Reduce power consumption with powertop


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5 hours ago, mgutt said:

L1 is the only option or is L0sL1 available, too? (This allows L0s and L1)

Unfortunately, only L1 is supported.
 

I'm currently waiting for Ubuntu to install on one of my USB drives, but it's taking a long time.

Just in case if I boot from USB and it will still just show c3. Do you have any recommendations for a mini ITX motherboard for the 13th generation Intel that doesn't break the bank? Are there any things I should avoid when looking for a motherboard?

Based on what you just wrote and some of your other messages in this thread, it seems that I should avoid ASRock, MSI, and Gigabyte LAN, correct?

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Ad of my experience Gigabyte and Asus have power efficient boards. Maybe the GIGABYTE H610I DDR4 is worth a try. It has an Intel Ethernet Controller. Or the ASUS ROG Strix B660-I Gaming WIFI. It has 2.5G Ethernet. Something I would prefer nowadays.

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On 5/19/2023 at 1:15 PM, mgutt said:

Settings are looking good to me. 63W can't be only the Motherboard, CPU and a single SSD. So please provide a list of your components.

M/B: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. PRIME B760M-A WIFI D4 Version Rev 1.xx
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. Version 0807 Dated 12/05/2022
CPU: 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-13500
Memory: Corsair 16 GiB DDR4 2x

LSI 9211-8I 1x

Array: 6x WD

Parity: 1x WD

Cache: 1x NVME

Power Supply: Corsair CX650M

 

System is idling Sonoff S40: 42w

 

Thank you for the advice.

Edited by neunghaha28
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Autotune did not enable all powersaving options for me, thus I enabled them manually and afterwards added the quirks manually to the go file.

You have powersavin on all USB ports disabled - enable them manually in powetop.

And you did not show the Tunables section - go there and set everyrging from bad to good.

Spin down all harddrives and recheck your powerconsumption.


P.S.:

And like mgutt said, the NM620 will most probably disable all Package powersave better than C2 (at least it did for me on both my intel systems - see some posts above).

Edited by norgoe
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5 hours ago, neunghaha28 said:

Array: USB 3.1 x1

It's not recommend to use USB drives for Unraid. Their connection is unstable.

 

5 hours ago, neunghaha28 said:

Array not start

Which means the USB HDD is running. Or are this even multiple HDDs?! 

 

Finally you should measure with the least amount of components possible, which means without those HDDs at all.

 

5 hours ago, neunghaha28 said:

WDS100T3X0C

As of my experience WD Black have negative impact on C-States and they can cause PCIe errors in the logs because of ASPM incompatibly.

 

5 hours ago, neunghaha28 said:

Corsair CX650M

I don't know if it's because of the RGB, but a similar model is extremely inefficient:

https://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/netzteile/corsair_cx_f_rgb_550_650_750/s02.php

 

I recommend PicoPSU or RM550x.

 

But even now it does not explain the 63W which is measured through your USP. Are you sure its accurate? Or is your external USB HDD Case included?!

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So I'm on a bit of a power efficiency binge at the moment and I'm trying to get my unraid server to hit the highest C state that I can.

 

I've narrowed down one of the culprits as the HBA.

 

It's an HP H220 aka LSI 9207-8i / 2308 HBA flashed with the latest P20 firmware. I'm using it to control 4 x 6tb SAS drives.

 

Per powertop, without the card plugged in the system can go straight to C8 which is just fine by me.

When the card is plugged in, the lowest power state it will get to is C2 (including w/ drives spun down).

 

So I guess my question is: Is anybody out there running a PCIe HBA card and able to achieve a lower power C State than C2?

 

unraid-diagnostics-20230521-1325.zip

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1 hour ago, Unlisted9035 said:

So I guess my question is: Is anybody out there running a PCIe HBA card and able to achieve a lower power C State than C2?

I'd say no. But even if, HBA controllers consume much more power than SATA cards and of course onboard SATA ports. Which means, maybe there is a potential to save ~4W by reaching C6, but finally you loose additional ~10W through the HBA controller alone plus 1W for each SAS HDD compared to SATA. So if you want to save energy: Don't use HBA cards and use SATA HDDs instead.

