I really enjoy this forum and topic. It convinced me to get a lower power system and move away from my 3700x that consumes 80w at idle with just 3 HDD, 1 NVME, and a GPU. 

 

The one thing that I have noticed is that there seems to be a lot of difficulty in getting some motherboards to play nice with C-states and powertop.  I just purchased an i5-13500 and have been looking at ATX motherboards with 6 sata connections. I am confused and concerned about finding one that plays nice with powertop.  Would be great to get some suggestions.

 

Thank you in advance. Sorry if this isn't the ideal forum but seemed best based on the topic to me.

On 2/1/2025 at 1:12 PM, GaSo said:

Hello, I'm building my first Unraid server. I installed powertop and this is the result

 

Can anyone help me fix this? I know I shouldn't use the auto tune command, I'm using a SATA JMB 585 controller. But I don't know what I should use. Sorry, I'm new to this.

I am preparing to build something very similar to what you have. I've read in a few places that the JMB585 controller does not support higher C-states, so what I'm planning to use is the ASM1064 (same idea as ASM1166 but 4 ports instead of 6), and flashing it with updated firmware if necessary -- I've read that powertop auto tune will cause it to malfunction when it has older firmware.

12 hours ago, microbrews said:

I'm planning to use is the ASM1064 (same idea as ASM1166 but 4 ports instead of 6

The older ASM controllers have the same problem as JMB controllers as far as I know. And if you want to use only 4 ports, the ASM1166 gives you better performance. So I would go with the ASM1166.

Dropped idle power consumption from 25W to 15W just with running powertop autotune at boot. Saves me about £30 a year if I run the server 24/7. It all adds up. I might make a few more tweaks once I finish reading this topic.

 

Thanks.

Hi folks,

 

i need some assistance. I got myself an ODROID H4 Ultra (Intel N-305) and started tuning for power consumption.

 

powertop auto tune makes unraid fail to respond after a couple off second.

 

I could dial it down to:

# Runtime PM for PCI devices

echo auto | tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/????:??:??.?/power/control

 

Most off the other settings seem to work fine (didn't try the EEE settings yet because H4 runs the Intel I226-V). So if i switch on most other settings there are about 10-15 settings left on "Bad" state i can switch on manually to dial it down even more.

 

My question is now. What are the corresponding line i need to add to the /boot/config/go file when i found another setting work manually?

 

Not 100% sure if i set everything correctly in Bios either when it comes to the C-States and ASPM.

 

Thats my ASPM output:

 

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N PCI Express Root Port #3 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
                LnkCap: Port #3, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 54bb (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
                LnkCap: Port #4, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N PCI Express Root Port #7 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
                LnkCap: Port #7, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N PCI Express Root Port #9 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
                LnkCap: Port #9, Speed 8GT/s, Width x4, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <16us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V (rev 04)
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <4us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V (rev 04)
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L1, Exit Latency L1 <4us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
03:00.0 SATA controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1064 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <4us, L1 <64us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
04:00.0 SATA controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1166 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
                LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x2, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <4us, L1 <64us
                LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+

 

 

Maybe someone can shed some light. Thx in advance 🙂

Quote

04:00.0 SATA controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1166 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0]) LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x2, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <4us, L1 <64us LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+

 

Are you using an M2 ASM1166 Controller? Which brand/model? Is it stable in use? Also it could be the reason why autotune makes the system hangs I think...

8 hours ago, kinoapparatom said:

Are you using an M2 ASM1166 Controller? Which brand/model? Is it stable in use? Also it could be the reason why autotune makes the system hangs I think...

I do: Got this Bewinner from German Amazon.

But it guess its not the fault off the system hang up as all devices regarding the ASM1166 are already in good state.

 

For now i found a solution myself i guess. You can export a html report where you can see all devices in need of tuning an the corresponding command.

 

powertop --html

 

You need to run this bevor tuning to see the commands for the manual tuning, otherwise they are only listed as optimal tuned without the corresponding commands. Afterwards just copy the generated html file to a readable share and open it in a browser.

