UPDATE: This is no longer required in Intrepid Ibex (8.10), since Intrepid uses PolicyKit to assign root access limited to scaling of CPU Frequency by default, so you don’t have to do this in Intrepid. The Intrepid method is WAY more secure and indeed better.

Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency are the key words in technology today. This applies to the field of personal computing as well and is not limited to laptops. Even desktops need to be energy efficient and save the much precious watts of electric current.

In Ubuntu by default the CPU frequency scaling monitors and throttles down the CPU when not in peak use. So far well and good. But many times especially in notebook computers we require to manually throttle down the clock speed of the CPU so as to save battery power. Even in desktop it can be useful sometimes.

But by default the CPU scaling monitor does not let users to manually select the clock speed for your processor. However by the following tip it will certainly let so.

Zoom in to the terminal. In terminal, Enter command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets

And it will present you the following screen:

Choose OK and the following screen would present:

Select YES.

And then the screen would close.

Now you can select your processor clock speed.

It also consists of profile which your processor might use. For ex. Conservative will save power.

I tested this with an AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ processor. I’m sure ot will work in an Intel based chip as well. But I would glad if you confirm this in the comments.

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