Is "System throttled due to over-current" dangerous?

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson AGX Orin
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Device: Jetson Orin AGX 64GB
Use case: Deepstream 6.2
Issue: changing power mode in jetson from 2 to 3 (30W → 50W) gave a better Deepstream pipeline speed, then changing power mode from 3 to 0 (50W → MAXN) gave even more speed boost, mostly due to increased GPU frequency. However, MAXN mode gives warning: System throttled due to over-current. When using this power mode with Deepstream, I get max GPU frequency of 1300 MHz and max CPU frequency of 2201 MHz.

  1. Should i be concerned about the warning? Can it cause any hardware issues in the long term (overheating, wear down etc.)?
  2. What causes the warning and how to get rid of it? I assume this is due to high GPU frequency, but 1300 MHz is far from Orin’s max limit, which is 2147 MHz (source)

Thanks!

1 Like
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Hi unsaltedbutter,

Are you using the devkit or custom board for AGX Orin?
What’s your Jetpack version in use?

MAXN mode is an unconstrained power mode which allows maximum number of cores and clock frequency for CPU, GPU, DLA, PVA and SOC engines like NVENC, NVDEC…etc. But It does not guarantee the best performance for all the use cases as the hardware throttling is engaged when the total module power goes beyond the TDP budget. Therefore, it is not maximum performance mode. This is an experimental mode for tweaking clock settings to create custom power modes that balance performance and power consumption.

When you see this system throttling message, it means it has been throttled to protect your board get damaged.

Please share the result of the following command after you see that message.

grep "" /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/oc*
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Thank you for the quick response.

Are you using the devkit or custom board for AGX Orin?

I have a Jetson Orin AGX 64GB developer kit

What’s your Jetpack version in use?

L4T 35.2.1, Jetpack 5.1, based on output of these commands:

**@**-desktop:~/Documents/tegut-accuracy$ cat /etc/nv_tegra_release
# R35 (release), REVISION: 2.1, GCID: 32413640, BOARD: t186ref, EABI: aarch64, DATE: Tue Jan 24 23:38:33 UTC 2023
**@**:~/Documents/tegut-accuracy$ dpkg -l | grep -i jetpack
ii  libnvidia-container0:arm64                 0.11.0+jetpack                        arm64        NVIDIA container runtime library
ii  nvidia-jetpack                             5.1-b147                              arm64        NVIDIA Jetpack Meta Package
ii  nvidia-jetpack-dev                         5.1-b147                              arm64        NVIDIA Jetpack dev Meta Package
ii  nvidia-jetpack-runtime                     5.1-b147                              arm64        NVIDIA Jetpack runtime Meta Package

Please share the result of the following command after you see that message.

**@**:~$ grep "" /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/oc*
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_event_cnt:315
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_throt_en:1
**@**:~$ grep "" /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/oc*
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_event_cnt:805
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_throt_en:1
**@**:~$ grep "" /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/oc*
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_event_cnt:827
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_throt_en:1
**@**:~$ grep "" /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/oc*
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc1_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_event_cnt:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc2_throt_en:0
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_event_cnt:857
/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/oc3_throt_en:1

How would I begin creating my own custom power modes?

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Found in this topic that I can use the Power Estimator tool to generate nvpmodel.conf files for custom power modes. Will experiment with different GPU/CPU frequencies and CPU core number and get back to you about the warning.

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Please also verify with the latest Jetpack 5.1.3 (L4T R35.5.0).

It seems you hit the instantaneous high current event and OC throttling triggered.

Yes, please check the power usage in Power GUI when you are running the application and use power estimator to create the custom power mode configuration for your case.

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