Processor Speed (Actual vs Reported)

[crazzyeddie]

On my Powerbook Titanium 1ghz, I have been running into one issue over and over. While System Profiler and other Apple system tools report my CPU as a 1ghz processor, the terminal command "sysctl hw.cpufrequency" shows it as running at 667mhz. Someone with an 800mhz TiBook also gets a return of 667mhz when he runs this command.

Do you think this could be an issue as to how other programs run on the computer? The Unix command SHOULD return the value that the computer is running at, more so than System Profiler, which is basically pre-programed by Apple.

[RandomDeadHead]

That command reports accurately on my G4 iMac. Not sure why It doesn't on your Pbook.:confused:

[Macpoops]

possibly some sort of stepping? Maybe try it when it's plugged into the wall

[G5orbust]

Originally posted by Macpoops
possibly some sort of stepping? Maybe try it when it's plugged into the wall

I agree. You may want to go into system prefs>energy saver and see if your performance is set to highest for battery power. If it is not, then it is set to reduced, which runs at a little bit about half proc power, for you that would be about 667MHz.

[Powerbook G5]

Mine is reporting it accurately even with it set to "automatic" in energy saver. It reads it as 124999995.

[crazzyeddie]

The Powerbook is plugged in and on highest performance, but still reporting 667mhz.

[hugemullens]

My 12 inch reports 533mhz. Odd. Not comforting.

[Flynnstone]

Mine reads : hw.cpufrequency: 1800000000

[AdamR01]

My iBook Reports the proper clock speed, but if i do sysctl hw.model it says i have a powerbook??

[5300cs]

Originally posted by AdamR01
My iBook Reports the proper clock speed, but if i do sysctl hw.model it says i have a powerbook??

Mine too :confused:

[AdamR01]

if i do sysctl hw.machine it says PowerMac. Either something is hosed, or the feature isnt used maybe? I got bored and went through the man pages for sysctl and started trying random things.

[crazzyeddie]

I think the machine type is Powermac for all Mac's, just sort of a universal machine type, not x86 but Powermac.

Has anyone else tried the cpu frequency on a powerbook?

[Powerbook G5]

I did on my 1.25 GHz PowerBook and it came back as PowerBook 5,2 and at 12499995 as I already stated above.

[Counterfit]

Now this is odd, my PowerBook comes up at 1249999995 but the machine says it's a Power Macintosh. Why would two near-identical machines have such different answers for the same question?

[Counterfit]

Ah HA found the bugger! hw.machine gives Power Macintosh, while the probably more specific hw.model gives PowerBook5,2. As to the iBooks showing as PowerBooks, they technically are PowerBooks, as every Apple notebook has had that name, the exception being the iBook, which is basically a PowerBook from a few upgrades ago.

[MacManDan]

Originally posted by AdamR01
My iBook Reports the proper clock speed, but if i do sysctl hw.model it says i have a powerbook??

Check your system profile. If I remember correctly, the entire line of Apple laptops are based on the "PowerBook" hardware model. You'll just have different numbers than those people with powerbooks.

Also, I am running a PB G4 800 and mine also reads 667Mhz, despite the energy saver settings on "Highest", and it is plugged in.

[Powerbook G5]

Now if only the system thought I had a dual G4 in my PowerBook and made everything faster...now that would be cool with me. :)

[Powerbook G5]

Maybe Apple just likes to try defaulting to the number 666 for some reason... ;)

[manitoubalck]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Maybe Apple just likes to try defaulting to the number 666 for some reason... ;)

It's the Devil.

[benixau]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Now if only the system thought I had a dual G4 in my PowerBook and made everything faster...now that would be cool with me. :)

just got to get sysctl hw.ncpu to report back with a 2 rather than a 1

:D

[phrancpharmD]

I get the PowerBook 4,3 when I check sysctl hw.model, and my CPU speed is correct. Perhaps it is scalable - running "faster" with more processes running? I'll stop folding and check again. . .

[phrancpharmD]

Nope, load average went from 1.xx to .0x, but the command still showed that the CPU is running at 600mhz. . .

[ExoticFish]

my 12" AlBook reads at 999999997 which is odd because it's not plugged in and i have it set to lowest performance when on battery.

