Brad Rutkowski's Blog : CPU

win32_processor and cim_processor CurrentClockSpeed shows lower value than actual processor speed

Brad Rutkowski — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:50:05 GMT

Was looking at an issue today where a whole bunch of our servers were showing clock speeds that didn’t match the max clock speed. These servers were showing up on our exBPA reports and thus landed in my lap to investigate. At first I assumed that something most be wrong with the report and so I logged onto a couple and sure enough they didn’t match the max speed:

PS C:\> get-wmiobject win32_processor | select=object currentclock*,max* | format-table -automatic

CurrentClockSpeed MaxClockSpeed
----------------- -------------
1999 2332
1999 2332

So with a bit of digging on the internet I found a page referencing the Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology:

SpeedStep is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies (including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software. This allows the processor to meet the instantaneous performance needs of the operation being performed, while minimizing power draw and heat dissipation.

Well that seemed promising, so I found out that you can turn this off in power options in the control panel, setting the minimum processor state to 100%:

PS C:\> gwmi win32_processor | select-object currentclock*,max* | ft -au

CurrentClockSpeed MaxClockSpeed
----------------- -------------
2332 2332
2332 2332

In the end I just turned it back on as this does save power and will dynamically increase to full usage when needed. Another mystery solved…

Technorati Tags: Windows 2008

Hey Admins! Taking some of the pain out of analyzing perfmon captures.

Brad Rutkowski — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:03:20 GMT

Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool

Project Description:

Ever have a performance problem, but don't know what performance counters to collect or how to analyze them? The PAL (Performance Analysis of Logs) tool is a new and powerful tool that reads in a performance monitor counter log (any known format) and analyzes it using complex, but known thresholds (provided). The tool generates an HTML based report which graphically charts important performance counters and throws alerts when thresholds are exceeded. The thresholds are originally based on thresholds defined by the Microsoft product teams and members of Microsoft support, but continue to be expanded by this ongoing project. This tool is not a replacement of traditional performance analysis, but it automates the analysis of performance counter logs enough to save you time. This is a VBScript and requires Microsoft LogParser (free download).

My take on the tool:

For those of us out there that don't have to deal with performance data on a daily basis I see a few options to help troubleshoot performance issues on your servers. 1) If your using 2k3 use SPA. 2) If you're running 2k8/Vista use data collection sets. 3) Collect analyze your own perfmon captures.

Now you might want to look into this tool. I found the tool simple to use and it's really a four step process. The web page created for the analysis has a plethora of info and links to the codeplex site for more info. Sweet.

Really in the end it's just a time saver. After collecting performance data on a server you need to analyze that data. This entails opening the log file, adding the counters that you've collected and finding out if any of the counters are above any thresholds (deemed by you). This tool does that analysis for you. It comes out-of-the-box with some predefined thresholds defined as high according to the MSFT consulting/development but those can be adjusted to whatever suits your fancy.

Once you get everything installed its time to do some analysis. It comes with some threshold templates for AD, System Overview, IIS, SQL, Exchange, etc (see pic) You point the app at the performance log you've captured during your perf issue, choose a threshold template to your liking, answer some basic questions, add the form and execute:

Once it completes it generates a webpage with the analysis information you desire. The webpage shows you alerts for activity that it finds suspect and graphs for the different areas of interest. I can't paste all the pics/info in here as it is quite lengthy depending on the interval you provide. But this definitely seems like a tool that could be handy down the road. Looking at the web page it looks really similar to SPA, but with graphs provided via the Office Web Components add-in. For example here is how I could find out LDP was using too much CPU:

First I found the alert which said that something was being excessive and I clicked on the link (sorry for the blurriness):

Then I found LDP consuming the CPU:

Add it to your bag of tricks, hope it helps.

Technorati Tags: Windows 2003,Windows 2008,Perfmon,Performance

Some docs to help get you ready for Windows 2008.

