[MikeD]

It's really annoying. I always have to shut down and reset the PMU to get it back to 867mhz where it should be. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can permanently fix this? I never really had a desire to switch to the 'newer' 12" w/faster processor (not until a few more revisions) but this is driving me up the wall. Every time something seems slower, I keep checking and what do you know? 533 mhz... sigh...

Mike

[madmacgames]

what do you have your energy saver settings to for the CPU? If at automatic or reduced, the CPU will not always run at full speed (saves battery life when on battery). For the power adapter settings, I always use "highest" which keeps the CPU at full speed when plugged in.

[MikeD]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
what do you have your energy saver settings to for the CPU? If at automatic or reduced, the CPU will not always run at full speed (saves battery life when on battery). For the power adapter settings, I always use "highest" which keeps the CPU at full speed when plugged in.

It's set to highest whether on battery or the power adapter.

Mike

[eevyl]

What are you using to test the speed of the computer? Mac OS X 10.3 up to 10.3.2 (at least) has a bug where the command line utility "sysctl hw.cpufrequency" always return the reduced CPU value, even if the CPU is actually running at maximum speed.

Do a real benchmark like ripping a song in iTunes or with a benchmark software before trusting what that utility or other app that may be using it says.

[MikeD]

Hmm, that's exactly what I was using. Is that a known bug by apple? Oh yeah, it doesn't always return that though, it'll give me my 867 as well (at times).

Mike

[eevyl]

I guess it is a known bug by Apple as it has been discussed a lot, and to the end in their own discussions board.

[madmacgames]

Is this only a bug with the revA books? Or that only shows in certain system? I've heard about the bug before, but don't seem to have it on my 12" revB.

[Bubba Jones]

i haven't noticed any difference in my revision a 12. always seems to chug along at the same speed (highest processor performance) in real world tasks.

i have a side question here to. i am setting up my roommates new ibook, and i just noticed the automatic processor performance option on hers. i only have reduced and highest. i am running X3.2. is this wonky or due to the model of G4 in the 12a? i know this one won't report temperature.

[eevyl]

Originally posted by Bubba Jones:
i have a side question here to. i am setting up my roommates new ibook, and i just noticed the automatic processor performance option on hers. i only have reduced and highest. i am running X3.2. is this wonky or due to the model of G4 in the 12a? i know this one won't report temperature.

Yes, the G4 in the 12" rev. A does not allow "automatic" setting.

However, it is able to report temperature. I use Temperature Monitor and it works for my rev. A 12" pb.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by eevyl:
What are you using to test the speed of the computer? Mac OS X 10.3 up to 10.3.2 (at least) has a bug where the command line utility "sysctl hw.cpufrequency" always return the reduced CPU value, even if the CPU is actually running at maximum speed.

Unfortunately, that does NOT appear to be the case.

At least, Logic starts freaking out, giving me error messages. These go away after shutdown and PMU reset.

I believe the problem runs deeper. I'm sending my 12" in anyway on account of there being a 115V AC current on the case (ouch) and battery life being about 50 minutes since the battery update, and this will be one of the things they need to fix.

-s*

[eevyl]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Unfortunately, that does NOT appear to be the case.

At least, Logic starts freaking out, giving me error messages. These go away after shutdown and PMU reset.

It seems you have a bigger problem than the actual bug in the CLI utility, not related to.

What I say is that the pbook is not going slower if the CLI tells you so. Trust the energy saver setting first.

[Pierre B.]

Originally posted by eevyl:

What I say is that the pbook is not going slower if the CLI tells you so. Trust the energy saver setting first.

Exactly. I tried running Altivec Carbon with the two energy saver settings, although the CLI and System Preferences reported CPU frequency 533 MHz. The difference in the results is not only visible, but measurable too (Altivec Carbon gives you the result in MFlops).

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by eevyl:
It seems you have a bigger problem than the actual bug in the CLI utility, not related to.

What I say is that the pbook is not going slower if the CLI tells you so. Trust the energy saver setting first.

Even if that is true, it doesn't help the fact that the €800 Emagic Logic suite apparently relies upon that same readout before throwing up a warning that my processor is in "reduced" mode and Logic will not work properly until I've changed Energy Saver settings and restarted Logic.

Changing the ES settings, of course, makes no difference, since they're already in maximum power mode, so a shutdown and PMU reset are in order.

