4P ge4 opteron seemingly high base power consumption

[pillagenburn]

So I hooked up a kill a watt to my 4p Opteron server and it seems like the base power usage is really high? Were talking like 500 watts or more with just a SSD in it. Is this normal or is there something I should look for? Quad opteron 6172, 80GB ddr3, quad port NIC, HP P810 and u.s. 3.0 card installed.

The really odd thing is that when I peg the processors power usage only goes up maybe 50w? This seems odd to me..

 

[rvborgh]

something is definitely not right...

What OS are you using? Windows Server 2008R2?

i use some Magny Cours ES chips with a stock 2.1 GHz speed on my quad system - just idling they run around 375 or so watts.

i normally don't run at 2.1 GHz... though... i up the clocks to 3 Ghz... and set windows Performance Mode (all cores running at constant 3 Ghz). Consumption is still below 500 watts just idling even in that state. At 3 GHz the processors require 1.175v, and quite a bit less at 2.1 GHz.

if i run something that utilizes all the cores... say Cinebench... consumption jumps to 880-920 or so watts. Intel Burn Test is slightly higher even.

i'll get the exact readouts from the kill-a-watt later on tonight.

edit: 351w in "power saving", and 390 in "performance mode" at 2.1 GHz, and 448w in "performance mode" at 3 Ghz... PowerNow disabled... at idle.

one thing to note... i updated the dual 1000w power supplies in my SC748 case to 90+% 1400w units... this saved about 30-40w if i remember correctly.

 

[pillagenburn]

I'm running ESXi 6.0 right now; I've got a windows 8.1 vm acting as my emby server also MCE Buddy etc.

With everything plugged in: Server, SE3016 16-bay storage expander (with Intel expander card), 24-port Dell switch, cable modem, HDHR Prime etc etc

At bootup, idle, I consume 650-700w at the wall plug for all that stuff.

Could the storage expander, when placed under load, pull a lot of power?

 

[jimh425]

I think mine are less than that at idle but it's been a while since I checked. I have to assume the CPUs aren't going idle. Check the BIOS settings that relate to power usage.