[mactastic]

Hmmm... my 1Gig TiBook also reports back as a 667. Wonder why.

[Powerbook G5]

Maybe Apple throttles your processors back and slowly uncaps them with each OS X update to make you believe that OS X gets faster or that the G5s are faster than G4s for sure. ;)

[Nik_Doof]

12" PB 1ghz DVI:

hw.cpufrequency: 999999997

Thats with Processor Preformance set to Auto and on battery power atm

[cr2sh]

My powerbook reads at 999999996 hertz... where's my 4hertz Apple? Where are they?!

It says its a Power Macintosh though... hmm...

[Rezet]

On my Powermac G5 1.8 it shows: "1800000000"

[joshuwa72]

on my dual 1.25 G4, it that command says 1.25 ghz...but since its a dual, shouldnt it report 2.5 ghz????

[cr2sh]

Originally posted by joshuwa72
on my dual 1.25 G4, it that command says 1.25 ghz...but since its a dual, shouldnt it report 2.5 ghz????

No... for so... so many reasons. :cool:

[maradong]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Maybe Apple throttles your processors back and slowly uncaps them with each OS X update to make you believe that OS X gets faster or that the G5s are faster than G4s for sure. ;)
that 's a funny one.

here is what mine reports ( iMac 17'' 1 ghz )

Sorcha:~ bob$ sysctl hw.cpufrequency
hw.cpufrequency: 999999997
Sorcha:~ bob$

pretty acurate huh,

[Powerbook G5]

Mine was accurate up to the last 5 Hz, so I am not complaining. Not sure about the PowerMac listing that everyone is getting, though, since mine keeps coming back as PowerBook 5,2 when I ask for my model type.

[joshuwa72]

Originally posted by cr2sh
No... for so... so many reasons. :cool:

what reasons? I know the processor speed of each one will not exceed 1.25 ghz, but the processing power of both combined = 2.5 ghz.

is there like a different command or something for dual processor machines?

(mine says model = PowerMac 3,6 btw..whatever that means)

[Powerbook G5]

Your processor speed is 1.25 GHz, regardless of how many you have. You can have 50, but that doesn't change the fact that they'd all just be 1.25 GHz. It just means you have two processors to spread your active processes over at 1.25 GHz as opposed to those of us with a single processor that has to do our crunching on just one.

[Rower_CPU]

Hmmm...my 1GHz PB is reporting as "667000000", and processor performance is set to highest in the Energy Saver prefpane.

Bears investigating...

[cynikal]

Actually, to make your sysctl report the proper value, shut your power book down, and reset your PMU, there's a button on the upper right corner when you remove your keyboard..

mine was saying 667 before, now it says 999 but it went back to 667 earlier today..

anyone knows WHY this keeps changing? and if it has any impact on performance? I didn't mess around with the energy prefPane, it's set to highest and powerbook is usually plugged in..

someone should run xbench before/after resetting the PMU.

[cr2sh]

Originally posted by joshuwa72
the processing power of both combined = 2.5 ghz.

Actually no... while 2.5GHz is the arithmetic sum up the two cpu frequencies, that number is not an adequate representation of your "processing power."

The command is "hw.cpufrequency" and it reports your cpu frequency.. that frequency is 1.25GHz, as PBG5 stated.. doesn't matter how many you have.

As for the missing hertz.. its interesting. You take the front side of 16666666666Hz, with a 6 multiplier is 99999999996Hz.

As for the 667 stuff.. I think you guys are getting screwed. ;)

[joshuwa72]

ok I understand now. No matter what the frequency will never exceed 1.25 ghz.

Having more processors does not allow one to process faster, but to process more things at once...is that right??

[Powerbook G5]

When you have two processors, you are processing at your 1.25, but say you are runnings two programs at once...now instead of having to have the two processing on a single processor, which will cause both programs to run slowly as a result, they are both regulated to their own processor. They are both being processed at 1.25 GHz, but since they both have their own processor to work with, your work gets done quicker. For this reason, you are able to do stuff like rendering a huge file in Photoshop while at the same time decoding a DVD and not having a huge slowdown as you would with a single processor. It may seem to you that it won't be any faster since it is still 1.25 GHz, but the added efficiency adds up a great deal once you are doing a lot of processor intensive tasks.

