Hi Tony,
For your i7 did you make a change to the driver? I used to control speeds on an AMD device for power reasons, but when I switched to an i3 the cpufreq method did not work any more. Looking at frequency-info I get:

[root@server ~]# /usr/bin/cpupower frequency-info

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: intel_pstate

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency:  Cannot determine or is not supported.

  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 3.40 GHz

  available cpufreq governors: performance powersave

  current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 3.40 GHz.

                  The governor "powersave" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency: 3.40 GHz (asserted by call to hardware)

  boost state support:

    Supported: no

    Active: no

I believe the pstate driver is the way of controlling more recent CPU's and there have been quite a few kernel mods in the last couple of years to improve it. When I looked at it a couple of years ago I couldn't find a way of controlling the CPU speed. I have not looked since.

My i7 is running ClearOS 6.8 - Does the following provide any help?

here are the drivers that would be of interest

[root@danda ~]# lsmod | egrep 'cpu|freq|temp|sensors|it8'

it87                   38705  0 

hwmon_vid               3132  1 it87

cpufreq_ondemand       10544  0 

acpi_cpufreq            7763  0 

freq_table              4936  2 cpufreq_ondemand,acpi_cpufreq

mperf                   1557  1 acpi_cpufreq

coretemp                6400  0 

Using the same arguments for yum.log* - it87 is used by lm_sensors

[root@danda ~]# cat /var/log/yum* | egrep 'cpu|freq|temp|sensors|it8'

Apr 08 11:21:14 Installed: lm_sensors-libs-3.1.1-17.el6.x86_64

Apr 08 11:21:20 Installed: lm_sensors-3.1.1-17.el6.x86_64

Apr 08 13:42:33 Installed: hddtemp-0.3-0.20.beta15.el6.x86_64

Apr 08 14:51:16 Installed: gkrellm-hddtemp-0.2-0.fdr.0.2.beta.2.i386

Aug 01 11:47:41 Updated: cpupowerutils-1.2-7.el6.x86_64

Jan 30 13:36:59 Installed: kmod-it87-1.1-12.v6.x86_64

May 29 10:43:20 Updated: cpupowerutils-1.3-1.el6.x86_64

Jun 26 13:42:36 Erased: kmod-it87

Jun 26 13:52:42 Installed: kmod-it87-1.1-13.v6.x86_64

As explained in the doc - to save the overhead of a user-land program the files in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ are modified directly.

[root@danda ~]# find /sys/devices | grep cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_transition_latency

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/affected_cpus

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/related_cpus

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors   

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq

etc ...snipped

I have an i3 also running BOINC at close to 100% load - but it runs cool even in summer and so only just reduce the load to maintain a reasonable temperature during the hottest days. It's running Fedora - I have just looked and found this using the same commands...

 

[root@sophia ~]# lsmod | egrep 'cpu|freq|temp|sensors|it8'

cpufreq_stats          13469  0 

it87                   47209  0 

hwmon_vid              12688  1 it87

acpi_cpufreq           19612  0 

mperf                  12607  1 acpi_cpufreq

coretemp               13435  0 

[root@sophia ~]# find /sys/devices | grep cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/bios_limit

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/time_in_state

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/trans_table

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/total_trans

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_transition_latency

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_cur_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/affected_cpus

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/related_cpus

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq

/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/bios_limit

[root@sophia ~]# /usr/bin/cpupower frequency-info

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: acpi-cpufreq

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us.

  hardware limits: 1.60 GHz - 3.30 GHz

  available frequency steps: 3.30 GHz, 3.20 GHz, 3.10 GHz, 3.00 GHz, 2.80 GHz, 2.70 GHz, 2.60 GHz, 2.50 GHz, 2.40 GHz, 2.30 GHz, 2.20 GHz, 2.10 GHz, 1.90 GHz, 1.80 GHz, 1.70 GHz, 1.60 GHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative, userspace, powersave, ondemand, performance

  current policy: frequency should be within 1.60 GHz and 3.30 GHz.

