Reference Guide
Table Of Contents
- Dell PowerEdge R940 BIOS and UEFI Reference Guide
- Contents
- Pre-operating system management applications
- Options to manage the pre-operating system applications
- System Setup
- Viewing System Setup
- System Setup details
- System BIOS
- Viewing System BIOS
- System BIOS Settings details
- System Information
- Viewing System Information
- System Information details
- Memory Settings
- Viewing Memory Settings
- Memory Settings details
- Processor Settings
- Viewing Processor Settings
- Processor Settings details
- SATA Settings
- Viewing SATA Settings
- SATA Settings details
- NVMe Settings
- Viewing NVMe Settings
- NVMe Settings details
- Boot Settings
- Viewing Boot Settings
- Boot Settings details
- Choosing system boot mode
- Changing boot order
- Network Settings
- Viewing Network Settings
- Network Settings screen details
- Integrated Devices
- Viewing Integrated Devices
- Integrated Devices details
- Serial Communication
- Viewing Serial Communication
- Serial Communication details
- System Profile Settings
- Viewing System Profile Settings
- System Profile Settings details
- System Security
- Viewing System Security
- System Security Settings details
- Creating a system and setup password
- Using your system password to secure the system
- Deleting or changing system and setup password
- Operating with setup password enabled
- Redundant OS Control
- Viewing Redundant OS Control
- Redundant OS Control screen details
- Miscellaneous Settings
- Viewing Miscellaneous Settings
- Miscellaneous Settings details
- iDRAC Settings utility
- Device Settings
- Dell Lifecycle Controller
- Boot Manager
- PXE boot
Processor Settings
You can use the Processor Settings screen to view the processor settings and perform specific functions such as enabling
virtualization technology, hardware prefetcher, logical processor idling.
Viewing Processor Settings
To view the Processor Settings screen, perform the following steps:
Steps
1. Power on, or restart your system.
2. Press F2 immediately after you see the following message:
F2 = System Setup
NOTE: If your operating system begins to load before you press F2, wait for the system to finish booting, and then
restart your system and try again.
3. On the System Setup Main Menu screen, click System BIOS.
4. On the System BIOS screen, click Processor Settings.
Processor Settings details
About this task
The Processor Settings screen details are explained as follows:
Option
Description
Logical Processor
Enables or disables the logical processors and displays the number of logical processors. If this option is
set to Enabled, the BIOS displays all the logical processors. If this option is set to Disabled, the BIOS
displays only one logical processor per core. This option is set to Enabled by default.
CPU
Interconnect
Speed
Enables you to govern the frequency of the communication links among the processors in the system.
NOTE: The standard and basic bin processors support lower link frequencies.
The options available are Maximum data rate, 10.4 GT/s, and 9.6 GT/s. This option is set to Maximum
data rate by default.
Maximum data rate indicates that the BIOS runs the communication links at the maximum frequency that
is supported by the processors. You can also select specific frequencies that the processors support,
which can vary.
For best performance, you should select Maximum data rate. Any reduction in the communication link
frequency affects the performance of non-local memory accesses and cache coherency traffic. Besides, it
can slow access to non-local I/O devices from a particular processor.
However, if power-saving considerations outweigh performance, you might want to reduce the frequency
of the processor communication links. If you do this, you should localize memory and I/O accesses to the
nearest NUMA node to minimize the impact to system performance.
Virtualization
Technology
Enables or disables the virtualization technology for the processor. This option is set to Enabled by
default.
Adjacent Cache
Line Prefetch
Optimizes the system for applications that need high utilization of sequential memory access. This option
is set to Enabled by default. You can disable this option for applications that need high utilization of
random memory access.
Hardware
Prefetcher
Enables or disables the hardware prefetcher. This option is set to Enabled by default.
Software
Prefetcher
Enables or disables the software prefetcher. This option is set to Enabled by default.
Pre-operating system management applications 9