Hi Vitaly and Peter
From: Peter Robinson <pbrobinson(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 1, 2020 6:53 AM
>
> Hello, Mark.
>
> When Lenovo will fix major throttling issues[1] on all supported
> ThinkPad models?
>
> When running on GNU/Linux, due to overheating, my T480/T580 throttle up
> to 400 MHz (much more slower, than Pentium III from 1999).
I bet this is actually the Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal
Framework (DPTF) that's at fault here [1] and so while I'm sure Lenovo
can approach Intel and assist I'm not sure it's something they can fix
directly, on the plus side it looks like it's being reverse engineered
in general.
https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/54923.html
> We are waiting the fix for more than one year and this is not good.
> Original thread on Lenovo forum: [2].
>
> [1]:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1598615
> [2]:
>
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Other-Linux-Discussions/X1C6-T480s-low-
cTDP-and-trip-temperature-in-Linux/m-p/4028489
>
The thermal throttling issue is definitely another big pain point. Here I'm
really
tied in what I can and can't say - I need permission from the thermal team to
share full details and they haven't given that yet. But there is work still ongoing so
I'll try and give you what little I can. As an aside - I know that forum thread well,
and I completely get the frustration for users.
I should add - all our 2020 Linux support platforms will have the thermal firmware
solution implemented
- Yes, it's all tied in to DPTF and I personally (Lenovo hat off) think what
Matthew
is doing is really cool. I've been supporting the exercise where I can to make sure
that solution works well on Lenovo platforms (you can check the merge request
thread and issues on his fork as proof 😉). I'm hoping he gets it figured for the
good of the community. I think it's a real shame Intel aren't giving open source
support for DPTF
- The thermal team spent a long time trying to find a solution that didn't involve
new FW. From our point of view it's actually quite a complicated and expensive
thing to do and there are some technical limitations that mean it isn't back-portable
to all platforms.
One big frustration I have is that some platforms are getting the fix - really quite
soon - and others aren't and I've not been allowed to share which it is. There are
technical reasons for this - it's not just us being difficult.
I think Lenovo's thermal firmware implementation is actually pretty cool and a very
nice solution and it should have been a really good story on how we had this Linux
related issue and provided a solution for our customers and instead it's turned into
a big source of frustration for people. We need to improve how we communicate on
issues like this but communicating in an open source way doesn't come naturally to
everyone yet...
Obviously as a T480 user the above is useless....I do expect to be able to share the
details of which platforms are in and out in the next month (I really hope!) Genuinely
sorry I can't do it earlier (or 6 months ago).
Mark