Jozef, "if they set the threshold for thermal protection very low"
Thanks to wanna,
developer.intel.com
I failed to find any information on the thermal
threshold. The only occurrence of "thermal trip point" is
on page 87:
"An external signal, PROCHOT# (processor hot) is
asserted when the processor detects that its
temperature is above the thermal trip point."
The point value is not specified.
Something is fishy here. As usual.
You say:
"the chip will be running at half speed most of the time"
You may be too generous here.
There is a hint on the same page 87, that TCC
(Thermal control circuit) automatically operates
"by alternately turning the clocks off and on at
a duty cycle specific to the processor (typically
30-50%)."
Typically? What the heck, is this a specification
for a particular processor model, or what? The number
30% is new to me, it used to be 50% for regular P4.
So, 30% seems like a good possibility for P4M, :-)
Also, in so-called "On-Demand" mode, the duty
cycle can be as low as 12% on / 87% OFF, which
translates into 200MHz or 212MHz effective
operating frequency. The "On-Demand" mode is
engaged by software using readings from thermal
diode, and therefore can be set arbitrary low.
Regards,
- Ali |
