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helloyello
Contributor
Contributor

How to enable power management (PowerNow!) on Opteron server?

It seems that I cannot get cpu power management to work.

I'm using ESXi 4.0 on an IBM x3455 Dual Opteron 2220 server. ESXi shows in the processor overview that Power management is NOT supported.

No matter, if I turn p-states on or off in the server bios (v1.42).

Did anyone manage to enable it?

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J1mbo
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Some BIOS's do not correctly enable it. When everything is "right", power management availability will show in vSphere client, but even then policy will be listed as "static" - to enable PowerNow! properly the advanced setting must be changed to "dynamic" manually, see Kiwi Si's blog on it here:

http://www.techhead.co.uk/saving-power-with-vmware-vsphere-esx-dynamic-voltage-and-frequency-scaling...

On Opteron 135x processors this reduces idle consumption by around 6W.

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helloyello
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, but I checked your link already before.

The issue is that ESXi does NOT recognize PowerNow. Thus it is impossible to set the Power mode to "dynamic".

I figure it is the BIOS - but is there a way to fix it?

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J1mbo
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I would suggest exercising your server support with the manufacturer, if it is in warantee.

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helloyello
Contributor
Contributor

It seems that this is a VMWare issue.

I tested with Hyper-V server and the idle power consumption went down by 40%!

Unfortunately, as much as I like ESXi, this is a killer for me and I'll have to use Hyper-V.

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

Try to follow these steps:

http://www.techhead.co.uk/saving-power-with-vmware-vsphere-esx-dynamic-voltage-and-frequency-scaling...

Are Intel related, but probably could work also on a Opteron.

Or also this:

http://www.boche.net/blog/index.php/2009/11/11/tame-electrical-and-heating-costs-with-cpu-power-mana...

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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