Intel Xeon W-2145 CPU on SuperMicro & failing xenpm get-cpufreq-para

gecant

Hi,

this command:
xenpm get-cpufreq-para

returns "failed to get cpufreq parameter" regardless of BIOS options, tried so many different options, but nothing.

(and command: xenpm start 1|grep "Avg freq" just returns a lot of Avg freq 64 KHz)

Does anyone have experience on how to enable this?
The CPU is capped to it's base frequency because of this.

CPU is Intel Xeon W-2145 CPU @ 3.70GHz.
Motherboard/BIOS is Supermicro X11SRA-F

I tried several different options in "Hardware PM state control (P-States)"
Also in "CPU C State control" (all disabled, all enabled, different options)
Turbo is enabled in BIOS and I there is no "bias" options in this BIOS.

Has anyone enabled turbo with success on similar or same hardware?

Thank you!

NikFer

Hello! I turned it on x12dai-n6 + 2*8360y and it works for me. However, it does not show the turbo frequency in the center and in guest virtual machines too. Can't figure it out further.

olivierlambert

Up to date BIOS? Any "perf mode" available in SM hardware/BIOS?

NikFer

@olivierlambert Hello! I cannot update the BIOS, since a special version of BIOS is installed to work with engineering processors. Performance mode and turbo mode are enabled in the BIOS.
xenpm start 1|grep "Avg freq"
Avg freq 4810000 KHz
Avg freq 5069000 KHz
Avg freq 4995000 KHz
Avg freq 5032000 KHz
Avg freq 4958000 KHz
Avg freq 5069000 KHz
Avg freq 4070000 KHz
Avg freq 5106000 KHz
Avg freq 5106000 KHz
Avg freq 5032000 KHz
Avg freq 5143000 KHz
Avg freq 5106000 KHz
Avg freq 5106000 KHz
Avg freq 5032000 KHz
Avg freq 4958000 KHz
Avg freq 4551000 KHz
Avg freq 4477000 KHz
Avg freq 4736000 KHz
etc

NikFer

@olivierlambert base freq 2.2mhz, turbo 3.7mhz

olivierlambert

Engineering processors are special beast, that's probably why it causes some issues.

NikFer

@olivierlambert may be... but in Windows server i got 3,7Mhz

olivierlambert

Sure, but it's a completely different OS so… I'm pretty sure that it would work better with a regular CPU on an up to date firmware. Xen might have issues to turbo it, it's hard to tell without spending more time reading Xen messages and such.

NikFer

@olivierlambert maybe... but the task is to solve the problem with the frequency on the current hardware

olivierlambert

So spend more time to check Xen logs and try to investigate the details

NikFer

@olivierlambert Could you please tell me which journals to study and where they are located?

tuxen

@gecant I don't have any Supermicro server to test (mostly Dell/HPe) but checking the mobo manual [1], sadly, there's no profile for tweaking the power settings. After checking the available options, try this config:

Advanced >> CPU Configuration >> Advanced Power Management Configuration
> CPU P State Control
    SpeedStep (PStates) [Enable]
    EIST PSD Function   [HW_ALL]
    Turbo Mode          [Enabled]

> Hardware PM State Control
    Hardware P-States   [Native Mode]

> CPU C State Control
    Autonomous Core C-State   [Disable]
    CPU C6 Report             [Enable]
    Enhanced Halt State (C1E) [Disable (performance)] or [Enable (powersave)]

> Package C State Control
    Package C State [C0/C1 (performance)] or [C6(Retention) state (powersave)]

[1] https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/C420/MNL-2005.pdf

NikFer

@tuxen Thank you! I will try it