I’m glad you posted this @Eslaron . Ever since some recent changes to the amd-pstate-epp driver) my mini-PC’s CPU has never dropped below ~1.2GHz, even when idle. The CPU temperature has been sitting around 10-20°C warmer than it was before the change. The amd-pstate-epp developer says it is actually more power efficient to have the CPU running at a higher idle speed, however my concern isn’t power consumption, my concern is temperature.
With Sydney’s summer rapidly approaching (we’re getting a late-spring mini heatwave from tomorrow), I was starting to get a little worried about how my mini-PC would handle a run of days >35°C in my non-airconditioned, non-insulated, top floor flat. It was fine last summer, but that 10-20°C difference in idle temperature since then would definitely have my mini-PC’s fan running a lot this summer.
Anyway, I just switched to tuned-ppd and my CPU is back to idling at less than 1GHz (I just saw it dip to ~450MHz). And the running temperature when idle is currently ~44°C, compared to the ~55-65°C that I have consistently been seeing during the past couple of months.
I’m not sure why switching from power-profiles-daemon to tuned-ppd fixes the amd-pstate-epp issue - maybe it is just a coincidence? Anyway, I now feel a little less anxious about this upcoming summer.
My system’s power profile is, and always has been, “Balanced”.