Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 09:21:50AM -0800, George Hartzell wrote: > Bruno Ducrot writes: > > [...] > > What specific driver(s) were loaded actually? > > A devinfo might help. > > It looks like: > > p4tcc0 > cpufreq0 > > Here's a devinfo and a dmesg: > > http://shrimp.alerce.com/merlin/merlin.devinfo > http://shrimp.alerce.com/merlin/merlin.dmesg > > I'm starting to understand that the box is probably running along as > quietly as it knows how, unless there's some magic about fans and > disks that I've missed. > p4tcc0 reduce only frequency (actually it wont reduce the core frequency), but not core voltage. You actually wont save a lot of power with it. It's main usage is to reduce processor temperature if need be. The cpufreq0 actually is not a real driver. It's used to merge different drivers (for example p4tcc0 and est0 if your processor support SpeedStep) in order to provide an unified interface available via dev.cpu.0. Cheers, -- Bruno Ducrot -- Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? -- Don't know. Don't care. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
Bruno Ducrot writes: > [...] > What specific driver(s) were loaded actually? > A devinfo might help. It looks like: p4tcc0 cpufreq0 Here's a devinfo and a dmesg: http://shrimp.alerce.com/merlin/merlin.devinfo http://shrimp.alerce.com/merlin/merlin.dmesg I'm starting to understand that the box is probably running along as quietly as it knows how, unless there's some magic about fans and disks that I've missed. Thanks for the help, g. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
Oliver Fromme writes: > George Hartzell wrote: > > I'm setting up a Dell Poweredge 750 1U server. A friend is loaning me > > space in his rack and since his rack usage is limited by power I'd > > like to be as thrifty as possible. > > > > I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of > > days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). > > > > Then I kldloaded cpufreq and enabled powerd and it still uses 88 watts > > (8.35KWH/93.47H). > > Did you verify that powerd actually reduced the CPU > frequency? What's the output from "sysctl dev.cpu.0"? > > It might be enlightening to watch the following shell > loop for a while: > while :; do sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq; sleep 1; done I hadn't actually done *that* (but I had run powerd -v for a while and watched). Here you go: (merlin)[9:11am]~>>while (1) while? sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq while? sleep 5 while? end dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 dev.cpu.0.freq: 1051 dev.cpu.0.freq: 2102 dev.cpu.0.freq: 1401 dev.cpu.0.freq: 700 dev.cpu.0.freq: 350 > By the way, do you have an SMP system, or are you running > a kernel without SMP? "sysctl machdep.cpu_idle_hlt"? It's a uniprocessor machine, hyperthreading capable but that's disabled in the bios. (merlin)[9:12am]~>>sysctl machdep.cpu_idle_hlt machdep.cpu_idle_hlt: 1 Thanks for thinking about this! g. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 10:49:40AM -0800, George Hartzell wrote: > Peter Jeremy writes: > > On Wed, 2007-Jan-10 09:34:21 -0800, George Hartzell wrote: > > >I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of > > >days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). > > > > What was it doing for those couple of days? [...] > > It's a small time mail server and web host. It was running under its > real world load. > > > I presume you confirmed that cpufreq/powerd was actually functioning > > (ie the CPU frequency was being changed). > > Yep, or at least I confirmed that powerd -v from a shell cycled up and > down w/ demand, then I configured it to run as a daemon and confirmed > that was cpufreq was loaded and that powerd was running in the > background. > > > >That surprised me a bit, and seems to suggest that it's spending most > > >of its energy spinning fans or something. > > > > PSU overheads, fans, northbridge, video, RAM, disk, ... it all adds up. > > That's sort of what I was figuring, it is/was just that my laptop > experience with powerd and battery life suggested that there would be > more of a difference. > > > I can't specifically help with the Dell. > What specific driver(s) were loaded actually? A devinfo might help. Cheers, -- Bruno Ducrot -- Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? -- Don't know. Don't care. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
George Hartzell wrote: > I'm setting up a Dell Poweredge 750 1U server. A friend is loaning me > space in his rack and since his rack usage is limited by power I'd > like to be as thrifty as possible. > > I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of > days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). > > Then I kldloaded cpufreq and enabled powerd and it still uses 88 watts > (8.35KWH/93.47H). Did you verify that powerd actually reduced the CPU frequency? What's the output from "sysctl dev.cpu.0"? It might be enlightening to watch the following shell loop for a while: while :; do sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq; sleep 1; done By the way, do you have an SMP system, or are you running a kernel without SMP? "sysctl machdep.cpu_idle_hlt"? Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "Perl will consistently give you what you want, unless what you want is consistency." -- Larry Wall ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
