PSA How to configure Proxmox for lower power usage

my i5-9500 also scales when needed.

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Hey, I’m quite new to Proxmox and just wanted to ask if someone can give me a more detailed guide on how to do this. I don’t know what a node nor I know what a shell is. Hope someone can help me, thanks

Click on the Node which is your server hosting the virtual machines and then click on Shell to open up a command shell where you can type in the commands to change to the powersave governor.

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This video may help you Proxmox VE Full Course: Class 12 - The Command-Line Interface - YouTube

This is high. Maybe check in BIOS of C-states are enabed?

I have two of these, and it can idle at 10 W. Personally, I’ve went from 36 W average to 19 W average after switching to powersave.

Optiplex 3050
i5-6500
1x M2 SSD
2x RAM stick
1x enterprise Toshiba HDD
2x USB adapters
~3-4 VMs running

Thanks for posting this. I was able to cut ~10-12 w by simply switching to ondemand. Granted my system is above a lot of what is posted but the Proxmox server (14 core w/ 128 GB of RAM) is running my firewall (with 2 - 10Gbps interfaces), a TrueNAS server with 16 TB of storage, frigate for 3 HD cameras, etc. Idle load is about 50w. Operational used to be slightly over 100w and now it is sitting at 90w. I’ll take a 10% improvement for flipping a few settings. Thanks!!!

The config change was a bit after noon on 15 Nov. Initially I did powersave but the average from ondemand is nearly the same so seems like the better choice for my system.

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Golden tip! Thanks!

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How are monitor the power consumption using HA? Proxmox integration?

I am using an external power meter like https://a.co/d/eBqGuxJ

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I`m running Z4G4 HP Workstation with W-2145

The difference between performance and power safe is 20W

echo “powersave” | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

echo “performance” | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

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