So either way, the bug makes doing what I bought the machine for annoying.
Mercifully, I only ever restart after system or driver updates...

-s*

[jorgem4]

How can you test at what speed is you PowerBook working at? What kind of test can I ran? What appliclations are there to test?

Thanks.

[maximusbibicus]

I have always had the same problem. I am convinced that my CPU is running at 533MHZ ALL THE TIME.

What are the tests, besides the Terminal that you can use to measure what speed the processor is currently running at?

Could someone tell me how to reset the power manager?

My machine feels dog slow, almost worse than my old 500MHZ iMac.

This is sad.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by maximusbibicus:
Could someone tell me how to reset the power manager?

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

Originally posted by maximusbibicus:
My machine feels dog slow, almost worse than my old 500MHZ iMac.

Both running 10.3?


Also, to test, you can try something like importing a long song into iTunes (make sure to copy the song to your hard drive first and do it from there, else you're just testing you CD-ROM read speed). Time it with "maximum power" energy saver settings, and then again with "reduced" setting.

If it makes a difference, all is well. If not, then you might want to check www.macupdate.com for XBench or something like that, test your machine's performance, and compare to the lists from other users' machines published on the Internet.

-s*

-s*

[amazing]

Use Xbench to test whether you're actually going to reduced performance: Reset the PMU, so that you're at highest performance, run Xbench (be sure nothing else is running) Then do the same when you've ascertained that the laptop is supposedly running at reduced performance. Since test results can vary, be sure nothing else is running (tho even then the results can vary.)

Also, check the xbench discussion site. Many people see to have found that they're really running at the highest performance even when the system check says they're running at reduced rate.

[eric_woe]

Have read through the various posts on this thread. I have the same problem - even though Apple Australia says there is no issue, I have been doing some homework on this.

Another useful command is

sysctl -a

Tried this and

Before PMU reset:

hw.busfrequency: 133121657
hw.busfrequency_min: 133121657
hw.busfrequency_max: 133121657
hw.cpufrequency: 533333332
hw.cpufrequency_min: 533333332
hw.cpufrequency_max: 533333332

after PMU reset:

hw.busfrequency: 133121428
hw.busfrequency_min: 133121428
hw.busfrequency_max: 133121428
hw.cpufrequency: 866666664
hw.cpufrequency_min: 866666664
hw.cpufrequency_max: 866666664

then back to 533333 after restart.

XBench concurs - and the reset results in a MAJOR improvement in performance.
Has anyone come up with something more permanent? (I have deleted PMU and other prefs and same story...)

thanks
Eric

[typoon]

I think this might only be for the Rev A boards.

hw.busfrequency: 132710000
hw.busfrequency_min: 132710000
hw.busfrequency_max: 132710000
hw.cpufrequency: 999999997
hw.cpufrequency_min: 999999997
hw.cpufrequency_max: 999999997

This is what mine is on my Rev B.

[Phat Bastard]

When reading this thread I thought no way my 12" is subject to this problem, I thought it was a rare thing...but then I checked sysctl -a and Xbench and lo a behold, mine's 533 MHz too. What the heck is going on here?

And it seems no one in this thread knows how to fix this permanently.

[rag on a muffin]

i also think that it is a rev a problem. well thats what happens when you buy a rev a product. NEVER get the first of a series.

[Phat Bastard]

Let's not go overboard here--if no one bought rev. A. products, Apple would go out of business. You don't want that do you?

This can be fixed by a simple OS update, it's just a matter of making sure Apple knows about it and will fix it.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

[Tomster]

This topic has been done to death on this board and others. In all that I have read, the displayed speed via sysctl -a is erroneous and is just an artifact. People state their processors are running slower. Could be. Let's be scientific once and for all and have some hard numbers.

For my test, I used Xbench.

On my 17" Powerbook at 1.33Ghz, the net cpu speed was 160.81
On my 12" Powerbook displaying 533 via sysctl -a was 102.56

I reset the pmu and restarted. sysctl - a gave a reading of 866666666
Ran Xbench again and got a net cpu speed of 102.64.

There is no practical difference. For all of you people experiencing slowness, run Xbench. If things are awry, you should have a net cpu speed of about 63.

So for all those who have problems, post your Xbench results.

[Tomster]

Just a follow up. All tests were done with nothing else running.

Prior to the tests, top -ocpu -RFs2 -n30 gave about 96% processor idle. Obviously, if you are rendering something in Photoshop, your results will not be accurate.