Cisco UCS C220 M4S: Power Profile Not Respected - Unofficial Tesla GPU Support
You have recently purchased a used Cisco UCS C220 M4S server at a reasonable price, which includes a Tesla GPU. However, you discovered that the GPU model is not officially supported by Cisco. Although it still installs and powers on, you are concerned about the power profile settings not being respected due to the unofficial support.
Understanding Cisco UCS C220 M4S and Tesla GPU
The Cisco UCS C220 M4S is a rack server designed for data-intensive workloads, including big data analytics, virtualization, and cloud computing. It supports a wide range of processors, memory, and storage configurations. The server can also accommodate a single GPU, which can further enhance its performance for specific workloads.
Tesla GPUs are a family of high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) designed for scientific computing, deep learning, and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. They are manufactured by NVIDIA and offer superior computing power and performance compared to traditional CPUs.
Unofficial Tesla GPU Support in Cisco UCS C220 M4S
While Cisco officially supports a limited number of GPUs in the UCS C220 M4S server, it is possible to install and use Tesla GPUs in the server, albeit unofficially. This means that Cisco does not provide official support, documentation, or firmware updates for Tesla GPUs in the UCS C220 M4S server. However, the server has the necessary physical and power connectors to accommodate a Tesla GPU.
Power Profile Settings and Unofficial Tesla GPU
The power profile settings in the Cisco UCS C220 M4S server are designed to manage the power consumption and thermal characteristics of the server. These settings are optimized for the officially supported GPUs and may not work correctly with unofficial Tesla GPUs. As a result, you may experience issues with power consumption, thermal throttling, or stability when using a Tesla GPU in the server.
Mitigating Power Profile Issues in Unofficial Tesla GPU
To mitigate the power profile issues in an unofficial Tesla GPU, you can try the following steps:
- Update the firmware of the Cisco UCS C220 M4S server to the latest version.
- Install the latest NVIDIA drivers for the Tesla GPU.
- Manually adjust the power profile settings in the BIOS or the Cisco UCS Manager to optimize for the Tesla GPU.
- Use third-party tools or scripts to monitor and manage the power consumption and thermal characteristics of the Tesla GPU.
References
- Cisco UCS C220 M4S Server
- NVIDIA Tesla GPUs
- Cisco UCS C220 M4S Software Installation Guide
- NVIDIA Tesla Installation Guide for Cisco UCS
# Example script to monitor Tesla GPU power consumption
import os
import time
def get\_gpu\_power():
gpu\_power = os.popen('nvidia-smi -q -d POWER').read().split('Power Draw: ')[1].split('
')[0]
return float(gpu\_power)
while True:
print('GPU Power:', get\_gpu\_power(), 'Watts')
time.sleep(10)