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    Use of PowerD

    General pfSense Questions
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    • J
      jeff3820
      last edited by

      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?

      provelsP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • provelsP
        provels @jeff3820
        last edited by

        @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...

        Peder

        MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
        BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by 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

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          • A
            akuma1x
            last edited by

            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

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

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

              Steve

              NollipfSenseN A S 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • NollipfSenseN
                NollipfSense @stephenw10
                last edited by

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

                pfSense+ 23.09 Lenovo Thinkcentre M93P SFF Quadcore i7 dual Raid-ZFS 128GB-SSD 32GB-RAM PCI-Intel i350-t4 NIC, -Intel QAT 8950.
                pfSense+ 23.09 VM-Proxmox, Dell Precision Xeon-W2155 Nvme 500GB-ZFS 128GB-RAM PCIe-Intel i350-t4, Intel QAT-8950, P-cloud.

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                • J
                  jeff3820
                  last edited by 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.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by 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

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                    • A
                      akuma1x @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @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

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • S
                        SteveITS Galactic Empire @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @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?

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

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

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                          • B
                            bcruze
                            last edited by 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'

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              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

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