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Clueless about power management

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nobodynose

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i7-8700
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Can someone who has a good grasp on how power management works on hackintoshes please explain to me why my CPU is always running at its turbo frequencies even when idle, and how I can fix this?

Without an SSDT this is what it looks like in Intel Power Gadget:
no_ssdt.png

With an SSDT generated by ssdtPRGen this is what it looks like:
with_ssdt.png

There's a slight difference, but it rarely dips below 3.0GHz (my i5-4590S CPU's "base" top frequency).

If anyone can help with this, I'd very much appreciate it. I've attached my config.plist files (both with and without the SSDT) and the SSDT.aml that was generated by ssdtPRGen.
 

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  • config_with_ssdt.plist
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The problem is with the Intel power gadget rather than your power management.
Monitor with other means to confirm.
 
OK, with HWMonitor it's slightly better - but I only saw it drop below about 90% of the top frequency one time, so it still seems like something isn't quite right. Or does the act of monitoring it cause it to stay at the higher frequencies?
hwmonitor.png
 
OK, with HWMonitor it's slightly better - but I only saw it drop below about 90% of the top frequency one time, so it still seems like something isn't quite right. Or does the act of monitoring it cause it to stay at the higher frequencies?
View attachment 256195

Monitor with AppleIntelInfo.kext.

Also, check in Activity Monitor. It is possible you have something incorrectly configured, causing excessive CPU use (runaway kext, or background process).
 
Monitor with AppleIntelInfo.kext.

Also, check in Activity Monitor. It is possible you have something incorrectly configured, causing excessive CPU use (runaway kext, or background process).

AppleIntelInfo.kext lists several P-States, but then it just stops updating its output. It doesn't appear to be monitoring anything:

Code:
$ sudo tail -f /tmp/AppleIntelInfo.dat
CPU C6-Cores [ 0 1 2 3 ]
CPU C7-Cores [ 0 1 2 3 ]
CPU C3-Cores [ 0 1 2 3 ]
CPU P-States [ 32 (33) 34 36 ]
CPU P-States [ 30 32 33 34 36 (37) ]
CPU P-States [ 28 30 32 33 34 36 (37) ]
CPU P-States [ (8) 28 29 30 32 33 34 36 37 ]
CPU P-States [ 8 26 28 29 30 32 33 34 (36) 37 ]
CPU P-States [ 8 26 28 29 30 32 33 34 35 36 (37) ]
CPU P-States [ 8 26 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 (37) ]
CPU P-States [ (8) 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 ]
CPU P-States [ 8 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 (37) ]

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the output. I looked at Activity Monitor, I don't see anything out of the ordinary there.
 
AppleIntelInfo.kext lists several P-States, but then it just stops updating its output. It doesn't appear to be monitoring anything.

If you follow the Guide then In Terminal enter :
Code:
cat /tmp/AppleIntelInfo.dat

When it has completed press the up-arrow key and then Return to refresh the list of states found so far, it may take some time (several refreshes) to reach all of the available states.
 
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