Another way to control CPU napping

Nov 15, '05 05:22:00AM

Contributed by: scdown

The hint titled Possibly eliminate 'chirping' sounds from G5 CPUs describes the use of CHUD to disable CPU napping, in an attempt to suppress 'chirping' sounds when the system is idle. One drawback to this method is that it's not persistent, requiring an AppleScript startup item to turn off the CPU nap flag.

Apple recently released a new version of the CHUD Tools (described near the bottom of the page; or just download from the CHUD FTP server), which provides a command-line tool called hwprefs that, among other things, allows the root user to enable or disable CPU napping.

I won't enter a debate as to whether it's better to create a StartupItem or add a line toward the end of /etc/rc to handle this, (or enter a debate as to whether or not it's a good idea to disable napping in general), but using this command...

hwprefs -v cpu_nap=false
...in either a StartupItem or /etc/rc will disable CPU napping at startup.

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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20051110105729848