Temperature-AwareOperating System Scheduling

A Thesisin STS 402 byEugene OttoMar. 31, 2006Technical Advisor: Kevin SkadronSTS Advisor: Professor Helen Benet-GoodmanOn my honor as a University student, on this assignment I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid as defined by the Honor Guidelines for Papers in Science,Technology, and Society Courses. _______________________________________ 

 

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1, The Effect of Processor Throttling, Pg. 2Figure 2, Comparison of Processor Clock Cycles, Throttled and Unthrottled, Pg. 3Figure 3, Multitasking, Pg. 4Figure 4, Selective Throttling, Pg. 5Figure 5, Change in Temperature as Frames are Decoded, Pg. 19Figure 6, Change in Fan Speed as Frames are Decoded, Pg. 19Table 1, Benchmark 1 Results, Pg. 18Table 2, Benchmark 2 Results, Pg. 20ii

 

ABSTRACT

The goal of my research was to implement and test an operating system scheduler modified to selectively throttle the processor clock frequency depending on the activetask. Throttling refers to lowering the processor clock speed and is generally invoked toreduce processor temperature. This process, however, inherently reduces the performance of the system which can create dangerous conditions in some cases and isgenerally undesirable.My work reduces the penalty caused by throttling by allowing the user to specifytasks for which throttling is not invoked. When throttling is invoked and a user specifiesthat a task should not be throttled, the system runs that task at full speed while throttlingall of the other non-critical tasks. This arrangement allows the system to cool downwhile still providing high responsiveness for critical tasks.I tested my system by playing DVD video files. This test was chosen because itrelates to an everyday situation and would cause the system temperature to elevatesignificantly, resulting in unwanted fan noise. My goal was to demonstrate that mymodifications to the scheduler allow DVD playback at lower temperatures with less fannoise.My work was successful: I demonstrated that my modifications would allow atask to perform well while the rest of system was throttled. This paves the way for research into more sophisticated temperature-aware scheduling algorithms that can beapplied to a wider swath of workloads.iii