powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands

[NeilEvanJensen]

Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
cpufrequtils:
  Installed: 004-2
  Candidate: 004-2
  Version table:
 *** 004-2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Expected: cpu freq scaling via cpu frequency scaling monitor applet Gnome Panel

Found this:
dmesg |grep powernow
[ 4.230267] powernow-k8: Found 1 AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4850e processors (2 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00)
[ 4.230287] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands. Please report this to the Linux ACPI maintainers and complain to your BIOS vendor.
[ 4.230372] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands. Please report this to the Linux ACPI maintainers and complain to your BIOS vendor.
 I was trying to add the cpu frequency scaling monitor applet to my gnome desktop panel and I received the message: CPU frequency scaling unsupported You will not be able to modify the frequency of your machine. Your machine may be misconfigured or not have hardware support for CPU frequency scaling.

My system monitor shows the percentage frequency each core is using just fine.

My system is an Asus M2N68-VM motherboard w/ AMD 64 dual core 4850e 2.5 ghz processor
The bios is AMI v 2.61

Hope this helps figure it out eventually. Thanks.

[Victor Vargas (kamus)]

Dear Neil, right affected package for this report is linux (kernel), for you confort I changed from package ubuntu to linux.

Regards

[swordfish (swordfish-mail333)]

I've got the same trouble with Asus M2N-MX SE motherboard.
BIOS version number is 0602 (latest at this time), all settings is default.
Ubuntu version is 9.04 with latest kernel.

Best

[NeilEvanJensen (neilevanjensen)]

Hey swordfish,

A thought for a little more info for the Linux team. Since this
problem is in the BIOS programming. What brand bios do you have?
Phoenix? AMI? etc...

Neil

On 8/12/09, swordfish <email address hidden> wrote:
> I've got the same trouble with Asus M2N-MX SE motherboard.
> BIOS version number is 0602 (latest at this time), all settings is default.
> Ubuntu version is 9.04 with latest kernel.
>
> Best
>
> --
> powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI _PSS objects in a way that
> Linux understands
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/398109
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Description: Ubuntu 9.04
> Release: 9.04
> cpufrequtils:
> Installed: 004-2
> Candidate: 004-2
> Version table:
> *** 004-2 0
> 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
> 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
>
> Expected: cpu freq scaling via cpu frequency scaling monitor applet Gnome
> Panel
>
> Found this:
> dmesg |grep powernow
> [ 4.230267] powernow-k8: Found 1 AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4850e
> processors (2 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00)
> [ 4.230287] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI
> _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands. Please report this to the
> Linux ACPI maintainers and complain to your BIOS vendor.
> [ 4.230372] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI
> _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands. Please report this to the
> Linux ACPI maintainers and complain to your BIOS vendor.
> I was trying to add the cpu frequency scaling monitor applet to my gnome
> desktop panel and I received the message: CPU frequency scaling unsupported
> You will not be able to modify the frequency of your machine. Your machine
> may be misconfigured or not have hardware support for CPU frequency scaling.
>
> My system monitor shows the percentage frequency each core is using just
> fine.
>
> My system is an Asus M2N68-VM motherboard w/ AMD 64 dual core 4850e 2.5 ghz
> processor
> The bios is AMI v 2.61
>
> Hope this helps figure it out eventually. Thanks.
>

[AdrianBartel (bartelar)]

It may be worth checking that Cool 'n Quiet is enabled in the BIOS.

This is discussed for a similar motherboard here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7636364

[swordfish (swordfish-mail333)]

Hey all...

I was a little busy last time, but I found solution ;)

I've got Asus M2N-MX SE Plus mainboard.
Usermanual you can find here:
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=M2N-MX%20SE%20Plus
BIOS version is v02.58 1958-2007 American Megartends inc.
Kernel is 2.6.28-14.47

1) Default BIOS settings :
* Cool'n'Qulet - disabled
* ACPI APIC support - enabled
* MCP61 ACPI HPET TABLE - enabled
Error is: MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC
Log file is: dmesg1

2) Settings A:
+ Cool'n'Qulet - enabled (changed)
* ACPI APIC support - enabled
* MCP61 ACPI HPET TABLE - enabled
Error is: MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC
Log file is: dmesg2

3) Settings B:
+ Cool'n'Qulet - enabled (changed)
+ ACPI APIC support - disabled (changed)
* MCP61 ACPI HPET TABLE - enabled
Error is: [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Your BIOS does not provide ACPI _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands. Please report this to the Linux ACPI maintainers and complain to your BIOS vendor.
Log file is: dmesg3

3) Settings B:
+ Cool'n'Qulet - enabled (changed)
* ACPI APIC support - enabled (default)
+ MCP61 ACPI HPET TABLE - disabled (changed)
No errors!!!
Log file is: dmesg4

So, that you can see the reason was in MCP61 ACPI HPET TABLE setting.
Have anybody got some ideas about this situation?

[ubuntosaure (ubuntosaure)]

please help

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpid/+bug/398376

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi NeilEvanJensen,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 398109

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[David Gaarenstroom (david-gaarenstroom)]

@swordfish:
Option 2 is the way to go, that warning about the 8254 timer can be safely ignored.

"Your BIOS does not provide ACPI _PSS objects in a way that Linux understands" almost always means that Cool 'n Quiet has been disabled in the BIOS. This kernel message also isn't really an error, it just tells that the kernel will not use CPUFREQ powernow-k8 support because Cool 'n Quiet has been disabled, so it's doing exactly what is requested.

Unfortunately the Ubuntu people chose to built-in the powernow-k8 module, so there's no way to prevent powernow-k8 from being loaded, what may be exactly what you want...

[Harald Prasse (harald-prasse)]

dmesg |grep powernow
[ 1.132134] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: No compatible ACPI _PSS objects found.
[ 1.132134] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: First, make sure Cool'N'Quiet is enabled in the BIOS.
[ 1.132134] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: If that doesn't help, try upgrading your BIOS.

This is what I am getting when trying to upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04. I have been looking in many places but only found this old bug report that is in the same area. I have tried to boot 14.10 which works fine, than 15.04 which shows the same message but jumps past it and loads Ubuntu. So does 15.10. As soon as I try 16.04.2 The message is the last screen that is loaded. The machine then freezes and has to be rebooted.

I hope I am not stuck with the older Ubuntu versions, since 8.04 everything just worked fine so I assume something in the ACPI polling has changed.

I attached the output from dmidecode so that the configuration of the machine should be complete.

Can anyone help, please?