On Jan 10, 2007, at 9:34 AM, George Hartzell wrote: I'm setting up a Dell Poweredge 750 1U server. A friend is loaning me space in his rack and since his rack usage is limited by power I'd like to be as thrifty as possible. I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). Then I kldloaded cpufreq and enabled powerd and it still uses 88 watts (8.35KWH/93.47H). That surprised me a bit, and seems to suggest that it's spending most of its energy spinning fans or something. There isn't going to be nearly as much power savings running powerd with a desktop or rackmount equipment than with a laptop-- the latter are designed with a low-power mode of operation as a priority due to limited battery life. Also, I think that powerd also doesn't help that much compared with the "HLT in the idle task" approach that has been used previously, but YMMV. Also note that most power supplies are rated for around 80 - 90% efficiency, which means that a 400W power supply under full design load would be be drawing 440 to 480 W. However, even under zero load, they'll still eat a few watts. Unless you replace the machine with something like a VIA EPIA or a Soekris 45xx/48xx using very low power components, you're going to have a tough time getting your power draw down much lower than the ~90 W. -- -Chuck ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
Peter Jeremy writes: > On Wed, 2007-Jan-10 09:34:21 -0800, George Hartzell wrote: > >I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of > >days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). > > What was it doing for those couple of days? [...] It's a small time mail server and web host. It was running under its real world load. > I presume you confirmed that cpufreq/powerd was actually functioning > (ie the CPU frequency was being changed). Yep, or at least I confirmed that powerd -v from a shell cycled up and down w/ demand, then I configured it to run as a daemon and confirmed that was cpufreq was loaded and that powerd was running in the background. > >That surprised me a bit, and seems to suggest that it's spending most > >of its energy spinning fans or something. > > PSU overheads, fans, northbridge, video, RAM, disk, ... it all adds up. That's sort of what I was figuring, it is/was just that my laptop experience with powerd and battery life suggested that there would be more of a difference. > I can't specifically help with the Dell. Thanks for the thoughts! g. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
On Wed, 2007-Jan-10 09:34:21 -0800, George Hartzell wrote: >I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of >days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). What was it doing for those couple of days? If it was just sitting idle then I would expect the power consumption to be fairly close to what you get with powerd. If you want to see peak power consumption, try running a buildworld, something very FP intensive and something that is thrashing the disk(s) (lots of seeks and writes), all in parallel. >Then I kldloaded cpufreq and enabled powerd and it still uses 88 watts >(8.35KWH/93.47H). I presume you confirmed that cpufreq/powerd was actually functioning (ie the CPU frequency was being changed). >That surprised me a bit, and seems to suggest that it's spending most >of its energy spinning fans or something. PSU overheads, fans, northbridge, video, RAM, disk, ... it all adds up. I can't specifically help with the Dell. -- Peter Jeremy pgpbxuESZuYiO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
On Wednesday, 10. January 2007 19:34, George Hartzell wrote: > I'm setting up a Dell Poweredge 750 1U server. A friend is loaning me > space in his rack and since his rack usage is limited by power I'd > like to be as thrifty as possible. > > Any other suggestions to help economize? > edit /etc/rc.conf: powerd_enable="YES" powerd_flags="-a adaptive -b adaptive" ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750.
I'm setting up a Dell Poweredge 750 1U server. A friend is loaning me space in his rack and since his rack usage is limited by power I'd like to be as thrifty as possible. I hooked my kill-a-watt meter up and ran the machine for a couple of days and it uses 88 watts (3.90KWH/44.01H). Then I kldloaded cpufreq and enabled powerd and it still uses 88 watts (8.35KWH/93.47H). That surprised me a bit, and seems to suggest that it's spending most of its energy spinning fans or something. Is anyone familiar with the poweredge 750 and freebsd-stable? I can't find anything in the bios that suggests fans control, although I guess it's possible that they're running efficiently by default and I just haven't caused them to *really* run. Any other suggestions to help economize? Thanks, g. ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
