How to permanently set CPU power management to the powersave governor?

Question

I'm currently using this:

cpupower frequency-set --governor powersave

but it resets after each reboot.

Related: https://askubuntu.com/questions/523640/how-i-can-disable-cpu-frequency-scaling-and-set-the-system-to-performance — Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com, Nov 20 '20 at 22:23

score 25 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

25

For 16.04 there's one more step to add to Jayen's answer. The complete set of steps are

sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils
echo 'GOVERNOR="powersave"' | sudo tee /etc/default/cpufrequtils
sudo update-rc.d ondemand disable

The last step disables the "ondemand" daemon, which would otherwise overwrite the changes created by cpufrequtils.

See also How I can disable CPU frequency scaling and set the system to performance?

You might also consider adding, for example, MAX_SPEED="2GHz" to /etc/default/cpufrequtils if you have an overheating, say, 2.2GHz processor, to limit the maximum possible speed.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

1

answered Nov 08 '16 at 08:01

Shaun Dychko

351

how to revert this change? – techvish81 Aug 25 '17 at 10:24
2

Can you still switch to the ondemand governor temporarily, using cpufreq-set, after disabling it with update-rc.d? – Xen2050 Dec 22 '17 at 23:15
Did you mean "override" or "overwrite" the changes created by cpufrequtils? I believe it should be former. – Jus12 Dec 10 '19 at 13:02
1

Note, for ubuntu 18.04+ use sudo systemctl disable ondemand to disable ondemand – Elias Soares Dec 02 '21 at 18:32
This is not recommended because the file may already exist, so you'd a second line of GOVERNOR= – Freedo Feb 04 '22 at 07:08

score 14 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 25 '16 at 11:31

14

To set the governor permanently to powersave, firstly install cpufrequtils:

sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils

And then edit the /etc/init.d/cpufrequtils file and change GOVERNOR to "powersave" (GOVERNOR="powersave"). You can do this automatically by using the following command:

sudo sed -i 's/^GOVERNOR=.*/GOVERNOR="powersave"/' /etc/init.d/cpufrequtils

From here: Prevent Your Laptop From Overheating With Thermald And Intel P-State

edited Aug 25 '16 at 11:31

LogicStuff

137

answered Apr 09 '14 at 18:22

Alin Andrei

7,348

8

Editing the /etc/init.d/cpufrequtils is the wrong approach because this file contains the following code: if [ -f /etc/default/cpufrequtils ] ; then . /etc/default/cpufrequtils
Therefore the default governor should be set as follow. echo 'GOVERNOR="powersave"' | sudo tee /etc/default/cpufrequtils
– caracal Oct 01 '18 at 18:59
thanks, you save me a lot of time! – Matthias Lenmher May 18 '23 at 16:50

Jayen · Answer 3 · 2020-03-08T16:13:09.790

14

Based on Alin's answer, but will persist when cpufrequtils is upgraded:

To set the governor permanently to powersave, firstly install cpufrequtils:

sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils

And then create/edit the /etc/default/cpufrequtils file (which is read from /etc/init.d/cpufrequtils) and set GOVERNOR="powersave". You can do this automatically by using the following command:

echo 'GOVERNOR="powersave"' | sudo tee /etc/default/cpufrequtils

And if you are on Ubuntu 16.04 or later, you need to disable the built-in service that sets the governor to ondemand:

sudo update-rc.d ondemand disable

edited Mar 08 '20 at 16:13

answered Oct 03 '15 at 10:00

Jayen

395

There I am posting last step for Ubuntu 18.04 or later: And if you are on Ubuntu 18.04 or later, you need to disable the built-in service that sets governor to ondemand: sudo systemctl disable ondemand – luke Aug 13 '22 at 13:23

How to permanently set CPU power management to the powersave governor?

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