With this information in mind, in this tutorial, we show you the basics of checking your system’s CPU frequency in Ubuntu. We also highlight how you can control the base frequency to either boost your machine’s performance or extend its battery life.
How to Check Your System’s CPU Frequency
The first step in controlling your machine’s CPU frequency is to find out how fast your computer is currently running. You can use any of the methods we cover here.
Using dmesg
One of the quickest ways to find the base frequency is through dmesg, a built-in utility that displays every status message from your kernel. Run the following command to check your machine’s base frequency: This command will first load the entire status buffer in your computer’s memory, then display every line of text that contains “MHz.” It is important to note that this command will also print any line in the buffer that has a clock frequency value. To fix this issue, you can either look for a “processor” string in the terminal output or use a more specific grep keyword:
Reading the Base Frequency Using lscpu
You can also use the lscpu utility to check your processor’s base frequency. Unlike dmesg, lscpu is a program that only displays the properties and features of your CPU. To check your processor’s base frequency with lscpu, run the following command: Running this command will print two clock frequency values:
CPU max MHz: shows the maximum allowable speed for your particular CPU die. This is helpful if you intend to overclock your processor.CPU min MHz: shows the base CPU frequency for your particular processor.
Using hardinfo to Print System Information
Lastly, it is also possible to check your processor’s base frequency through a graphical user interface (GUI), which is especially useful if you are not yet comfortable with the command line.
Using CPU Power Manager in Ubuntu to Control CPU Speed
Once you know the base CPU frequency of your computer, you can start tweaking how your processor performs under load by installing the “CPU Power Manager” applet. This is a small extension for GNOME (similar to Hide Top Bar, which is used to hide the top bar in Ubuntu). It provides an easy-to-use interface for manipulating your CPU’s overall speed.
How to Control the CPU Frequency With CPU Power Manager
View your options of tweaking your processor’s frequency clock by opening the CPU Power Manager applet via the processor icon in your taskbar. The options available are as follows:
Minimum Frequency: tells the applet to keep the CPU at a certain load percentage at all times. For example, keeping this value at 50% will force the processor to make sure that half of its resources are always active.Maximum Frequency: determines how much of the CPU you can use at any point in time. Unlike the Minimum Frequency, setting this value at 50% will force the processor to use only half of its resources regardless of load.Current Frequency: displays the speed at which your processor is running at the moment, which is handy when you want to quickly check the speed of your CPU.Built-in profiles: allow you to adjust your processor’s frequency policy. Clicking the “High Performance” profile, for example, will set the Minimum Frequency to 50% and the Maximum to 100%.
How to Create a Custom CPU Frequency Profile
Along with using built-in frequency policies, it is also possible to create your own custom profile for your computer via the “Preferences” section in the applet’s menu. Image credit: Brian Balliet via Unsplash. All alterations and screenshots by Ramces Red. To fix this, remove the Firefox snap package with sudo snap remove firefox, then install the proper Firefox browser by running the following command: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa && sudo apt install firefox. Knowing that, a good rule of thumb in to set the Minimum and Maximum frequency for your machine to ensure that the gap between the two values is around 30% to 50%.
