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Title: OpenBSD 7.1: fan noise and high temperature solution
Author: Solène
Date: 21 April 2022
Tags: openbsd obsdfreqd openbsd71
Description: Here is a fix if your OpenBSD 7.1 system is drawing too
much power, has its fan always on or the CPU temperature is too high
# Introduction
OpenBSD 7.1 has been released with a change that will set the CPU to
max speed when plugged to the wall. This brings better performance and
entirely let the CPU and mainboard do the frequency throttling.
However, it may doesn't throttle well for some users, resulting in huge
power usage even when idle, heat from the CPU and also fan noise.
As the usual "automatic" frequency scheduling mode is no longer
available when connected to powergrid, I wrote a simple utility to
manage the frequency when the system is plugged to the wall, I took the
opportunity to improve it, giving better performance than the previous
automatic mode, but also giving more battery life when using on a
laptop on battery.
obsdfreqd project page
# Installation
Since OpenBSD 7.2 obsdfreqd is available as a packge. An extra
important step is to remove the automatic mode in apmd which would kill
obsdfreqd, you can keep apmd for its ability to run commands on
resume/suspend etc...
```shell
pkg_add obsdfreqd
rcctl ls on | grep ^apmd && rcctl set apmd flags -L && rcctl restart apmd
rcctl enable obsdfreqd
rcctl start obsdfreqd
```
# Configuration
No configuration are required, it works out of the box with a battery
saving profile when on battery and a performance profile when connected
to power.
If you feel adventurous, obsdfreqd man page will give you information
about all the parameters available if you want to tailor yourself a
specific profile.
Note that obsdfreqd can target a specific temperature limit using -T
parameter, see the man page for explanations.
# FAQ
Using hw.perfpolicy="auto" sysctl won't help, the kernel code entirely
bypass the frequency management if the system is not running on
battery.
sched_bsd.c line shipped in OpenBSD 7.1
Using apmd -A doesn't solve the issue because apmd was simply setting
the sysctl hw.perfpolicy to auto, which as explained above set the
frequency to full speed when not on battery.
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