                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency is 3.30 GHz (asserted by call to hardware).

  cpufreq stats: 3.30 GHz:99.00%, 3.20 GHz:0.01%, 3.10 GHz:0.01%, 3.00 GHz:0.01%, 2.80 GHz:0.00%, 2.70 GHz:0.00%, 2.60 GHz:0.00%, 2.50 GHz:0.00%, 2.40 GHz:0.00%, 2.30 GHz:0.00%, 2.20 GHz:0.00%, 2.10 GHz:0.01%, 1.90 GHz:0.00%, 1.80 GHz:0.00%, 1.70 GHz:0.00%, 1.60 GHz:0.93%  (507233)

  boost state support:

    Supported: no

    Active: no

    3300 MHz max turbo 4 active cores

    3300 MHz max turbo 3 active cores

    3300 MHz max turbo 2 active cores

    3300 MHz max turbo 1 active cores

Very interesting.
Do you know how you can control the temperature setpoint of the cpu/fan.

sensors

coretemp-isa-0000

Adapter: ISA adapter

Core 0:       +35.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

Core 1:       +32.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

I like to change the "high" setting.
This can be done with program "i8kmon" or "i8kutils". Can this be done in ClearOS ?

The CPU frequency is also not working for me.
Processor type : Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8600

 /usr/bin/cpupower frequency-info

analyzing CPU 0:

  driver: acpi-cpufreq

  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0

  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0

  maximum transition latency: 10.0 us

  hardware limits: 2.00 GHz - 3.33 GHz

  available frequency steps:  3.33 GHz, 3.00 GHz, 2.67 GHz, 2.33 GHz, 2.00 GHz

  available cpufreq governors: conservative userspace powersave ondemand performance

  current policy: frequency should be within 2.00 GHz and 3.33 GHz.

                  The governor "conservative" may decide which speed to use

                  within this range.

  current CPU frequency: 2.00 GHz (asserted by call to hardware)

  boost state support:

    Supported: no

    Active: no

This can be done with program "i8kmon" or "i8kutils". Can this be done in ClearOS ?

Do you have these utilities installed and tried to use them from the CLI? I'll investigate - my i7 fan is just set in BIOS to to vary with temperature with default settings - and varies over a quite a wide range. This is an older Ivy Bridge i7 3770 as can be seen here in green - bottom 'year' graph http://www.sraellis.tk/frame-26-fanspeed.html - use lm_sensors to monitor the fan speed

The CPU frequency is also not working for me

Can you provide more specific detail? How do you know? What did you try doing?
You should be able to read the current frequency like this - ypu will need to 'un-wrap' some lines grrr

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

the available frequencies

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

the maximum frequency

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

set it to the minimum for example - in your case 2000000

echo 2000000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

check it worked 

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

and set it back to whatever you saw when you initially displayed the max setting - probably  3300000

echo 3300000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

change cpu0 to cpu1 for the other cpu

Later... are you sure i8kutils is applicable to your system - from https://launchpad.net/i8kutils would have thought an Intel E8600 would be in a desktop and not a Dell laptop

i8kutils is a utility that controls some Dell laptops system temperature by means of turning on and off their fans. In the past, it was developed for the I8000 series and this is the reason for the name but today serves to more than the I8000 series. It was not implemented based on Dell documentation so it is not guaranteed to work on all models. Use if it helps you. Dell did not contribute to this project with documentation.

[edit]
Linkified a link which was not working correctly - Nick
[/edit]

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

the available frequencies

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

the maximum frequency

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

set it to the minimum for example - in your case 2000000

echo 2000000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

check it worked 

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq

and set it back to whatever you saw when you initially displayed the max setting - probably  3300000

echo 3300000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq

i''l investigate this more. The greq scalling option is available.

Later... are you sure i8kutils is applicable to your system -  from https://launchpad.net/i8kutils would have thought an Intel E8600 would be in a desktop and not a Dell laptop  

It is a Dell Desktop ;-). The i8utils are available and i've not yet found a way to instal them.

i'm looking a way to control the fan, if this possible (which i doubt)

i8utils is designed to control the left and right fans in certain Dell laptops - and that's the only use that my web searches have found so far - but you might be extremely lucky, though wouldn't bet on it....

