Sovereign 3860 Tech Notes
BIOS setting
To maintain low noise operation, always set Fan Speed Control Modes to 3-pin/Server in the BIOS Hardware Monitor section. All chassis and processor fans are monitored in real time under Linux using the included utility (superodoctor).
If the system has 4GB of memory or greater, Discrete MTRR Allocation must be enabled in the BIOS Memory Cache section. Otherwise, system performance will be reduced. If the system has 8GB of memory or greater, discrete MTRR allocation will only work with BIOS revision 1.2a or higher. Earlier BIOS revision will lock up the system during post. To obtain the BIOS update, please send an Email request to techsuppport@aslab.com.
Hyper-Threading
Hyper-Threading is a technology found in the Intel® Xeon™ processors. Using Hyper-Threading, a single Hyper-Threading enabled processor can simultaneously process two threads of code, improving the performance of multi-threaded code running on a single processor platform. In essence, Hyper-Threading Technology partitions a single processor into two logical processors.
Because Hyper-Threading might reduce the performance of certain application significantly, this feature is disabled by default. ASL highly recommends that one should spend some times to benchmark the application(s) running with and without Hyper-Threading first. If time does not permit, Hyper-Threading should be left disabled. In general, Hyper-Threading works best in the server environment.
To enable Hyper-Threading, perform the following steps:
- Enable Hyper-Threading under the Advanced->Processor Features menu in the BIOS.
- Add the kernel parameter acpismp=force to the Linux boot loader (LILO/GRUB). If LILO is used, it is necessary to run lilo after making the change to /etc/lilo.conf.
When Hyper-Threading is enabled, the BIOS and Linux will report a total of four processors in a dual processor system.