[lm-sensors] Sensors [via-cputemp] is cpu intensive?

* [lm-sensors] Sensors [via-cputemp] is cpu intensive?
@ 2012-04-22 10:19 lmsensors
  2012-04-22 13:42 ` Jean Delvare
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: lmsensors @ 2012-04-22 10:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: lm-sensors

Hi All,

Historically, I've been getting my CPU thermal info from 
/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature for the longest time and it's 
generally been giving me consistent temperature values.

After a kernel upgrade I acpi stopped creating the above file so I 
decided that rather than try to figure out what I did to get it working 
many years ago, I'd give lm-sensors a try but I'm getting some really 
weird results out of it that I want to confirm with you.

mobo: EPIA SN (mini-itx)
CPU: via C7 1.8GHz (cooled by half height 80mm fan)
driver:  via-cputemp

So if I just run /usr/bin/sensors, I get a CPU temp of 32 degC.  But, 
when I run it from a script per...

--------

MAIL_SUBJECT="$(hostname -s | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]'): Temperature Warning"
MAIL_RCPT='xxxx'
MAIL_BODY=$(mktemp)
MAIL_SEND=""
TFS=$IFS

DEBUG=''

# Sensor thresholds
HDD_THRESHOLD=48
CPU_THRESHOLD=65

IFS=$'\n'
for i in $(/usr/bin/sensors | grep Core); do
   cpu=$(echo $i | awk -F: '{ print $1 }')
   temp=$(echo $i | awk -F: '{ print $2 }' | sed -e 's/[^0-9\.]//g' -e 
's/\..*//g')
   if [ $CPU_THRESHOLD -ge $(($temp)) ]; then
     printf "  %10s: %5s\n" $cpu $temp >> $MAIL_BODY
   else
     printf "**%10s: %5s  !!WARNING!!\n" $cpu $temp >> $MAIL_BODY
     MAIL_SEND=1
   fi
done
# debug
cat $MAIL_BODY
-----------------

I get a temp of 36 degC.

So, with nothing else running on this box, running something as simple 
as bash, mktemp, grep and sensors sends my CPU temp up 4 degC.  Okay, I 
can accept that actually using the CPU can create a temp spike but have 
a look at this....

------------------
#!/bin/bash
for i in $(seq 1 200); do
   /usr/bin/sensors | grep Core
done
sleep 1
/usr/bin/sensors | grep Core

-------------------

Remember that just running sensors returns a temp of ~32.  When I run 
the above script, the first temp is usually ~36 and through the 200 runs 
it clocks up to ~43-45.  And the last temp on the list (after the sleep 
1) is ~34.

Now, I know that this is low power CPU and it's got a relatively small 
heatsink on the EPIA-SN board but I'm having trouble with the fact that 
my CPU spikes by nearly 10 degrees just running bash once and 
sensors+grep 202 times.

Just how CPU intensive is 'sensors' and why does it give me wildly 
different CPU temps than acpi used to?

Note:  Here is the raw output of just a single run of sensors:

-------------------
# sensors
via_cputemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0:      +32.0°C
-------------------

I'm expecting replies like 'you are suffering from Heisenberg's 
uncertainty principle'; the act of monitoring your CPU changes the 
temp.  Or, 'that's a low power CPU so the moment it's not idle you see 
the spike and the fact that a sleep 1 ramps the temperature down clearly 
shows that it's dissipating heat from the heatsink relatively quickly.. 
so your heatsink probably doesn't have enough mass or there's something 
wrong with the sensor in your chip'.

But almost 10 degrees just for running sensors+grep in a loop?

Note:  I also created a script that was just 200 instances of 'sensors | 
grep Core' and I got the same progression of temperature rise so it's 
not like the for loop on the `seq 1 200` is contributing to the spike.

Okay, so assuming that's the temperature profile of my CPU, I decided to 
run 20 instances of the following script....

----------------------
while [ 1 ]; do echo 1234 > /dev/null ; done &
----------------------

That showed a system load of ~18 and a CPU usage 85%.  After 5 mins, I 
ran my script and all of the CPU temps returned were at ~57 and they 
held there.

So loading the CPU rose the temp by another 15 degC.  Fair enough.

So then I killed all of the while loops and re-ran my 200 'sensors' 
runs.  The first temp was 46, the last temp was 53.  Again, sensors is 
having a massive impact on my CPU... in fact, the 200 runs are reliably 
causing a 10+ degC spike in the CPU, no matter what the temp.

That seems a bit much... even for a low power CPU [that starts at 
'idle'] and that has airflow going over it that's way over spec and when 
I only have one sensor module loaded.

I don't care about the CPU cycles, I'm just wondering if the via-cputemp 
driver is doing something silly.  Your thoughts?

Cheers,
Dave.

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