ESXi Monitor CPU Temps

[brshoemak]

I have a whitebox server with ESXi 5.1 installed, running a number of VMs.

I'm trying to balance CPU temp with noise (server in home office/wife not thrilled with noise). My MB is not a server board so it does not have IPMI, which is the standard way ESXi monitors different aspects of a board.

I have tried SpeedFan within a guest VM and it shows 100C constantly, regardless of the CPU load - so that's not working out. Anyone else have a possible solution (besides getting a new MB or new wife)? Thanks.

 

[Roman2179]

Go to the "Configuration" tab in vSphere Client, the first choice on the "Hardware" box is health status. That should give you all the information you need.

If the sensors are not showing anything, click the "Reset sensors" button in the top right corner. That solved the issues I was having with monitoring.

Edit: If noise is the issue, you may want to look into getting a better heatsink or quieter fans.

 

[holden j caufield]

what whitebox motherboard can give you the temps? btw I've run it on a laptop so that keeps the noise and temps down.

 

[brshoemak]

@Roman: Resetting the sensors didn't work. Still just gave me some very basic information about the processor - not even the name, just "CPUSocket" and detail about the various cache levels (L2,L2,L3).

The HSF I have is a solid one. I replaced the crappy stock one with a Cooler Master 212 Evo which is a terrific air cooler IMO. In the BIOS I have the fan turned down to 'Silent' - which it pretty much is. While I can see the temps in the BIOS I can't really base the performance on those numbers them since there is about zero load on it at the time.

@holden: I don't really understand your question. I'm running an Asrock Z87 Extreme 6. All motherboards will report temps, but only server-level boards have IPMI which reports back many aspects of the motherboard to ESXi.

I did use to run ESXi on a laptop, but there are no (or very few and non-affordable) laptops that can handle 32GB.

 

[SunnyD]

You're going to be mostly out of luck with a consumer board. Most of the consumer boards use SMBus for reporting, and like you said IPMI isn't an option on most consomer boards.

 

[WOTMODS]

@Roman: Resetting the sensors didn't work. Still just gave me some very basic information about the processor - not even the name, just "CPUSocket" and detail about the various cache levels (L2,L2,L3).

The HSF I have is a solid one. I replaced the crappy stock one with a Cooler Master 212 Evo which is a terrific air cooler IMO. In the BIOS I have the fan turned down to 'Silent' - which it pretty much is. While I can see the temps in the BIOS I can't really base the performance on those numbers them since there is about zero load on it at the time.

@holden: I don't really understand your question. I'm running an Asrock Z87 Extreme 6. All motherboards will report temps, but only server-level boards have IPMI which reports back many aspects of the motherboard to ESXi.

I did use to run ESXi on a laptop, but there are no (or very few and non-affordable) laptops that can handle 32GB.

I have not found a utility either but for the 2 Z87 boards I use with esxi 5.1 su1 (apply similar to all my dev esxi / hyper-v boxes from X58, B75, H77, Q77, H67, Z77 to Z87) - set in bios EIST C1 enabled / C6 report enabled others disabled / package Cstate to C0/1 - power management to balanced in ESXi- if this was a prod box we'd obviously use a different strategy but I've found this has kept the 212 org from running away on Z87...

 

[brshoemak]

Thanks Wotmods, I'll give that a try.

I guess worst case scenario I can try to push the CPU with Prime95 in a guest VM then reset the computer and immediately check the BIOS. That should give me a reasonable approximation of how well the HSF is keeping up - although it will be a bit lower than the temp at the point of shutdown.

 

[Roman2179]

I think you're a little confused as to what IPMI actually does. It has nothing to do with reporting temperatures to ESXi. IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) is used for remote management and does not rely on any operating system.

Per wikipedia: The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a standardized computer system interface used by system administrators for out-of-band management of computer systems and monitoring of their operation. In layman's terms, it is a way to manage a computer using a direct network connection, whether it is turned on or not; connecting to the hardware rather than an operating system or login shell.

 

[brshoemak]

Whoops, you're right. Yeah I'm not talking about IMPI (like iLO or DRAC). I'm talking about CIM.

 

[WOTMODS]

Thanks Wotmods, I'll give that a try.

I guess worst case scenario I can try to push the CPU with Prime95 in a guest VM then reset the computer and immediately check the BIOS. That should give me a reasonable approximation of how well the HSF is keeping up - although it will be a bit lower than the temp at the point of shutdown.

Here's an interesting article if you haven't come across it before: http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell/2009/03/monitoring-esx-hardware-with-powershell.html