There are a number of reasons you may want to throttle rather than limit a process's CPU usage on your system. One very good reason is to keep the CPU temperature down or to simply reduce the amount of energy a certain process uses.
Limiting versus throttling
The term "limit" is nearly always used where throttling is actually required. A good example of why the two are not interchangeable would be the current ISP industry:
Example 1: Sally signs up for super fast broadband (100 Mbps) but hasn't read the small print: she can only download 10 GB of data before her connection is terminated and she has to wait for the next month before she can continue to use her service. Sally's service is not throttled but it is limited.
Example 2: Tony signs up for a basic package (1 Mbps) as he doesn't need to use the Internet a great deal. However he had the good sense to use an unlimited package so that he doesn't hit any usage caps. His router syncs at 100 Mbps but he only receives a 1 Mbps service. The ISPs equipment is throttling his service, but not limiting it.
Example 3: Benedict has signed up for some deal without reading any of the details. He receives a 20 Mbps service and is happy with the speeds. Unfortunately for him after downloading 5 GB of data his download rate drops to 1 Mbps. He has limits on his service which has led to it being throttled.
There are many instances where you may wish to both limit and throttle CPU usage. The former is very easy and well documented, the latter not so much.
Showing posts with label power management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power management. Show all posts
Putting Windows XP to sleep remotely
Have you noticed that when connected to Windows XP via RDP that the Start Menu option for putting the machine to sleep vanishes? What the Hell is that all about?
It doesn't even make sense when you can wake the machine with Wake-on-LAN to reconnect if you need to. Saving energy not really a priority here.
To make things worse the Task Manager's menus have Standby and Hibernate disabled too.
You could mess about installing VNC, but why bother? Turns out the solution is incredibly easy!
Open a command prompt and enter:
That's it! The computer will enter Suspend.
If you're looking to hibernate the machine instead then:
Job's a good un.
Now go install Linux.
It doesn't even make sense when you can wake the machine with Wake-on-LAN to reconnect if you need to. Saving energy not really a priority here.
To make things worse the Task Manager's menus have Standby and Hibernate disabled too.
You could mess about installing VNC, but why bother? Turns out the solution is incredibly easy!
Open a command prompt and enter:
C:\> rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState
That's it! The computer will enter Suspend.
If you're looking to hibernate the machine instead then:
C:\> rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Hibernate
Job's a good un.
Now go install Linux.
Granola testing
Intrigued by various articles on https://grano.la/ I thought I would test it out. It is free after all.
The concept is very simple: you install the client, and it controls the power of your computer so that it's always using the minimum amount of energy required for a specific set of tasks. I may have read between the lines there but you can read it for yourself if you don't believe me.
The site itself does not talk about stability, but I found that all my applications remained stable and I have not experienced any software problems.
Except:
Under Ubuntu I use a nice little widget called the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor which allows me to easily switch the processors into certain frequencies or scheduler modes.
Unfortunately since installing Granola the frequency scaling does whatever the Hell it likes and I often find it stuck at full speed (as opposed to on demand). So it appears it has made permanent changes despite the fact I have now removed it. Looks like I'll have to bury myself among the man pages to find out how to resolve this. Permanently. Again.
The nice people over at Granola do ask for feedback. So, I can now send them this!
Also, I'm a bit dubious about statistics for my laptop between 02:00 and 18:00 on the 17th of June that claims my power usage was only 3 watts total. Seems unlikely - I'm sure the hard drive alone uses more than that and it never gets the chance to spin down (background processes).
Over to Granola... (I'll update once resolved).
The concept is very simple: you install the client, and it controls the power of your computer so that it's always using the minimum amount of energy required for a specific set of tasks. I may have read between the lines there but you can read it for yourself if you don't believe me.
The site itself does not talk about stability, but I found that all my applications remained stable and I have not experienced any software problems.
Except:
Under Ubuntu I use a nice little widget called the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor which allows me to easily switch the processors into certain frequencies or scheduler modes.
Unfortunately since installing Granola the frequency scaling does whatever the Hell it likes and I often find it stuck at full speed (as opposed to on demand). So it appears it has made permanent changes despite the fact I have now removed it. Looks like I'll have to bury myself among the man pages to find out how to resolve this. Permanently. Again.
The nice people over at Granola do ask for feedback. So, I can now send them this!
Also, I'm a bit dubious about statistics for my laptop between 02:00 and 18:00 on the 17th of June that claims my power usage was only 3 watts total. Seems unlikely - I'm sure the hard drive alone uses more than that and it never gets the chance to spin down (background processes).
Over to Granola... (I'll update once resolved).
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