[benixau]

Originally posted by joshuwa72
ok I understand now. No matter what the frequency will never exceed 1.25 ghz.

Having more processors does not allow one to process faster, but to process more things at once...is that right??

2 procs = more at the same time yes.

to see how fast your proc[s] is[are] and how many there are just type sysctl hw.cpufrequency; sysctl hw.ncpu

the first is the speed the second is the number of procs.

[DakotaGuy]

iBook 600-

cpu frequency - 600000000
model - PowerBook 4,1
machine - Power Macintosh

So Apple must just make all the processors report back the same information.

[jxyama]

two proc. can process faster if the task at hand can be split, of course...

any kind of linear processing can't be split because subsequent calculations will depend on the prev. result...

[Counterfit]

Originally posted by cr2sh
My powerbook reads at 999999996 hertz... where's my 4hertz Apple? Where are they?! I stole them :D

[Flickta]

My PB G4 800 shows 8000000000
Why not 12499999999? WHY? :D

[Counterfit]

I stole those hertz too. :p

[crazzyeddie]

Originally posted by cynikal
Actually, to make your sysctl report the proper value, shut your power book down, and reset your PMU, there's a button on the upper right corner when you remove your keyboard..

mine was saying 667 before, now it says 999 but it went back to 667 earlier today..

I reset my PMU... with no effect. What computer are you using?

[Frohickey]

The best way to figure out the frequency of a Mac is to boot into Open Firmware, navigate to the CPU node, and list the properties on it...

boot Mac, hold down cmd-opt-O-F
at the prompt, type dev /cpu
on multiprocessor systems, its dev /cpus followed by @0 or @1
at the prompt, type .properties
you will see a bunch of properties, look for one that says frequency, the number is in hex

[logicat2001]

WARNING: re: Open Firmware

Please be extremely careful about what you type in. The OF environment is not for the faint-hearted, even if you're confident on a command line.

It is entirely possible to render your hardware completely unusable, should you happen to type in the wrong thing!

Having said that, Frohickey's instructions are totally correct, but I just wanted to remind everyone to take care.

When you're done with your OF explorations, type: reboot

******

As for my experience with CPU speed, I'm using an 867 12" AluBook. Apparently my system was running at 533 MHz. Resetting the PMU did, in fact, change this back to 867 MHz.

And it really is zippy™ now. I'm going to keep my eyes on this to try and identify when the speed drops down again.

Best,
Logicat

[crazzyeddie]

I just tried resetting the PMU using the hardware reset button... and it worked! Now reporting 99999997 as the frequency.

i will see how long it stays this way... maybe its simply triggered by switching to battery power?

After just switching to battery power, it appears that is not the issue.

[crazzyeddie]

Update: after a restart, reported speed is back to 667mhz... maybe I'll go into the Apple store and see what they have to say about it :)

[cr2sh]

Let us know, I'd love to hear this explanation...

I'm sure it'll go something like "oh.. well, you weren't suppossed to know that."

If I were you I'd give them 10minutes.. and then demand a 1.25GHz. :)

[Frohickey]

Originally posted by logicat2001
Please be extremely careful about what you type in. The OF environment is not for the faint-hearted, even if you're confident on a command line.

It is entirely possible to render your hardware completely unusable, should you happen to type in the wrong thing!

Having said that, Frohickey's instructions are totally correct, but I just wanted to remind everyone to take care.

When you're done with your OF explorations, type: reboot


Heh... pretty good for doing it all from memory.
When you are done, you can actually just push the power button, and the Mac will power down immediately.

[logicat2001]

you renegade... ;)

[logicat2001]

OK, just so we're all on the same page, I too was able to gain full processor speed by resetting the PMU on my 12" 867 MHz PB.

However a clean reboot now leaves me with this:

sysctl hw.cpufrequency
hw.cpufrequency: 533333332

WTF ?
Does anybody know what the heck is going on?

Please, let's continue this thread. If anyone learns an answer or a reason why, absolutely do us all a favor and post your findings.

Thanks in advance,
Logicat

[cynikal]

Try it again, i found that after re-setting it the 2nd time, it seems to have stuck..