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14 hours ago, mgutt said:

So if you want to save energy: Don't use HBA cards and use SATA HDDs instead.

 

Thanks mgutt - I suspected as much given the enterprise nature of SAS drives and HBA cards. I idle at about 49w with the drives spun down so it's not too bad. I think my plan will be to migrate towards SATA as I upgrade and aim to do away with the HBA.

 

Another interesting data point if anybody is interested - I had two Silicone Power 512GB SATA SSD drives as a cache pool, and they prevented the system from moving to anything but C1.

 

Is there a user-compiled resource anywhere where people can list specific hardware and the apparent C-state limits that they have?

 

Edited by Unlisted9035
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Can you recommend any mATX/ATX s1700 motherboard with 2.5GBps NIC?

 

 

  

56 minutes ago, Unlisted9035 said:

 

 

Is there a user-compiled resource anywhere where people can list specific hardware and the apparent C-state limits that they have?

 

 

Sadly no. Even some server/high-end component can lack of ASPM :( 

Edited by SunTzu
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So I've just built a new mini-server in an ITX case and can get down to C9 package state which is great. However as soon as I plug in my PCIe riser the system won't go below C3 (even with nothing plugged onto the riser). ASPM is enabled at L0sL1. If a card is plugged directly into the PCIe slots I get C9, if the riser is plugged in: C3.

 

Anyone here have any experience or insight as to why this might be? Are PCIe risers more than just dumb wiring extensions?

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3 hours ago, twin_suns said:

Are PCIe risers more than just dumb wiring extensions?

I would say yes. Strange issue. Do both use the same amount of Lanes. As for example X16? Or does the riser connect to all X16 Lanes, but the card is X8? Maybe this activates more lanes although they aren't used?!

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1 hour ago, mgutt said:

I would say yes. Strange issue. Do both use the same amount of Lanes. As for example X16? Or does the riser connect to all X16 Lanes, but the card is X8? Maybe this activates more lanes although they aren't used?!

 

Both the card and riser are 16X, but regardless, the strange thing to me is the fact that the server won't go below C3 if the riser is plugged into the motherboard, even if nothing is actually plugged into the riser! 

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On 5/28/2023 at 1:02 PM, mgutt said:

I even tested this, but for me it has no impact:

 

echo "balance_power" | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/energy_performance_preference

 

The default ist "balance_performance":

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/energy_performance_preference
balance_performance

 

 

I was able to gain ~0.4W with balance_power, I noticed that there was also a "power" setting it allowed me to gain 0.9W (not cumulative from the previous setting).

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Is it still necessary to install intel igpu driver? On 6.11.5 lsmod shows i915 already loaded and i did not install.

If it is necessary: what plugin specifically is meant?

 

// Edit:

Seems, that it is not necessary to istall intel iGPU driver manually anymore:

 

Edited by x3n0n
Found answer
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Do we know of any other ATX or SFX power supplies that are efficient at low wattages?

I did some digging on the Cybenetics database and found another ATX PSU that I haven't seen talked about, the Cooler Master V550 Gold V2. It seems to be right up there with the RM550x (2021) and slightly edging out the Pure Power 11 FM 550W (reaching greater efficiencies faster as the load increases). Interestingly the Cooler Master V550 Gold SFX (released at the same time) does not have good low watt efficiency.

 

To summarise, PSUs with efficient low watt performance:

  • PicoPSU
  • Corsair RM550x (2021)
  • Cooler Master V550 Gold V2
  • Pure Power 11 FM 550W
  • Pure Power 12 M 550W

I have included the efficiency and fan charts from Cybenetics and tried to scale them so that a direct comparison can be made. Also included the Corsair RM550x (2018) model, it should be noted the 2018 model is still a bit better at low loads compared to some other gold rated PSUs.

983489361_PSUefficiencycomparison.thumb.png.56243d92016e80eb331db15dde6b514d.png

Purely based on efficiency I think the CM V550 Gold V2 might edge out the others (especially at higher loads), but the fan noise tells a different story.