 

This is whats left to be set manually to dial down the device off error in my case running the H4:

 

VM writeback timeout 	echo '1500' > '/proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N PCH eSPI Controller 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:1f.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Platform Monitoring Technology 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:0a.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N PCH Shared SRAM 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:14.2/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Device 4617 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:00.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Device 54e8 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:15.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N PCH High Definition Audio Controller 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:1f.3/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N SPI (flash) Controller 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:1f.5/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Device 467e 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:08.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Device 54e9 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:15.1/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:02:00.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Alder Lake-N Serial IO UART Host Controller 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:1e.0/power/control'; 

 

I will report back as soon as i got it dialed down.

Update:

 

It's the somewhat broken Intel I226-V NIC which causes unraid to become not responding anymore aka the faulty device:

 

Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:02:00.0/power/control';

 

Pkg does go do C6 not higher. ASPM Settings in Bios all set manually to L1 oder L0&L1 Options. Not sure yet if auto does a better job.

My Setup:

2 x 16TB Toshiba MC Drives @ Addon m.2 -> 6x SATA Adapter ASM1166 Controller

2 x 1TB Crucial SATA SSDs @ Board ASM1064 Controller

With everything running i get around 18W in idle. On Drive SpinDown i hovers around 7-8 Watts.

 

I guess i can live with this, but i will see if there is anything left to get it lower. Will update if i find something.

The manual way off adding single devices to the /boot/config/go files i mentioned above should be mentioned in the startup Post by @mgutt

 

Would be cool if anybody has tipps share.

Edited February 23, 20251 yr by rorian

23 hours ago, rorian said:

Update:

 

It's the somewhat broken Intel I226-V NIC which causes unraid to become not responding anymore aka the faulty device:

 

Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/power/control';
Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-V 	echo 'auto' > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:02:00.0/power/control';

 

When I was experimenting with Minisforum MS-01 (it also has i226-V) running Ubuntu 24.04 (kernel v6.8) I also faced the same weird behavior: every time I did `powertop --auto-tune` a system hanged entirely. Initially, I blamed a Chinese hardware, but later I stumbled across a powertop's bug-tracker with a report on the i226-V bug, (also Odroid).

 

It seems it was fixed in later kernel versions as I didn't experience it on Fedora 41 (kernel 6.11) and Asus B760-I STRIX Gaming WiFi which also has i226-V. You should try some other system with a latest kernel.

Edited February 24, 20251 yr by white-orb

2 hours ago, white-orb said:

When I was experimenting with Minisforum MS-01 (it also has i226-V) running Ubuntu 24.04 (kernel v6.8) I also faced the same weird behavior: every time I did `powertop --auto-tune` a system hanged entirely. Initially, I blamed a Chinese hardware, but later I stumbled across a powertop's bug-tracker with a report on the i226-V bug, (also Odroid).

 

It seems it was fixed in later kernel versions as I didn't experience it on Fedora 41 (kernel 6.11) and Asus B760-I STRIX Gaming WiFi which also has i226-V. You should try some other system with a latest kernel.

I know this and already red into this. Another system won't help if i want to run Unraid thou...

Unraid just moved to Kernel 6.6.8 and i guess they won't move to the next LTS 6.12 bevor 2026.

As said i can live with with the current 8W in idle, the room for improvement isn't that big anyways.

Edited February 24, 20251 yr by rorian

On 2/23/2025 at 5:16 PM, rorian said:

The manual way off adding single devices to the /boot/config/go files

In the meantime I prefer as script, which gets execute by the users scripts plugin on array start. By that the server is not dead on every reboot if the go file contains a mistake (for example you can boot in safe mode without any plugins and it will start).

On 2/5/2025 at 3:00 PM, Lumpy_BD said:

Does anyone have any experience in tuning the Asus TUF Gaming B760M platform?