As for the guy who said it didn't make any effect, are you sure you resetted it?your computer should have its date set back to 1969 (apple's epoch it seems). If the date didn't need to be set, you didn't reset your PMU actually.

If my system goes back to 667, i'm going to an xbench off a fresh boot and then re-set it and run xbench again, and let you guys know if it actually affects performance any.

[logicat2001]

I've been searching around online for other reports of this. Seems like there's quite a buzz in certain circles (see some URLs below).

In my case, I'm convinced that there's a noticable difference, most especially w/regards to the windowing system, GUI animations and menus.

I ran one XBench run, shutdown and reset my PMU, started up and ran 30 more XBench tests. The tests weren't so far off. However, as I've read around the 'net, some people are noticing speed degradation with particular apps, and some are not.

Others say it's a bug in the code that references that CPU frequency value.

Still others say that regardless of where the bug is, that particular applications and processes will reference that value when running. Hence, some things WILL in fact, run more slowly.

I don't know where this is going, but I wish someone who knew something would speak up. I'm tired of all the closet hardware designers spouting nonesense.

Where are the hard-core CPU engineers that can answer this question for us?


Check some of these links below for more information:

http://www.macmegasite.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1093

http://fsteele.dyndns.org/archive/cat_apple_powerbooks.html

http://spiny.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=86

http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?13@208.asPXaYxukuQ.0@.599a4e72/42

http://3650anda12inch.blogspot.com/

http://laughingmeme.org/archives/001432.html#001432

[Powerbook G5]

Perhaps it is a conspiracy between Apple and the Federal government to hide evidence of the existence of aliens. Too many Mac users are running Seti clients and now we are close to discovering the truth, so Apple must regulate CPU speed to slow down our progress to keep us masses in the dark from the truth.

[hugemullens]

I just reset the pmu and it didnt work. It even reset the date and it still reports 533mhz. :( I'd just like to know whats going on.

[logicat2001]

I've just put some feelers out for more enlightened commentary. Hopefully I can get in contact with an engineer who won't have to speculate, but simply will explain the facts.

When, and if, I succeed I will be sure to add to this thread.

Best,
Logicat

[junior]

So if I have one app running on my dual 1.25ghz Powermac, say an encoder, and that is the only app I will be using during an encoding, will it be running at exactly the same speed as a single 1.25ghz powermac? Can't an application optimised for dual processors make use of the two processors? It's just that my powerbook 1.33ghz is noticably slower when encoding quicktimes in Cleaner than on my dual system.
Off topic, is there an alternative to Cleaner? Something a little faster. And I don't mean Quicktime Pro. I need something with more settings like Cleaner.



Terminal Result:

hw.model: PowerBook5,3
1333333328

I'm also short of 5hz!!

[Counterfit]

Originally posted by junior
So if I have one app running on my dual 1.25ghz Powermac, say an encoder, and that is the only app I will be using during an encoding, will it be running at exactly the same speed as a single 1.25ghz powermac? Can't an application optimised for dual processors make use of the two processors? 1.) Most likely not, and 2.) of course! There wouldn't be much of a point in selling two processors in one machine if you couldn't use them, they would be better off in another computer.

[junior]

Originally posted by Counterfit
1.) Most likely not, and 2.) of course! There wouldn't be much of a point in selling two processors in one machine if you couldn't use them, they would be better off in another computer.

You two points seem to contradict each other. :confused:

[logicat2001]

No they don't. Yes they do.

[Powerbook G5]

Mac OS X is MP savvy, so that helps to give an edge overall to tasks with dual processors, but to really get the benefits, you need those programs that are optimized to exploit duals to get the real performance potential from your system.

[mactastic]

Ok, here goes. I'm not much of a techie, so I don't know what exactly this means but it looks like things got a little faster after the PMU reset according to xbench.

I closed all apps except finder and xbench and ran it, then reset the PMU, and checked the hw.cpufrequency. It now reports correctly, although my clock was not reset possibly due to the fact that I have it set to check the network server for the time which I assume it does when I log in. I then quit Terminal and ran xbench again. Here are the results.

[logicat2001]

Mactastic, the only problem with XBench is that single results aren't very useful. Only by repeatedly running the test can you arrive a a useful measure of performance.

Try running the XBench tests five to ten more times (without powering down, just run them consecutively).

