diff options
author | Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> | 2009-09-19 02:10:22 -0400 |
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committer | Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com> | 2009-09-19 02:10:22 -0400 |
commit | 44396a262286d1a07216a7c7792d4ed7a4c89ea7 (patch) | |
tree | f041f625e231879050caafb100dfffae5dffd152 /Documentation | |
parent | 89ae400e3f57c9d60cd4da3501bb09c1502b723c (diff) | |
parent | de584afa5e188a2da484bb5373d449598cdb9f5e (diff) |
Merge branch 'power-meter' into release
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/hwmon/acpi_power_meter | 51 |
1 files changed, 51 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/hwmon/acpi_power_meter b/Documentation/hwmon/acpi_power_meter new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..c80399a00c50 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/hwmon/acpi_power_meter | |||
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1 | Kernel driver power_meter | ||
2 | ========================= | ||
3 | |||
4 | This driver talks to ACPI 4.0 power meters. | ||
5 | |||
6 | Supported systems: | ||
7 | * Any recent system with ACPI 4.0. | ||
8 | Prefix: 'power_meter' | ||
9 | Datasheet: http://acpi.info/, section 10.4. | ||
10 | |||
11 | Author: Darrick J. Wong | ||
12 | |||
13 | Description | ||
14 | ----------- | ||
15 | |||
16 | This driver implements sensor reading support for the power meters exposed in | ||
17 | the ACPI 4.0 spec (Chapter 10.4). These devices have a simple set of | ||
18 | features--a power meter that returns average power use over a configurable | ||
19 | interval, an optional capping mechanism, and a couple of trip points. The | ||
20 | sysfs interface conforms with the specification outlined in the "Power" section | ||
21 | of Documentation/hwmon/sysfs-interface. | ||
22 | |||
23 | Special Features | ||
24 | ---------------- | ||
25 | |||
26 | The power[1-*]_is_battery knob indicates if the power supply is a battery. | ||
27 | Both power[1-*]_average_{min,max} must be set before the trip points will work. | ||
28 | When both of them are set, an ACPI event will be broadcast on the ACPI netlink | ||
29 | socket and a poll notification will be sent to the appropriate | ||
30 | power[1-*]_average sysfs file. | ||
31 | |||
32 | The power[1-*]_{model_number, serial_number, oem_info} fields display arbitrary | ||
33 | strings that ACPI provides with the meter. The measures/ directory contains | ||
34 | symlinks to the devices that this meter measures. | ||
35 | |||
36 | Some computers have the ability to enforce a power cap in hardware. If this is | ||
37 | the case, the power[1-*]_cap and related sysfs files will appear. When the | ||
38 | average power consumption exceeds the cap, an ACPI event will be broadcast on | ||
39 | the netlink event socket and a poll notification will be sent to the | ||
40 | appropriate power[1-*]_alarm file to indicate that capping has begun, and the | ||
41 | hardware has taken action to reduce power consumption. Most likely this will | ||
42 | result in reduced performance. | ||
43 | |||
44 | There are a few other ACPI notifications that can be sent by the firmware. In | ||
45 | all cases the ACPI event will be broadcast on the ACPI netlink event socket as | ||
46 | well as sent as a poll notification to a sysfs file. The events are as | ||
47 | follows: | ||
48 | |||
49 | power[1-*]_cap will be notified if the firmware changes the power cap. | ||
50 | power[1-*]_interval will be notified if the firmware changes the averaging | ||
51 | interval. | ||