 

I have an i5-12500 running on the ASUS TUF Gaming B760M Plus WiFi II motherboard (latest bios, 1805), and I'm unable to reach any C state higher than C3. All of the APM and C-state settings in the bios are enabled. I've tried the following:

• Disconnected all peripherals, hard drives, SSDs etc so that nothing is plugging in to the motherboard except the CPU, memory and the Unraid USB stick
• Disabled all onboard peripherals like WiFi, sound, bluetooth etc
• I've tried disabling the onboard Realtek NIC and installing an Intel based PCIe NIC

I'm at a bit of a loss now - I've eliminated all peripherals as the cause, and I've systematically reset the bios and re-configured all power management settings I can find and its not making any difference. I've also gone through and enabled all the powertop and various other settings mentioned on the 1st page of this post.

I have not the exact board, but Mini-ITX version Asus B760-I STRIX Gaming WiFi with Intel 13900K and i226-V. I experience similar issues. I have the same BIOS version and I tried all things you did, including every BIOS option related to ASPM/C-states in all possible combinations as I learned from this forum. Also, I tried to tune hidden BIOS options related to PCIe power settings like ASPM, S0xi, and Multi-VC. No luck. Whenever I connect an Ethernet cable, a bare and headless system stuck at C3 and 12W (as per a power meter at the wall). Without an Ethernet cable, the system goes up to C10 and 5W. I've tried this both on Fedora Server 41 and Windows Server 2025, and both systems behave equally (same C-states and same power consumption). It's not about drivers or OS, it's about the board.

 

I can only assume that whenever Asus puts a 'gaming' label on a board, they also do some tweaking for gaming, incompatible with power efficiency. I have no proofs in my hands, only results of my (and yours) experiments, and I saw many posts on Reddit complaining how enabled ASPM/C-states are making games heavily lagging on different motherboards. I guess Asus doesn't want to be mentioned in these posts, so they tweak their gaming boards for smooth gaming.

 

Here on this forum I saw a couple of recommendations about Asus boards as power efficient (the reason I chose my one), but this seemingly doesn't apply to gaming ones.

Edited February 26, 20251 yr by white-orb

7 hours ago, mgutt said:

In the meantime I prefer as script, which gets execute by the users scripts plugin on array start. By that the server is not dead on every reboot if the go file contains a mistake (for example you can boot in safe mode without any plugins and it will start).

Sounds reasonable, it's your thread and post, so do so if you wish to.

I've runt Powertop --autoconfig (or the equiv. command) but am not seeing any reduction in power using C States. 

Is this likely due to me having 2 VM's running?

Have enabled the CStates settings in Bios to L0 and L1s as well. Taken them off auto.

PRO B660M-A WIFI DDR4 (MS-7D43) with a Intel i3 13100 CPU.

 

I have moved all of the tunable device stats from "Bad" to "Good." - Great.  I have updated the bios to enable all C-Stats and ASME.   I don't quite understand how to read the results of the "LSPCI" command.  Is the no such device error a problem? I suspect something might not be setup correctly but I am not sure. 

 

My motherboard has 2.5g Realtek controller. Not sure what to do about that.

 

I have tried to absorb all of the info in the threadbut perhaps missed something. Please let me know what I have missed if anything.

 

Z790 AORUS ELITE AX

Intel i5-13500

32GB RAM

3 - ST18000NM003D

1 - 1TB SAMSUNG MZVLB1T0HALR NVME

No VMs Running

I Realtek 2.5g ethernet. 

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 20251 yr by dubbly
Spelling and corrected image - updated to show that all tunables are good.

Asus PRIME Z890M-PLUS WIFI

245K

Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 V3

Ram @ 1.1v

8125D 2.5G attached and active  (6.13 kernel required)

L1 and L0sL1 fully supported and enabled.

Everything on PCH/chipset, not CPU.

 

19W idle

 

Powertop doesn't work because the inte_idle driver currently does not support arrow lake.  BIOS explicitly says C6, C8, and C10 are supported.  --auto-tune has zero affect.

