Use of PowerD

jeff3820

There is an option on Pfsense 2.4.5 under system, advanced, misc called PowerD and looks to enable a power saving mode built into freeBSD. Does anyone use this feature? Effect on reliability with Pfsense? Effective power saving? Heat reduction? Comments?

provels

@jeff3820 I used it on my old hardware. It reduced CPU speed, but the appliance it was on used a wall wart that pulled 15W regardless, so just relieved a little strain on the motherboard. I found Adaptive to be the best setting. It would scale up quickly and then taper back more slowly. Maximum just locked it on high and Minimum locked it on low. You can test by enabling it and then SSH to the box and run " powerd -v ". I use it on my XigmaNAS box (also FreeBSD) where I have a space-heater p4 3.6 GHz that pulls 100W at idle. When idling under powerd, it runs 487 Mhz...

stephenw10

Yup it can save you some Watts / heat on hardware that supports a cpufreq driver such as EIST (speedstep).

[2.4.5-RELEASE][admin@8860.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq_levels
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2400/8 2200/0 2000/0 1800/0 1600/0 1400/0 1200/0
[2.4.5-RELEASE][admin@8860.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl dev.cpu.0.freq
dev.cpu.0.freq: 1200
[2.4.5-RELEASE][admin@8860.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl dev.est
dev.est.3.freq_settings: 2400/8 2200/0 2000/0 1800/0 1600/0 1400/0 1200/0
dev.est.3.%parent: cpu3
dev.est.3.%pnpinfo: 
dev.est.3.%location: 
dev.est.3.%driver: est
dev.est.3.%desc: Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control
dev.est.2.freq_settings: 2400/8 2200/0 2000/0 1800/0 1600/0 1400/0 1200/0
dev.est.2.%parent: cpu2
dev.est.2.%pnpinfo: 
dev.est.2.%location: 
dev.est.2.%driver: est
dev.est.2.%desc: Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control
dev.est.1.freq_settings: 2400/8 2200/0 2000/0 1800/0 1600/0 1400/0 1200/0
dev.est.1.%parent: cpu1
dev.est.1.%pnpinfo: 
dev.est.1.%location: 
dev.est.1.%driver: est
dev.est.1.%desc: Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control
dev.est.0.freq_settings: 2400/8 2200/0 2000/0 1800/0 1600/0 1400/0 1200/0
dev.est.0.%parent: cpu0
dev.est.0.%pnpinfo: 
dev.est.0.%location: 
dev.est.0.%driver: est
dev.est.0.%desc: Enhanced SpeedStep Frequency Control
dev.est.%parent:

There are some systems that require it to reach all their available speeds. Such as that SG box which otherwise defaults to 1200MHz and some that will not use 'Turbo' without powerd.

It's less of an issue on newer hardware where C states largely overwhelm the savings P states offer.

Steve

akuma1x

So, what settings would be recommended for an SG-8860 and SG-4860 box?

8860 all 3 (AC, battery, unknown) are set at Hiadaptive right now. Don't know about 4860, not powered up right now.

Jeff

stephenw10

Powerd enabled and all on HiAdaptive is the default on the SG series and works best.

Steve

NollipfSense

@stephenw10 Interesting ... just enabled powerd on mine with the default hiadaptive, thanks for sharing.

jeff3820

I have Powerd enabled for the bulk of today and all runs fine...I see no difference in performance at all so if this save a few watts I'm pleased.

I have noticed under System Information, CPU Type that the Current: CPU frequency is visible about 75% of the time. Sometimes the Current: CPU frequency line disappears but it seems to return in a few seconds. Does anyone else observe the same thing? Not a big deal...just curious.

stephenw10

That's the expected behaviour. It only shows that line when the CPU is running at less than maximum speed.
So either:

Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2558 @ 2.40GHz
4 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 4 core(s)
AES-NI CPU Crypto: Yes (inactive)

or

Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2558 @ 2.40GHz
Current: 2200 MHz, Max: 2400 MHz
4 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 4 core(s)
AES-NI CPU Crypto: Yes (inactive)

Steve

akuma1x

@stephenw10 said in Use of PowerD:

Powerd enabled and all on HiAdaptive is the default on the SG series and works best.

Steve

OK, thanks for the info!

Jeff

SteveITS

@stephenw10 said in Use of PowerD:

Powerd enabled and all on HiAdaptive is the default on the SG series

Some SGs? https://forum.netgate.com/topic/143189/powerd-on-sg-3100 ("PowerD is not used on our ARM devices") or did that change at some point?

stephenw10

Sorry, indeed. It's default on the SG-2220/2440/4860/8860.

bcruze

i just noticed this on my sg3100 after the update. maybe it was there before: i did have power D enabled. i've turned it off now

Jun 9 14:21:27 php-cgi rc.bootup: The command '/usr/sbin/powerd -b 'hadp' -a 'hadp' -n 'hadp'' returned exit code '69', the output was 'powerd: no cpufreq(4) support -- aborting: No such file or directory'

stephenw10

Yes it should not be enabled on the SG-3100 because, as it says, there is no driver cpufreq can use for the ARM processor there. It does not hurt trying to start it though beyond that error message.

Steve