About CPU usage

[lloydopol]

i have a question on CPU usage... had configured my mini-ITX PC to be a FreeNAS box for fun and experiment... originally, this rig is my mobile desktop gaming rig... allow me to share the following...


Observation & Comment:
> The Pentium D 925 is much more active compared to the Pentium G840 even on idle mode hence, it is less efficient. The PD 925 consumes more electricity than the G840 as shown on the graph (CPU usage). Every spike will equate to a power draw.
> Even on single HDD configuration on the PD 925, its CPU usage was still exactly the same.
> The FreeNAS boxes were configured with ZFS file system... the PD 925 is on RAID1 configuration (2x2TB w/ a 4GB system ram) and the G840 is only on a single HDD configuratioin (1x40GB w/ a 8GB system ram).


Question:
> I would like to know if there are hidden activities of the FreeNAS OS when its idle... or this CPU usage was a result of the CPU behavior or efficiency due to their micro-achitecure technology.

I'm very eager to know the "possible" reasons... Thanks



Pentium D 925... on idle state. had just left the box running as is... spikes were observed... as can be seen on the graph, the spikes reached more than 100% CPU usage on a specified interval.

Pentium G840... on idle state... had just left the box running as is... the spikes were well controlled and were very low as well.

 

[cyberjock]

Question:
> I would like to know if there are hidden activities of the FreeNAS OS when its idle... or this CPU usage was a result of the CPU behavior or efficiency due to their micro-achitecure technology.

I'm sorry, but what? I have no clue what you are trying to say with "hidden activities".

The system doesn't try to hide anything from you, but it does have background activities that go on as a result of the services you use, and depending on your configuration and the number of machines on the network that can affect loading.

Honestly, I'm not really sure why you are trying to compare a CPU that came out Q2-2011(G-840) to a chip that came out Q3-2006(D-925). The comparison is so far from "fair" its not even funny.

 

[joeschmuck]

The little blips of CPU usage every 5 minutes seem to be normal (I have them too) and I would not worry about them. As for your comparison, you are not comparing alike systems with only the CPU being the difference. Two huge differences are the amount of RAM in each system and then the hard drives and their configuration. This doesn't even get into the MB/chipset isn't likely to be even close to the same, the RAM speed, hard drive speed, etc... The D924 is vastly different than the G840, one major thing is the G840 has direct RAM access at blazing speeds compared to the D924. You are tying to compare a sports car to a station wagon.

So to answer your question, you can select Display System Processes on the left part of the GUI and watch to see what pops up every 5 minutes on your D924 to identify the process but that will not be as descriptive as you looking at the crontab.

 

[lloydopol]

thanks to you guys... again, I just want to do experiments... its fun doing things on this passion of ours...

yeah, this is due to the technology being used by both sets of HW... during the test, only one PC was connected to both FreeNAS boxes. it's only my entertainment rig (SB Celeron G530) and I had only accessed both boxes from the browser. as of the moment, i'll continue to use both... but i plan to change the PD 925 to a SB Celeron G465... had the HW ready already, though, i might sell this CPU (Celeron G465) and buy the faster SB Pentium G870...

power consumption wise, it not a big deal for me in my current location...