amd c-60 cpu speedup

[666philb]

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING IS FOR AMD C-60 CPUS & INVOLVES CHANGING VOLTAGES ON YOUR AMD C-60 CPU.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY NEGATIVE EFFECTS IF THEY OCCUR

If the disclaimer hasn't scared you off we'll begin

I own a 2011 acer aspire one 722 netbook with an amd c-60 cpu (this is a pretty poor cpu!) and a few days ago stumbled across the fact that the c-60 cpu has a turbo mode but this doesn't activate in linux.

The C-60 CPU has three states: P0, P1 and P2
P0 / 1.3 GHz / turbo mode
P1 / 1.0 GHz / normal mode
P2 / 0.8 GHz / eco mode

and P0 doesn't activate, so for all these years i've been running just between 0.8ghz & 1.0ghz.

However there's a way to fix this thanks to these two chaps.......
undervolt by Thierry Goubier. https://sourceforge.net/projects/undervolt/
c60-tweak by wsdfhjxc https://github.com/wsdfhjxc/c60-tweak .
please have a read of the info about c60-tweak and what it does.
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First off check that you have an amd c-60 cpu as this is for amd c-60 cpu only.

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cat /proc/cpuinfo

or use pup-sysinfo>>>mainboard>>>cpu

next you'll need to install the devx.sfs for your puppy as we need to compile undervolt.
download and extract undervolt 0.4 https://sourceforge.net/projects/undervolt/
open a terminal in the extracted folder and type

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make

this will quickly produce an binary called undervolt and you will need to manually place this in /usr/local/bin (location needed for c60-tweak script in its present state)

next download and extract c60-tweak https://github.com/wsdfhjxc/c60-tweak and then open c60-tweak.sh as text as we'll need to edit the script before running it (leave open).

now we need our default voltage values (this command doesn't change anything just reads the current defaults)

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modprobe msr
undervolt -r

my results are

undervolt -r
P-state Vid Voltage div
0 0x1E 1.1750V 3.00
1 0x20 1.1500V 4.00
2 0x23 1.1125V 5.00

it's fine if your results are different as we are just getting the default values for your c-60.

now we need to add these default values to defaultParameters= line of c60-tweak.sh. so i change it from this

defaultParameters="-p 0:0x22 -p 1:0x28,4 -p 2:0x2B"

to this

defaultParameters="-p 0:0x1E -p 1:0x20,3 -p 2:0x23"

remember to use your results from undervolt -r

next edit the tweakedParameters= line of c60-tweak.sh. first off just copy your default values in the same as above.
then change -p0 (ptsate 0) to the same value as -p1 (pstate1). so for me i changed

tweakedParameters="-p 0:0x28 -p 1:0x28,3 -p 2:0x38"

to

tweakedParameters="-p 0:0x20 -p 1:0x20,4 -p 2:0x23"

so my edited c60-tweak.sh is now setup for my computer using the results from undervolt -r. you can now save this.

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defaultParameters="-p 0:0x1E -p 1:0x20,4 -p 2:0x23"
tweakedParameters="-p 0:0x20 -p 1:0x20,3 -p 2:0x23"

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Before continuing make sure Menu>>system>>cpu frequency scaling is set to ondemand. I discovered whilst bench-marking that all other modes block turbo. Performance Mode is particularly bad.
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Before running c60-tweak.sh it's worth doing some benchmarks on your unaltered system. Menu>>system>>Hardinfo has a number of cpu benchmarks. run a few of these and write down their results.


Now we're ready!!

run c60-tweak.sh in a terminal and choose option 2

AMD C-60 Linux Tweak
1 - Check current status
2 - Undervolt and unlock turbo mode
3 - Enable on system startup
4 - Restore and disable
5 - Quit
Select an option:

hopefully you system is stable. you can run undervolt -r again to see you new voltages.
Now try running the same benchmarks again.

My Benchmarks Before:
Blowfish 25.81
Cryptohash 52.83
CPU N-Queens 18.81

My Benchmarks After:
Blowfish 19.36 lower is better
Cryptohash 71.47 higher is better
CPU N-Queens 14.37 lower is better

if you happy with the results choose number 3 in c60-tweak.sh to run at boot.
Have a play with some different benchmarking tools, you can easily turn it on and off (2 & 4) in c60-tweak.sh.

I tested the above in raringpup tahrpup xenialpup bionicpup fossapup and results are consistent. My netbook is noticeably snappier and has been given a new lease of life. it will actually now play 720p youtube videos for the first time ever

[666philb]

reserved for more undervolting