Re: RAM size.
On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 09:32:54AM -0500, Dave Sherohman wrote:
| On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 12:13:20PM +0100, J.A.Serralheiro wrote:
| > On Fri, 13 Jul 2001, Alexey wrote:
| > > You know, while running DOS or Windows, the CPU is hot (I can touch it),
| > > even if I do nothing. It becomes cool under Linux!!!
| >
| > strange, never heard of that.
|
| Linux (and NT, incidentally) sends HLT (HaLT) instructions to the CPU
| telling it to shut itself down (until the next interrupt) when there's
| nothing for it to do. So if your linux system tells you you're at
| 30% CPU utilization, the CPU is essentially turned off 70% of the
| time.
This would also (theoretically) lead to less power consumption and a
lower electric bill. Pretty nice! Say, does that HLT instruction
work on a i486 or only on newer CPUs? I also seem to recall, back
when I was learning m68k assembly, that the halt instruction on there
shouldn't be used if you want to ever do any procesing again (without
a reboot).
-D
Reply to: