Hardware event construction

[Hanqing_H_]

Sorry to ask a stupid question. We have a 4P Intel Xeon E5-4620 CPU (Sandy Bridge), and we want to use vtune to moniter some hardware events in the packege.  Our motherboard is Dell R820. So, where can we get the events that can be sampled with vtune? I have seen a list in the last section of http://software.intel.com/sites/products/documentation/doclib/stdxe/2013/amplifierxe/lin/ug_docs/index.htm

But a lot of events that claimed to be supported in Xeon processors cannot be sampled. For example, when run

amplxe-cl -collect-with runsa -knob event-config="SNOOP_RESPONSE.HIT" ls -alrt

I get

amplxe: Error: Invalid Event SNOOP_RESPONSE.HIT discarded.

However, I succeeded once with "OFFCORE_RESPONSE.PF_L2_DATA_RD.LLC_MISS.ANY_RESPONSE_0" event. But I have tried several others and get the same "invaild event" response, like OFFCORE_RESPONSE_0.DATA_IFETCH.LLC_MISS_LOCAL_DRAM, MEM_LOAD_UOPS_MISC_RETIRED.LLC_MISS  etc.

The purpose of my test is to using "OFFCORE_RESPONSE_0" with snoop filter to moniter the snoop traffic between CPUs. The method to sample OFFCORE_RESPONSE_0 event is as section 18.8.5 in http://download.intel.com/products/processor/manual/325462.pdf

But what is way to utilize this method in vtune?

I also made sure that there was only one instance of vtune running in the system. So where can we get the valid event list or how can we construct the righ event for moniter?

Thanks a lot!

[Bernard]

>>>However, I succeeded once with "OFFCORE_RESPONSE.PF_L2_DATA_RD.LLC_MISS.ANY_RESPONSE_0" event. But I have tried several others and get the same "invaild event" response, like OFFCORE_RESPONSE_0.DATA_IFETCH.LLC_MISS_LOCAL_DRAM, MEM_LOAD_UOPS_MISC_RETIRED.LLC_MISS  etc>>>

I do not know how it will be relevant to your case, but some of the MSR registers are only writable/readable from SMM mode and mostly by BIOS.In such a vcase you will get for example from debugger message like this "there is no such a msr".

[SergeyKostrov]

>>...But what is way to utilize this method in vtune? Please take into account that some CPUs or CPU features are not always supported in Intel VTune Amplifier XE by the time a CPU is released by Intel. For example, only in Update 4 of Intel VTune Amplifier XE 2013 Ivy Bridge CPUs are officially supported and there was a delay for about one year after Ivy Bridge CPUs were released. It is possible that your case is similar to what I just described. Please try to install Update 5 Intel VTune Amplifier XE 2013 .

[Hanqing_H_]

Thanks very much for your reply.

The version of vtune I have installed is "vtune_amplifier_xe_2013_update5", which supposed to be the most updated one.

[Bernard]

Hanqing H. wrote:

Thanks very much for your reply.

The version of vtune I have installed is "vtune_amplifier_xe_2013_update5", which supposed to be the most updated one.

Try to post your question on VTune forum there are very knowledgeable people like Peter Wang.I suppose that you could get an comprehensive answer.

[Hanqing_H_]

oh, thanks a lot for your reminding. I just noticed that there is a dedicate vtune forum. I have reposted my question there. 

Thanks again for all of your help

iliyapolak wrote:

Quote:

Hanqing H.wrote:

Thanks very much for your reply.

The version of vtune I have installed is "vtune_amplifier_xe_2013_update5", which supposed to be the most updated one.

Try to post your question on VTune forum there are very knowledgeable people like Peter Wang.I suppose that you could get an comprehensive answer.

[Bernard]

>>>Thanks again for all of your help>>>

You are welcome:)