CPU frequency does not down-clock when idle, Power waste or is this OK?
I was browsing through the BSD sysctl's of OSX 10.6.2 today and noticed something I thought odd. Looking this up on different searches produced no useful results so I thought I'd ask here.
It seems that the MacBook late 2006 Core2Duo T7200 model has no cpu speed scaling. As far as I can tell, looking in the 'sysctl' output gave me these results:
sysctl -a |grep freq
hw.busfrequency = 664000000
hw.cpufrequency = 2000000000
hw.tbfrequency = 1000000000
hw.busfrequency: 664000000
hw.busfrequency_min: 664000000
hw.busfrequency_max: 664000000
hw.cpufrequency: 2000000000
hw.cpufrequency_min: 2000000000
hw.cpufrequency_max: 2000000000
hw.tbfrequency: 1000000000
What this shows, CPU frequency maximum minimum are both 2 GHz, bus max and min are also 664mhz. These should be able to change I would think.
(The "tbfrequency" value I believe is timer speed; 1gigahertz assures smooth media playback and interactivity. This is not the issue)
I was under the impression that Core 2 Duo's were supposed to have "SpeedStep", to make the cpu run slower to draw less power and generate less heat. On my desktop, this definitely works and I have measured it with my Kill-A-Watt meter. I would think the same happens with all cpus, so I wonder: In my macbook, is the lack of slowing down the CPU using more power than necessary?
(edited to add more detail)
It seems that the MacBook late 2006 Core2Duo T7200 model has no cpu speed scaling. As far as I can tell, looking in the 'sysctl' output gave me these results:
sysctl -a |grep freq
hw.busfrequency = 664000000
hw.cpufrequency = 2000000000
hw.tbfrequency = 1000000000
hw.busfrequency: 664000000
hw.busfrequency_min: 664000000
hw.busfrequency_max: 664000000
hw.cpufrequency: 2000000000
hw.cpufrequency_min: 2000000000
hw.cpufrequency_max: 2000000000
hw.tbfrequency: 1000000000
What this shows, CPU frequency maximum minimum are both 2 GHz, bus max and min are also 664mhz. These should be able to change I would think.
(The "tbfrequency" value I believe is timer speed; 1gigahertz assures smooth media playback and interactivity. This is not the issue)
I was under the impression that Core 2 Duo's were supposed to have "SpeedStep", to make the cpu run slower to draw less power and generate less heat. On my desktop, this definitely works and I have measured it with my Kill-A-Watt meter. I would think the same happens with all cpus, so I wonder: In my macbook, is the lack of slowing down the CPU using more power than necessary?
(edited to add more detail)
MacBook 2,1 Late 2006 GMA 950, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Bought from apple.com as a refurb. Serviced twice.