874251966_PSUfannoisecomparison.thumb.png.531337aeec270228139be0ab34362042.png

At low loads all 3 are fantastic but at higher loads the CM V550 Gold V2 is quite a bit louder than the others.

Unfortunately Cybenetics don't have results for the Pure Power 12 M 550W published.

 

My hunt for a suitable PSU goes on, I just can't seem to source any of these in Australia. They seem to stock all the models except the 550W versions. The closest I can get is the RM650x (2021) and the Cooler Master V650 Gold V2 which both still have much better low watt efficiency than other brand 450-550W PSUs but are just way overkill for my system. Should I settle for a 650W PSU or keep searching? An SFX PSU with >70% efficiency at 2% load would be super nice, does anyone know of any?

 

Edited by Swarles
Improved image quality.
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Hello,

have a chinese motherboard(Erying) with an i5-12500H intel mobile cpu. Intel X710-DA2 nic and a samsung 870 evo nvme installed. However package c state is always C0.

 

I can't find any settings in BIOS for cpu c states and the only ASPM setting in bios I can find is for DMI.

The core c states reach C6 but the package C state never go bellow C0. Forcing ASPM settings in Linux kernel does not do anything.

 

It idles at 18W without nic and 25W with nic installed, nic will be active all the time so I guess not much power to save there?

 

Currently have a Corsair CV450 PSU(white) which I want to replace since it's noisy, maybe I can save some power with a picopsu instead?

 

Is there anything I can test or just hope that the chinese release a new BIOS for this motherboard?

(have set powersave and run powertop --auto-tune)

 

ASPM:

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 460d (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
		LnkCap:	Port #0, Speed 16GT/s, Width x8, ASPM not supported
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 464d (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
		LnkCap:	Port #5, Speed 16GT/s, Width x4, ASPM not supported
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 51b0 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
		LnkCap:	Port #9, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM not supported
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
00:1d.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 51b1 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
		LnkCap:	Port #10, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM not supported
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
pcilib: sysfs_read_vpd: read failed: No such device
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+ (rev 01)
		LnkCap:	Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x8, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+ (rev 01)
		LnkCap:	Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x8, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
02:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983 (prog-if 02 [NVM Express])
		LnkCap:	Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x4, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <64us
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller (rev 05)
		LnkCap:	Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s unlimited, L1 <64us
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
		LnkCap:	Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s unlimited, L1 <64us
		LnkCtl:	ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes, Disabled- CommClk+

Output from dmesg |grep aspm

[    0.053681] PCIe ASPM is forcibly enabled
[    0.179534] ACPI FADT declares the system doesn't support PCIe ASPM, so disable it
[    0.291000] acpi PNP0A08:00: _OSC: OS supports [ExtendedConfig ASPM ClockPM Segments MSI EDR HPX-Type3]
[    0.291296] acpi PNP0A08:00: FADT indicates ASPM is unsupported, using BIOS configuration

 

Edited by etnicor
Added some extra info
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Okay, I decided to go ahead and look at all the SFX and SFX-L power supplies in the Cybenetics database and found only one which seems to have good low-watt efficiency; the SilverStone Nightjar 450W (SST-NJ450-SXL). It is a SFX-L PSU from 2018 with a fanless design. Below you scan see the comparison to the RM550x (2021), I have scaled both the axes as best I can to make it easily comparable. All in all it is very close, perhaps very slightly less efficient... but it then easily beats all of them above 50W. Also, on the 5v & 3.3v rails, the other low-watt efficient options (see previous comment) are more efficient until about 30w and then the NJ450 becomes more efficient.

1532365578_PSUefficiencySFXcomparison.thumb.png.006cd3407f91c8d8291eebd2328ec95d.png

As for the noise comparison data, this does not have a graph because it is a fanless design but obviously beats all of them.

 

This was a very interesting find, I wasn't expecting it to be fanless and from 2018. I was hoping to find another SFX model that could compete, but sadly no others that are in the Cybenetics database came close. This isn't to say there aren't any other SFX PSU that come close. Unfortunately this PSU for me (and probably most of us) is not easily found.

Edited by Swarles
Added Seasonic SGX-500W and Corsair SF450 (Plat) to the comparison.
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