Is there a way of disabling a processor within the Bios?

DELL- Chris H

Hi Chris,

Thanks for getting back to me. Would you by any chance know how many memory slots there are on each of the banks?

At the moment we have got 8x 8GB Dimms and i was wondering if we would be able to keep the fully alloted memory for a single CPU? Unfortunately the server is located in a server rom i do not have access to?

Francozola,

There is not an option for disabling the processor. You can limit the cores on it, but you can't disable it entirely. Also with going to one processor you lose the memory on the B bank, as the memory controller is embedded in each processor. Processor 1 controls A bank and Processor 2 controls the B bank, so with only one processor you limit yourself with the memory as well.

Thank you for your reply.

The OS is RHEL 5.6

Processors cannot be disabled in the BIOS.  You will need to remove the processor, OR "virtualize" an OS on this server.  What OS and edition are you using?

Chris ... correct me if I'm wrong, but he would be able to use all four slots with 16GB DIMM's, right?  For 64GB?

Flash,

You are limited to the 3 as each channel can only support  4 ranks. A4 and A1 both make up Channel 0. A2 is channel 1 and A3 is channel 2. The 16gb dimms are quad ranked so if you place 4 in the server then channel 0 will exceed the 4 rank limitation.

You have 4 slots per bank. Now with the 8gb dimms you can get 32gb. You can exceed that to 48gb with 3 16gb dimms in slot A1, A2, and A3. These are both with the memory mode set to Sparing or Optimized.

Thanks Chris ... this is the basis for my question:

I also didn't remember seeing the rank-limitation ... where is that found?

In the R510 BIOS (F2) select Processor Settings, then select Number of Cores per Processor. From there you can set it as one if the following :

All - the maximum number of cores in each processor is enabled.

Single - one processor core is enabled.

Dual - two processor cores are enabled.

HI Chris, i am sorry for not getting back to you sooner but i have only just got back to the office. When you stated that you could limit the cores do you mean that you can reduce it to showing 4 cores per cpu or reduce it lower? Ideally we need to get to a situation where the server is only showing 4 cores total without having to remove the second CPU. Hyper threading is turned of and is stating 8 cores at the moment? Is it possible to reduce each CPU to only show 2 cores each ? If so this would get around the licensing issue and allow the server to be updated in the future without any hardware changes?

Thanks again for your support so far.

Thanks again Chris. I will try this out and let you know the outcome.

The help is greatly appreciated.

With both processors installed it will allow the other bank. If the license is for the cores, and not the processors installed then you should be fine limiting them down.

Thank you very much Chris.

Will this also allow me to keep the full amount of memory for each CPU if i reduce the Core value of each CPU?

Sorry for all the questions.