If you have lm_sensors installed - you should get the programs "/usr/sbin/fancontrol" and "/usr/sbin/pwmconfig". I have never used them as the BIOS settings are adequate here. With lm_sensors installed and working, type "man fancontrol" and "man pwmconfig" for details... ("q" key quits from man pages). Suspect support for it will depend whether your BIOS is compatible... and pay attention to the warnings in the man files regarding their use... a quote of the first few lines of "man fancontrol"

FANCONTROL(8) FANCONTROL(8)

NAME
fancontrol - automated software based fan speed regulation

SYNOPSIS
fancontrol [configfile]

DESCRIPTION
fancontrol is a shell script for use with lm_sensors. It reads its configuration from a file, then calculates fan speeds from temperatures and sets the correponding PWM outputs to the computed values.

WARNING
Please be careful when using the fan control features of your mainboard, in addition to the risk of burning your CPU, at higher temperatures there will be a higher wearout of your other hardware components, too. So if you plan to use these components in 50 years, maybe you shouldn’t use fancontrol at all. Also please keep in mind most fans aren’t designed to be powered by a PWMed voltage.

In practice it doesn’t seem to be a major issue, the fans will get slightly warmer, just be sure to have a temperature alarm and/or shutdown call, in case some fan fails, because you probably won’t hear it anymore

CONFIGURATION
For easy configuration, there’s a script named pwmconfig(8) which lets you interactively write your configuration file for fancontrol. Alternatively you can write this file yourself using the information from this manpage.

Since most of you are going to use pwmconfig(8) script, the config file syntax will be discussed last. First I’m going to describe the various variables avaiable for changing fancontrol’s behaviour:
... snipped

No luck....

/usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed

Do you have lm_sensors installed and configured? This is essential to get the necessary module support in place...

Looks like this Gigabyte board (GA-Z77MX-D3H) has the necessary support...

[root@danda ~]# /usr/sbin/pwmconfig

# pwmconfig revision 5630 (2009-01-29)

This program will search your sensors for pulse width modulation (pwm) controls, and test each one to see if it controls a fan on your motherboard. Note that many otherboards do not have pwm circuitry installed, even if your sensor chip supports pwm.



We will attempt to briefly stop each fan using the pwm controls. The program will attempt to restore each fan to full speed after testing. However, it is ** very important ** that you physically verify that the fans have been to full speed after the program has completed.



Found the following devices:

   hwmon0 is acpitz

   hwmon1/device is coretemp

   hwmon2/device is it8728



Found the following PWM controls:

   hwmon2/device/pwm1

hwmon2/device/pwm1 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts  faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) n

   hwmon2/device/pwm2

hwmon2/device/pwm2 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) n

   hwmon2/device/pwm3

hwmon2/device/pwm3 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) n

There are no usable PWM outputs.

opted to stay with what BIOS had set - automatic - which works well...

Tony Ellis wrote:

Do you have lm_sensors installed and configured? This is essential to get the necessary module support in place...

Looks like this Gigabyte board (GA-Z77MX-D3H) has the necessary support...

[root@danda ~]# /usr/sbin/pwmconfig

# pwmconfig revision 5630 (2009-01-29)

This program will search your sensors for pulse width modulation (pwm) controls, and test each one to see if it controls a fan on your motherboard. Note that many otherboards do not have pwm circuitry installed, even if your sensor chip supports pwm.



We will attempt to briefly stop each fan using the pwm controls. The program will attempt to restore each fan to full speed after testing. However, it is ** very important ** that you physically verify that the fans have been to full speed after the program has completed.



Found the following devices:

   hwmon0 is acpitz

   hwmon1/device is coretemp

   hwmon2/device is it8728



Found the following PWM controls:

   hwmon2/device/pwm1

hwmon2/device/pwm1 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts  faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) n

   hwmon2/device/pwm2

hwmon2/device/pwm2 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) n

   hwmon2/device/pwm3

hwmon2/device/pwm3 is currently setup for automatic speed control. In general, automatic mode is preferred over manual mode, as it is more efficient and it reacts faster. Are you sure that you want to setup this output for manual control? (n) n

There are no usable PWM outputs.

opted to stay with what BIOS had set - automatic - which works well...

Yes. LM_sensor is installed, but i think this Dell computer is very limited with options for Linux.
I believe for Windows there a more programs to use.
No problem, but sadly.....