From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 11 17:15:14 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CEEE16A403 for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:15:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hartzell@rosebud.alerce.com) Received: from merlin.alerce.com (w094.z064001164.sjc-ca.dsl.cnc.net [64.1.164.94]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CA1313C44C for ; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:15:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from hartzell@rosebud.alerce.com) Received: from merlin.alerce.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by merlin.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5866933C5D; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:15:03 -0800 (PST) Received: from rosebud.alerce.com (unknown [192.168.72.178]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by merlin.alerce.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 030AD33C5B; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:15:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from rosebud.alerce.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by rosebud.alerce.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l0BHFpqd003416; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:15:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from hartzell@rosebud.alerce.com) Received: (from hartzell@localhost) by rosebud.alerce.com (8.13.8/8.13.8/Submit) id l0BHFmnq003403; Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:15:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from hartzell) From: George Hartzell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17830.28868.816536.184695@rosebud.alerce.com> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:15:48 -0800 To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG, hartzell@alerce.com In-Reply-To: <200701110912.l0B9CBm5068986@lurza.secnetix.de> References: <17829.9117.888327.881204@rosebud.alerce.com> <200701110912.l0B9CBm5068986@lurza.secnetix.de> X-Mailer: VM 7.19 under 21.4 (patch 19) "Constant Variable" XEmacs Lucid X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV using ClamSMTP Cc: Subject: Re: saving power in a Dell Poweredge 750. X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: hartzell@alerce.com List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:15:14 -0000 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.