Does the MBP support Intel's SpeedStep?

There is now an answer above you and below you which says that Speedstep is working in Windows XP using boot camp, and STILL the fans go on more often and the battery life is worse.

Speedstep has been a significant feature for laptops for years, and ought to have been very simple for Apple to implement.

There must be an important reason why Apple CHOSE not to implement it.

But what could that reason be?

On what do you base the belief that SpeedStep is not used by Mac OS X on the MacBook?

RRS

Ehm... I'm sorry, but did you read through this thread at all before posting? I base my belief on the posts in this thread, and the following link provided in this thread:

http://www.increw.org/speedit.html

But as I said, OS X may not use the traditional SpeedStep techniques, so perhaps it uses something else. But what would that be?

it relies on CPU's own auto-adjustments of clock-speed.
of course it is not as reliable/effective as OS's.

that's a very intelligent observation. It would not suprise me that out of desperation some people here may inadvertantly mess up these OSX power saving features if they try to hack thier own speedstep app.

What we need is a fan-cpu widget from Apple

keep your fingers crossed fellows (but don't hold your breath)

I see a lot of assumptions and presumptions and vacuous reasoning. No definitive information to justify the conclusion that Apple is not making full use of the chip’s power-saving capabilities. There are even some posts, lower down now, that suggest Mac OS does better than Windows, for whatever that can tell us.

RRS

See, I get the exact opposite when running windows. I get around 3-3.5 hours and my fans rarely kick in. I don't do any heavy gaming, just use it for an accounting program and a few online games (not intensive). The machine also runs rather cool.

Under OSX the machine is cool also, except when its being charged. Even with both processors pegged it takes awhile for it to get uncomfortably hot. I also get about 3-3.5 hours on battery.

I have none of the driver or chipset updates done to it.

Weird.

Actually CPU's own auto-adjustment is more effective. Why? Because the CPU can respond a lot faster than software can. Moving inbetween clock speeds many times in a second depending on load. For this reason Intel advises vendors to rely on the CPU auto-adjustment. And I presume that's what apple has done. Perhaps that quick throttling is what is causing the whine who knows. Might be happening fast enough to cause an audioable vibration in the voltage regulator?

As I said in my post, if Apple doesn't use SpeedStep, they must be doing something else, and after using the application from http://macbricol.free.fr/coreduotemp/ I have it pretty much confirmed.

For me, the application reports the lowest CPU frequency at 1ghz and the highest at 1.83ghz and my current frequency alters between 1.33 and 1.5ghz.

So, even if it is not SpeedStep (which http://www.increw.com/opensource/speedit_kernelextension/speedit.html suggest it isn't) at least Apple is doing something, which is good.

Hi,
Through the same command, you also get:
kern.cpu_currentfreq: 2000
kern.cpu_log: 0
kern.cpu_minfreq: 1000
kern.cpu_maxfreq: 2000

This was further verified by using this program 'CoreDuoTemp'.
It showed the Max freq as 2000 Mhz, Min as 1000 Mhz and current as 2000 Mhz

I tried running different programs with CoreDuoTemp running in background, and the cureent frequency variated between 1500 Mhz & 2000 Mhz.

Threfore, your first question (IntelSpeedStep) is answered (i think so) as the frequency automatically changes as per requirement.
P.s. note that i keep my macbook pro to run on Max Battery Settings when on Battery and Normal Settings when connected.
The results for 'Better performance' settings maybe different.

My question is, what is the differnce between:
kern.cpu_minfreq:
hw.cpufrequency_min:

Regards,

Bharat

Do you have XP power management set to MAX BATTERY? Also do you lower the screen brightness? I have experienced decent battery in XP as it throttles the CPU to 1GHz, versus the lowest I've seen on OS X is 1333, but usually 1500.

Nick

I guess this latest firmware update from Apple answers the question:

System Management Controller
The 15-inch MacBook Pro uses an advanced system management controller (SMC) to manage thermal and power conditions, while keeping the acoustic noise to a minimum. The SMC is fully independent of the operating system.

Yet windows has poorer battery life. Whatever apple is doing it's better than speedstep.
Unless it's that USB2 bug that is affecting windows. Bug in windows USB driver that uses more power if USB2 devices are plugged in. Hmm, iSight is USB2 right?

iSight is USB2 and microsoft just fixed that bug the other day! So go try the patch and then check the battery life.

The bug was with a USB2 device plugged in but we couldn't remove the isight, so we always have a USB2 device plugged in therefor the bug shortens the battery life on all MBPs without the patch