Reduce power consumption with powertop

[nassauer]

25 minutes ago, mgutt said:

Not sure about the 10W, but I think saving 7W should be realistic. Can you find your specific power supply model in a review of tweakpc.de ? They test the efficiency at 10W load. 

 

PS it seems you tested your c state with the unraid web terminal. The webgui produces load, so you should close all browsers and connect through SSH to your server.

You where correct. I´ve switched to putty and now I get C10. I attribute about 2-3 Watts to my APC I have. I´ve found test data for the PSU and it looks like it is actually pretty good.

But given that literally nothing else is connected to the board itself the idle draw still seems high. I am measuring with a Tapo plug via the app and my APC can display power draw.

[mgutt]

1 hour ago, nassauer said:

I´ve found test data for the PSU and it looks like it is actually pretty good.

This test data is useless. Power supplies are much less efficient on low power consumption. This means a Titanium PSU can consume 20W at 10W load, while a Bronze PSU consumes only 13W at 10W load. Depends fully on the individual model. As an example this specific model is very efficient at low loads:

 

 

 

[nassauer]

53 minutes ago, mgutt said:

This test data is useless. Power supplies are much less efficient on low power consumption. This means a Titanium PSU can consume 20W at 10W load, while a Bronze PSU consumes only 13W at 10W load. Depends fully on the individual model. As an example this specific model is very efficient at low loads:

alright, got it. I´ll be looking out for a new PSU. Could probably source a rm550x.

 

Meanwhile I´m testing with an nvme in the slot, but that leads to c2 state only. Haven´t found something that works and enables ASPM for it.

 

 

 

 

[mgutt]

1 hour ago, nassauer said:

with an nvme

Which one exactly?

[nassauer]

36 minutes ago, mgutt said:

Which one exactly?

It´s a Kingston NV2 500G I had left over.

[DataCollector]

1 hour ago, nassauer said:

Meanwhile I´m testing with an nvme in the slot, but that leads to c2 state only. Haven´t found something that works and enables ASPM for it.

 

Just for Info:

I did also do a lot of testing with several NVMe SSD on my B760M:

 

If german language is a problem here the short of it in english:

naked Board (with CPU and Ram unraid 6.12.4): under 10W (around 9W)
M.2 NVMe/PCIe SSD AData Legend 960 4TB PCIe 4.0 x4: again idle under 10W
M.2 NVMe/PCIe SSD Patriot Viper VP4300 Lite 4TB PCIe 4.0 x4: again idle under 10W
M.2 NVMe/PCIe SSD Samsung SSD 960 PRO 512GB,PCIe 3.0 x4: agein. under 10W
M.2 NVMe/PCIe SSD Lexar NM790 4TB PCIe 4.0 x4: what a surprise: again under 10W idle

 

So it depends also on the specific NVMe if it confuses the Mainboard(Firmware/UEFO/BIOS) and keeps the CPU partally awake.

[mgutt]

46 minutes ago, nassauer said:

Kingston NV

Hmm ok, never read about ASPM problems with this model, but it can happen. Some boards even act differently if you use the CPU M.2 slot or chipset M.2 slot. A pcie m.2 adapter card allows for example to use it in a pcie slot.

[nassauer]

1 hour ago, mgutt said:

Hmm ok, never read about ASPM problems with this model, but it can happen. Some boards even act differently if you use the CPU M.2 slot or chipset M.2 slot. A pcie m.2 adapter card allows for example to use it in a pcie slot.

well it´s ok for me not to use the nvme at the moment and save myself a little headache figuring it out. I could get my hands on a 2018 rm550x PSU. Any differences to the 2021 model?

[mgutt]

2 minutes ago, nassauer said:

Any differences to the 2021 model?

Yes, much worse. Not comparable. This is the reason why you can't get the 2021, but still the 2018 version 😉

[nassauer]

4 minutes ago, mgutt said:

Yes, much worse. Not comparable. This is the reason why you can't get the 2021, but still the 2018 version 😉

Thanks for the warning. Well then I´ll keep searching.

[Arno]

Hi All
Looking to build new system around 13500 CPU

What is the consensus on motherboard for easiest power management?

[nickp85]

I started using powertop and added the auto tune to my go file however all of my percent on the left of the idle stats page are 0.0%. The tweaks page shows everything as good.

 

I have an ASUS PRIME Z-370a motherboard with a 9900K CPU, 8 spinning disks on a SAS to SATA controller card, two NVME for cache and one standalone SATA SSD for passthrough VM. I also have an nvidia 1080 Ti for passthrough to VM.

Turned on all the ASPM options in motherboard BIOS and I don't usually run the VM unless I need to. GPU, a USB controller, and one extra NIC is marked as passed through to VM in Unraid.

 

How can I get my idle stats above 0%?

[mgutt]

4 hours ago, nickp85 said:

How can I get my idle stats above 0%?

Hard task with GPU and SAS card. Read the first post.

[Stubbs]

Does running powertop autotune interrupt with Wake-on-LAN?

 

I've enabled WOL + S3 in my BIOS, have the Unraid S3 Sleep Plugin, and wol is set to g on my eth0's interface(which is my server's network card). Even with all that, I still can't wake it up with a magic packet. 

[crushjz]

I'm new to Unraid but I have quite a bit of experience with Linux in general and like most of you, I'm trying to build a NAS/Homelab that has to be as power efficient as possible 🔋. 

I have the following components:
- Gigabyte B760M DS3H AX DDR4
- Intel i5-12400
- 16GB RAM
- Corsair CX550

With the above configuration, using a cheap Kingston SSD, Ubuntu Server 24.04 with the amazing `powertop`, I'm able to reach Package C10 and a power draw at the wall of just 8-10w. I followed most of the advices in this blog post, specifically for the internal Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller which requires a different driver than the one shipped with Ubuntu.

Using Unraid tho, the power draw jumps to 15/16w after  `powertop --auto-tune` and the Package can only reach C3. From an initial investigation looks like that the "xHCI Host Controller" (The USB controller) is responsible for that and the Unraid USB Flash Drive  (usb-device-058f-6387 in the screenshot below, which is the one where the Unraid OS is) prevents the controller to be suspended:

As you can see it's the only difference from the Ubuntu Server setup:

Does someone have an advice on how can I force the USB to go to sleep? 🙏

Edited Sunday at 09:30 AM by crushjz