topic Hi Jee C., in Software Tuning, Performance Optimization & Platform Monitoring

Intel PCM: QPI counters not working

David_Cherkus — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:54:23 GMT

Hi,

I've built pcm for linux and get the following output:

# ./pcm.x 1

Intel Performance Counter Monitor V2.0 (2012-03-23 21:59:11 +0100 ID=e5148f9)

Copyright (c) 2009-2012 Intel Corporation

Num (logical) cores: 32
Num sockets: 2
Threads per core: 2
Core PMU (perfmon) version: 3
Number of core PMU generic (programmable) counters: 4
Width of generic (programmable) counters: 48 bits
Number of core PMU fixed counters: 3
Width of fixed counters: 48 bits
Nominal core frequency: 2000000000 Hz
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P0_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P1_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P0_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P1_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.

Detected processor(s) with Intel microarchitecture codename Sandy Bridge-EP/Jaketown
[snip]

The rest of the output looks nominal.

I can't find any such settings on my BIOS.

Here is some info from the main BIOS info screen:

American Megatrends core version 4.6.3.2 project version RMLCRB.86J.00.45.D018
Build date: 11/14/2011 14:54:13
Board ID: Rose City 2DPC, fab ID: 1
Processor name: Jaketown, CPUID: 206d2, Stepping B0 Packages 2

Can someone please give me more info on exactly what BIOS option to look for, and hopefully some details on where to find it in the AMI BIOS screens?

As per http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/showthread.php?t=104759 the qpi counters are pretty interesting to me so I really want to get this to work.

Thanks,
Dave

Intel PCM: QPI counters not working

Thomas_W_Intel — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:54:42 GMT

Dave,

I'mvery sorry butthis BIOS does not support access to the required counters. We are trying to get this changed but it might help if you request the same from your side.

Kind regards
Thomas

Intel PCM: QPI counters not working

David_Cherkus — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:13:49 GMT

I do not think I can be of much if any help in getting anyone to change this, especially not on the Intel server motherboard.

I am glad I have Performance Counter Monitor working, but due to the issue reported above, the Sandy Bridge system seems to report bad info not only for the new Sandy Bridge information, but also for the QPI information that is working on Nehalem and Westmere based systems.

Can anyone provide info on Sandy Bridge motherboards/BIOSes that are known to provide the required access to the necessary counters?

Thanks,
Dave

I'm also getting this.

Data_Herder — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:08:39 GMT

I'm also getting this. Linux 2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.x86_64 x86_64 SM X9DRG-QF motherboard, with the 1.0c (A18) Bios revision. Does SM in general not support QPI counters? ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P0_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices. Assuming that the problem is in the hands of SM, are you saying you want people to bug SM until they code for this feature?

Is there a list of

Jee_C_ — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 17:50:43 GMT

Is there a list of motherboard/BIOS that supports these counters? I'm also interested in getting DRAM energy information from PCM. Thank you.

Hi Jee C.,

Roman_D_Intel — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:28:59 GMT

Hi Jee C., I am not aware of such list. There is another thread on how to enable DRAM energy counters (read by PCM) on an Intel board here. Roman

>>>The rest of the output

Bernard — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 06:27:13 GMT

>>>The rest of the output looks nominal.

I can't find any such settings on my BIOS.>>>

BIOS is not needed to access Uncore control monitor registers.Every access is done by the kernel mode driver(Windows platform).

Hi,

Rakhi_H_ — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:03:47 GMT

Hi,

I am getting simillar problem. The system reports

./pcm.x 1

Intel(r) Performance Counter Monitor V2.35 (2013-01-23 13:28:21 +0100 ID=75f74dd)

Num (logical) cores: 24
Num sockets: 2
Threads per core: 2
Core PMU (perfmon) version: 3
Number of core PMU generic (programmable) counters: 4
Width of generic (programmable) counters: 48 bits
Number of core PMU fixed counters: 3
Width of fixed counters: 48 bits
Nominal core frequency: 2500000000 Hz
Package thermal spec power: 95 Watt; Package minimum power: 46 Watt; Package maximum power: 150 Watt;
Using PCM on your system might have a performance impact as per http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/performance-impact-when-sampling-certain-llc-events-on-snb-ep-with-vtune
You can avoid the performance impact by using the option --noJKTWA, however the cache metrics might be wrong then.
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P0_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices (devices 8 and 9: function 2).
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P1_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices (devices 8 and 9: function 2).
ERROR: IMC counter programming seems not to work. MC_CH0_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: IMC counter programming seems not to work. MC_CH1_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: IMC counter programming seems not to work. MC_CH2_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: IMC counter programming seems not to work. MC_CH3_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices.
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P0_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices (devices 8 and 9: function 2).
ERROR: QPI LL counter programming seems not to work. Q_P1_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff
Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices (devices 8 and 9: function 2).
Max QPI link speed: 14.4 GBytes/second (7.2 GT/second)

Detected Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 0 @ 2.50GHz "Intel(r) microarchitecture codename Sandy Bridge-EP/Jaketown"

Any idea on How I can resolve this?

BIOS details are as follows

Vendor: Dell Inc.
Version: 1.5.0

Thanks

Rakhi

>>>ERROR: IMC counter

Bernard — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 05:14:49 GMT

>>>ERROR: IMC counter programming seems not to work. MC_CH2_PCI_PMON_BOX_CTL=0xffffffff Please see BIOS options to enable the export of performance monitoring devices>>>

IIRC those registers are eccessesd from PCI address space and it is quite possible that somehow BIOS is invovlved in it.

It there any update towards

Hanqing_H_ — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:56:06 GMT

It there any update towards this problem? I think plenty of users are concerning this now. Thanks.

I think that BIOS code did

Bernard — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:37:13 GMT

I think that BIOS code did not enable exporting QPI Port0 and Port1 PMON counters.There is no bus number to access Port0 and Port1 registers in official Intel documentation.One of the option is to access pci config space and try to enable export of performance monitoring devices, but as I said earlier there is no bus number so how the proper address can be composed?More advanced option will be use windbg in kernel mode and dump pci address space with !pci command.

In this case a BIOS upgrade

McCalpinJohn — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:13:22 GMT

In this case a BIOS upgrade is required. Once the BIOS locks the corresponding memory-mapped IO regions they cannot be accessed by the kernel and the lock on those addresses can only be modified in SMM (BIOS) code.

Quote:jdmccalpin wrote:

Bernard — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:53:00 GMT

John D. McCalpin wrote:

In this case a BIOS upgrade is required. Once the BIOS locks the corresponding memory-mapped IO regions they cannot be accessed by the kernel and the lock on those addresses can only be modified in SMM (BIOS) code.

I thought that somehow SMM is involved in configuration of some part of I/O addressing space.There is possibility to write its own handler , but it must be executed before OS bootup from within BIOS code.