You'll find that the results may vary quite a bit.

Best,
Logicat

[mactastic]

Ok. I'll give it a try. I don't really notice it as feeling any faster, but I am curious to know where the problem is coming from and whether it has any affect on the system.

hw.cpumonitor is still reporting correctly though, I guess I'll have to monitor it and see when or if it reverts to 667.

[logicat2001]

In my case, it will drop back to 533 whenever I boot up the system. This is true whether I cold-boot or warm-boot.

Oh well. I'm going to stop thinking about it and just get my work done.


Best,
Logicat

[Rezet]

Originally posted by logicat2001
In my case, it will drop back to 533 whenever I boot up the system. This is true whether I cold-boot or warm-boot.

Oh well. I'm going to stop thinking about it and just get my work done.


Best,
Logicat

You people wanna stop screwing up with hardware settings if you don't know what the hell you are doing!!!? Now I suggest you bring it to apple store and have them take a look at it...

[logicat2001]

Play nice Rezet... did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

I've been a macintosh technology consultant, systems engineer and more since '89. I think I'm qualified to try rebooting my own hardware.

I'm posting up my activity because I want to help get to the bottom of this by posting helpful comments.

Maybe you'd like to do the same.

BTW, I don't believe a retail store is going to solve my problem.

[Rezet]

Originally posted by logicat2001
Play nice Rezet... did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

I've been a macintosh technology consultant, systems engineer and more since '89. I think I'm qualified to try rebooting my own hardware.

I'm posting up my activity because I want to help get to the bottom of this by posting helpful comments.

Maybe you'd like to do the same.

BTW, I don't believe a retail store is going to solve my problem.
Alright then. I could care less really. Mine shows exactly the right numbers. It's really your problem.. Pffffhhhh!

[cynikal]

rezet dont be an azz.. :p

i did several xbench benchmarks before/after the numbers were the wrong/right ones.. as far as i can tell, the system runs nearly the same.. if anything it seems to run slightly faster with the lower numbers, but that may be because i did those tests first..

so in conclusion, the numbers don't really mean anything.. your computer is running the same speed even with wrong numbers (at least on mine, benchmarking your own system is an exercise left to theh reader).

[daveL]

Originally posted by logicat2001
Play nice Rezet... did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

I've been a macintosh technology consultant, systems engineer and more since '89. I think I'm qualified to try rebooting my own hardware.

I'm posting up my activity because I want to help get to the bottom of this by posting helpful comments.

Maybe you'd like to do the same.

BTW, I don't believe a retail store is going to solve my problem.
As another data point, I recently installed YellowDog Linux on my TiBook. The YDL site mentioned a problem concerning the cpu frequency being lower than the actual machine was capable of and gave a command to manually correct the value. My TiBook reported 667 MHz, but when I tried the command to correct it to 1 GHz, my machine *immediately* powered off. Disconcerting, to say the least. I haven't had time to try a PM reset to see what impact that has wrt YDL.

It sure would be interesting to get an answer to this.

[mactastic]

My uneducated guess is that there is some problem in the sysctl query. Whether that bit of code is used by other pieces of software, and whether that has any performance issues is another matter. It doesn't seem to affect my machines usability or my perception of its speed, so I don't really care to much right now. I agree it would be nice to find out for sure though.

[cudaboy_71]

i decided to take the initiative and provide some quatifyable results, as it seems xbench is too controversial for some here ;)

hardware: 12"pb 867/640mb Ram/60Gb HD/APExt/Superdrive

software: osx 10.3/photoshop 7.0

setup: safeboot (hold shift) and login holding shift (disable startup items).

procedure: launch photoshop and create a 20" x 20" 600 DPI RGB image. apply a 4-color cone blend from the center of the image to the upperleft corner. apply a gausian blur of 20 to the image.

i ran this procedure 3 separate times for each state (533 and 867). below are the results. also included are the screen redraw times from creating the gradient. this should be a nice constant because most of the work *should* be handled by the GPU rather than the CPU in question.