Brad Rutkowski — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:23:40 GMT

Yes you are going to want Windows 2008 in your shop. We've been running 2k8 for over two year sin production and I'm very proud of the product we're shipping shortly. Some of you will want to start thinking about what's new in the OS, what has changed, performance, and deployment. Here are some docs/links that will help get you started.

Changes in Functionality from Windows Server 2003 with SP1 to Windows Server 2008

This document describes new features and technologies, which were not available in Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), that will help to increase the security of computers running Windows Server 2008, increase productivity, and reduce administrative overhead.
These topics apply to the next release of Windows Server 2008, based on the functionality expected to be included in the Beta releases in 2007. They do not describe all of the changes that are included in Windows Server 2008. Instead, they highlight changes that will potentially have the greatest impact on your use of Windows Server 2008 and provide references to additional information.

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008

•Performance Tuning for Server Hardware

•Performance Tuning for Networking Subsystem

•Performance Tuning for Storage Subsystem

•Performance Tuning for Web Servers

•Performance Tuning for File Servers

•Performance Tuning for Active Directory Servers

•Performance Tuning for Terminal Server

•Performance Tuning for Terminal Server Gateway

•Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (NetBench)

•Performance Tuning for Network Workload (NTttcp)

•Performance Tuning for Terminal Server Knowledge Worker Workload

•Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload

Windows Server 2008 Step-by-Step Guides (updated 02/08/2008)

All other inquiries head to the Technical Library for 2k8.

BTW when you install 2k8 and notice that in WinVER or System Properties it shows SP1, don't be alarmed this is by design. Vista SP1 and Win2k8 were developed in parallel, so fixes in the code were included in both versions. This isn't the first time, when we rolled Windows 2003 x64 edition out the door it went as SP1 too...

Technorati Tags: windows 2008

Does my CPU support hardware virtualization (Hyper-V)

Brad Rutkowski — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:37:00 GMT

As the talk about hardware virtualization heats up from Microsoft and others you might find yourself wondering if the current hardware you're running supports it. My HP xw9300 workstation doesn't (older AMD Opterons), but it looks like my xw8400 does (Intel Xeon 5150s).

More info on programs you can use (including the one above) found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/volkerw/archive/2007/05/21/hardware-virtualization-check-utility.aspx

Determine Virtualization Readiness in 3 Seconds

Some other tidbits of info:

Hyper-V requires to be running on a 64bit OS, so do'nt install the x86 version of Wink28 if you want to use it.
Hyper-V (Virtual Server) is a server role in Win2k8, you just add it in server manager

Buy the addition with Hyper-V if you want to use it

You can have 64bit VMs, I threw on Win2k3 x64 and Win2k8 x64 on my box.
Your VMs can see more than one logical proc.

At the time of this post the VM had to be Win2k8 as well, downlevel can only see one proc. My x64 Win2k8 VM can see four procs now!

Have to enable Hardware virtualization in the BIOS as well as DEP, the role will still install but when you try to start the VM you'll hit a problem.
To install the additions the VM has to be running WIn2k3 SP2, if not you might find yourself without a NIC until you get the additions installed. You can add a legacy NIC if you find yourself in this situation.
If you just import an old VM VHD from one of your other servers, make sure its an ACPI-compatible one.
If you are looking to install hyper-v on a server running active directory, stop. You won't be able to boot your DC anymore (see below)

If you install the Active Directory Domain Services role and use the Active Directory Domain Services Installation Wizard (dcpromo.exe) to configure that role on the same physical computer on which the Hyper-V role is installed, you will receive a STOP error message 7B on the physical computer when you try to start a virtual machine.

To avoid this issue, do not install Active Directory Domain Services and Hyper-V on the same physical computer.

Microsoft Hyper-V site to find out more info if you like.

Update: Looks like AMD has released a tool help out here: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/03/31/amd-releases-hyper-v-check-tool.aspx

Technorati Tags: Hyper-V,Windows 2008,Virtualization