i7-1165G7 C-States support

mrsunfire

Am running a Intel i7-1165G7 CPU with pfSense 2.6. After enableing C-States via system tunables I get this:

dev.cpu.3.cx_method: C1/mwait/hwc C2/mwait/hwc C3/mwait/hwc
dev.cpu.3.cx_usage_counters: 2841497 156722 41884
dev.cpu.3.cx_usage: 93.46% 5.15% 1.37% last 896us
dev.cpu.3.cx_lowest: C8
dev.cpu.3.cx_supported: C1/1/1 C2/2/253 C3/3/1048
dev.cpu.2.cx_method: C1/mwait/hwc C2/mwait/hwc C3/mwait/hwc
dev.cpu.2.cx_usage_counters: 2666707 95916 38088
dev.cpu.2.cx_usage: 95.21% 3.42% 1.35% last 270us
dev.cpu.2.cx_lowest: C8
dev.cpu.2.cx_supported: C1/1/1 C2/2/253 C3/3/1048
dev.cpu.1.cx_method: C1/mwait/hwc C2/mwait/hwc C3/mwait/hwc
dev.cpu.1.cx_usage_counters: 2726804 138478 39472
dev.cpu.1.cx_usage: 93.87% 4.76% 1.35% last 92us
dev.cpu.1.cx_lowest: C8
dev.cpu.1.cx_supported: C1/1/1 C2/2/253 C3/3/1048
dev.cpu.0.cx_method: C1/mwait/hwc C2/mwait/hwc C3/mwait/hwc
dev.cpu.0.cx_usage_counters: 2816426 265662 34656
dev.cpu.0.cx_usage: 90.36% 8.52% 1.11% last 123us
dev.cpu.0.cx_lowest: C8
dev.cpu.0.cx_supported: C1/1/1 C2/2/253 C3/3/1048

CPU is running in C1 state 90% of time. This is most likely the reason because I'm using suricata. Even though CPU usage is very low. Is there a way to change the value on what CPU usage the CPU is awaken from C3 state?

stephenw10

I'm not aware of any way to do that. But that looks like normal usage if the CPU is doing anything at all. Which it pretty much always is.
What are you trying to achieve?

Steve

mrsunfire

@stephenw10 Understanding :). And of course trying to get the lowest temperatures for "idle".

stephenw10

That CPU have a built in GPU? We have seen other users get significantly lower power usage by enabling the driver so that is put in an idle state. There's nothing in pfSense to do that though, it's all command line stuff.

Steve

mrsunfire

@stephenw10 Yes it has an iGPU. What are those commands you spoke about?

stephenw10

See: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/175364/improving-power-consumption-on-nuc-11-pro

fireodo

@mrsunfire said in i7-1165G7 C-States support:

Yes it has an iGPU. What are those commands you spoke about?

Stimulated by your discussion I made a little Test here and my system (i5-4300Y with iGPU) is going 1~2 W lower only by loading i915kms.ko
(I didnt touch the C-States because this machine is quite busy and the CPU will not go to max State C3 in my case)

kldload /boot/kernel/i915kms.ko

Its not very much but for a 24/7 machine it makes sense!

Regards,
fireodo

mrsunfire

@fireodo Am I right that the driver is getting loaded if I have plug in a display via HDMI?

fireodo

@mrsunfire said in i7-1165G7 C-States support:

Am I right that the driver is getting loaded if I have plug in a display via HDMI?

That I have not verified - my system is headless.

stephenw10

Connecting a display does not trigger the driver to load.

mrsunfire

@stephenw10 Thank's for clearing up. I did enter kldload /boot/kernel/i915kms.ko into command line via GUI. Was that correct? Or am I wrong?

fireodo

@mrsunfire said in i7-1165G7 C-States support:

Was that correct?

Yes that is correct.

stephenw10

Yes, you can do that to test it at run time. If it does anything useful you can add it as a loader variable so it loads at boot.

Steve