At sysctl hw.cpufrequency reporting 533:

pass 1)
gradient 2:15 (minutes:seconds)
redraw 2:07
blur 2:27

pass 2)
gradient 2:32
redraw 1:52
blur 2:34

pass 3)
gradient 2:16
redraw 1:56
blur 2:29

At sysctl hw.cpufrequency reporting 867:

pass 1)
gradient 2:14
redraw 1:51
blur 2:30

pass 2)
gradient 2:35
redraw 1:51
blur 2:35

pass 3)
gradient 2:18
redraw 1:53
blur 2:28

i hope this eases everyone's mind. i'm leaving my PMU alone now.

[Sweetfeld28]

My PM G3 has a 533 MHz processor in it, and it reports 534.56 MHz. or 534560000.

[blue&whiteman]

usually incorrect mhz readings only happen with cpu upgrades, never apple retail chips. be assured though that even if the wrong speed is reported that it is still what ever speed the chip is. my sonnet G4/500 upgraded lists as a G4/500MHz in about this mac under 10.3.1 but in system profiler it lists cpu type as "PowerPC 60?" when it is really a 7410 revision of the G4.

[Sweetfeld28]

thanx, i often wondered about that.

[schasson]

don't know if the mystery about this processor lag has been solved so I'll add my 2¢...

I've heard that this is related to the ability to reduce the cycling speed to conserve power. Must be a bug a that keeps that option on even when its not. I'll add a link if I can find one...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

[crazzyeddie]

Just as an update, 10.4 seems to have solved this problem, so no more conspiracy theories ;)

[MacTruck]

Just as an update, 10.4 seems to have solved this problem, so no more conspiracy theories ;)

Yeah apple just wrote code for your powerbook to fake you out and show 1ghz instead of its true 667 speed. :eek:

[maverick808]

Wow, this is interesting to me because I realised my 1.5GHz pbook was switching down speed when I got it a year ago using the same commands everyone here is now talking about.

Every so often I would notice apps running slow even though I was plugged into power and with the cpu to run at highest performance. Often when this happened checking sysctrl hw.cpufrequency would say it was running fast but I just didn't believe it.

Finally, by running SkidMarks in the dev tools I found out the truth... whenever I felt it was slow and I checked in SkidMarks then sure enough that would report running at half-speed even though sysctl hw.cpufrequency said full speed! When this slow down occurs in this manner (still plugged in and cpu set to high but just not working at full speed) there is no way whatsoever to get the cpu back to full speed without restarting. Putting the pbook into sleep and using it again in the morning didn't work... it was still on the slow speed. Trying to ignore it and hope it would somehow jump back up to speed at some point didn't work even though I kept waiting for 3 days without a restart. Unplugging and replugging power didn't work and changing energy prefs had no effect. The only way I could get it to switch back up to full speed was to fully shutdown and leave the pbook alone for about an hour. Then when I restarted it would be back to normal.

Strangely enough, SkidMarks is the only Apple app I trust to accurately report the cpu speed and they mysteriously stopped distributing it in the dev tools about half a year ago for no obvious reason. Perhaps they are trying to stop people finding out their cpus are stepping down when they shouldn't be by making people rely on sysctl hw.cpufrequency which definitely lies about what speed the cpu is currently running at.

Anyway, after all this I did discover what causes the cpu to step down to slow speed and stay there. Whenever I use the pbook on a soft surface like on my blanket in bed or sitting on the sofa it steps down speed and won't step back up until I go through the process I described. Clearly, what's happening is that the machine is overheating and for some strange reason after a while, instead of using the fans to cool down, it decides to just keep the cpu on a slow speed from then on in. Indeed, when it gets in the stuck on slow state the fans never kick back into full. Even if you leave the machine on sleep for a day and it's totally cold then the stubborn thing won't kick the cpu speed back up. Once it's made this decision it just sticks on slow until you shutdown for a while. I easily solved my problem by putting a hardback book under the pbook when using it in bed which keeps it cool enough. But sure enough if I ever remove the book and just put the pbook on the blanket then fifteen minutes later its in "stuck on slow until you shutdown" mode.

Sorry for the massive post but as you can see I looked into this quite a bit. If you learn one thing from this post I would like it to be not to trust hw.cpufrequency under any circumstances. Check with "Skidmarks GT.app" which you can still get by grabbing the OLD (version 3 and maybe 4.0) CHUD tools from...

ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Testing_-_Debugging/Performance_tools/