 

 

 

Unknown why power consumption is so high.  Could it be the PSU?  That one is the 2nd highest rated PSU at 2% and 20W-80W by a lot.  May also be a BIOS bug.

 

 

Z760I AORUS Pro DDR4

Intel i5-14500

64GB RAM

M2 ASM1166

8 Data Drive

33w when drive spins down. 

onboard i225-V Intel network card 2.5Gb 

 

I'm running to an network issue after x amount of time has pass. The system still respond via the console in which where I have to reboot in order for me to connect to the Webui again. Can someone point me into the right direction to find what is causing the issue? 

 

I've tried it both ways (powertop --auto and script) still same issue. 

Hi All, Still trying to work through why I can't seems to get the package state below C3. I had powertop export the html and found a I2C device that indicates that its Untunable as shown below. Wonder if that could be the issue?  Any suggestions.  

 

On 3/1/2025 at 9:26 PM, snz said:

I've runt Powertop --autoconfig (or the equiv. command) but am not seeing any reduction in power using C States. 

Is this likely due to me having 2 VM's running?

Have enabled the CStates settings in Bios to L0 and L1s as well. Taken them off auto.

PRO B660M-A WIFI DDR4 (MS-7D43) with a Intel i3 13100 CPU.

 

On 1/7/2025 at 7:58 AM, mgutt said:

The Corsair RM750x (2024) consumes 1 watt more than the RM550x (2021) which is still good. And it has the nice feature to adjust a minimum fan speed (or semi passive as usual).

 

As of other users the Bequiet Pure Power 12M 550W consumes 1 watt more than the RM550x (2021), too.

 

Avoid the seasonic power supplies mentioned in this list as they have changed the electronics:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TnPx1h-nUKgq3MFzwl-OOIsuX_JSIurIq3JkFZVMUas/edit#gid=110239702

 

Maybe the listed Cooler Master MWE400 is an option?! 

 

Thoughts on Cooler Master Gold 850 v3? (MWE Gold 850 V3)

 

https://www.cybenetics.com/evaluations/psus/2478/

 

This is currently the #2 PSU besting all others at low idle.  I assume Cooler Master didn't game these results or do component swaps.  Is it worth buying RM750x 2024 to compare or just listen to cybernetics results?

 

 

can anyone advise how to install powertop on unraid 7? Now that nerdpack is no longer available  what's the preferred method?

2 hours ago, markiii said:

can anyone advise how to install powertop on unraid 7? Now that nerdpack is no longer available  what's the preferred method?

its the first part of the first post of the thead

On 3/3/2025 at 9:27 PM, dubbly said:

Hi All, Still trying to work through why I can't seems to get the package state below C3. I had powertop export the html and found a I2C device that indicates that its Untunable as shown below. Wonder if that could be the issue?  Any suggestions.  

 

Cool web interface, can you share how / where to get it?

 

----

Guys one of my old LGA1700 motherboard died and I need to replace it, could I get some suggestions on a board that can easily reach C10 with DDR5 + three M.2 nvme + x16 pcie slot (2 slots of this type is preferred, second can be x4).

Also just purchased a ConnectX-3 Pro 56gbps inifiniband, i think this card will kill C10 idle are there other cheap options for 40/56g cards? 

10 hours ago, ChatNoir said:

its the first part of the first post of the thread

thanks, don't know why I didn't start at page 1 🙂

 

Just to confirm before I start playing, anything achieved with autotune is lost after boot. To maintain anything we either need to run autotune every boot or add specific lines to teh boot file.

 

so if autotune borks anything a simple reboot should fix in the first instance?

 

On 1/23/2025 at 3:57 PM, mgutt said:

Not sure why it differs without powertop, but finally it seems to be something with your hardware. Did you try to remove all additional components, so you only test board+ram+cpu?

It seems that all my crashing issues were due to the XMP profile on the Corsair DDR5 6600MHz memory (I manually lowered it to 6000MHz and everything works fine).

Now I want to run Autotune, but I have some questions. Since I have an ASM1166 and a 2.5G network card, what would be the best option?