CPU Frequency Scaling

[Javasnob]

Hi everybody,

I finally decided to put CPU Frequency Scaling into my kernel, but I'm reluctant to boot with the new kernel. Is there a chance I screwed something up and I'll end up frying my hardware? I hope I'm just paranoid.

Thanks for any advice you have to give!

[Javasnob]

Will no one help me kill my paranoia?

[AlexK]

Frequency scaling will only work with chips that support it, so far I have had no problems with it. So far the only chips I know which support this are:
Intel Pentium M/Mobile P4/Centrino and some Desktop P4 processors (I don't exactly know which ones)
AMD Athlon 64 with Cool'n'Quiet Opterons and Turions.
Athlon XP's do not have this feature.

Frequency scaling will not go beyond the maximum rated performance of your processor, rather it will slow down the cpu to a lower speed when not much demand is there. e.g. On my brother's AMD64 machine, it slows itself to 800MHz for web searching and listening to music at the same time, very rarely does it go to its max speed. Same goes for my dad's P4 3.2 laptop, it slows down to 1.6GHz for basic stuff then shoots up to max speed when needed. Advantage is it uses less power and keeps the system cool.