Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 9 Version 3.15.15.15 User's Guide

Viewing and configuring power cap policy

When power cap policy is enabled, it enforces a user-defined power limits on the system. If power-capping is not enabled, the default hardware power-protection policy is used. This power-protection policy is independent of the user-defined policy. The system performance is dynamically adjusted to maintain power consumption close to the specified threshold.

Actual power consumption depends on the workload. It may momentarily exceed the threshold until performance adjustments are completed. For example, consider a system that has a minimum and maximum Potential Power Consumption values of 500 W and 700 W respectively. You can specify a Power Budget Threshold to reduce consumption to 525 W. When this power budget is configured, the performance of the system is dynamically adjusted to maintain power consumption of 525 W or less.

If you set a very low power cap or if the ambient temperature is unusually high, power consumption may temporarily exceed the power-cap while the system is powering up or being reset.

If the power cap value is set lower than the minimum recommended threshold, iDRAC may not be able maintain the requested power cap.

You can specify the value in Watts, BTU/hr, or as a percentage of the recommended maximum power limit.

When setting the power cap threshold in BTU/hr, the conversion to Watts is rounded off to the nearest integer. When the power cap threshold are read from the system, the Watts to BTU/hr conversion is also rounded off. Because of the rounding off, the actual values may slightly differ.