/acpi/events/ac-power-on

event=ac_adapter ACPI0003:00 00000080 00000001
action=systemctl start intel-rapl-balanced

/etc/acpi/events/ac-power-off

event=ac_adapter ACPI0003:00 00000080 00000000
action=systemctl start intel-rapl-powersave

$ sudo systemctl restart acpid

That's all.

References

⚠️ **GitHub.com Fallback** ⚠️