CPU Frequency on FreeBSD 5.4 and MSVS 2005 R2

[Nikolas Britton]

On 1/30/06, Tamouh H. <hakmi at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I've been able to run couple of successful tests installing FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 , however, I've noticed for some reason FreeBSD is not detecting the actual CPU speed:
>
> -------------------
> FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE #0: Mon Jan 30 22:32:31 EST 2006
>     msupport at freebsd.mssitename.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/INTERNDC
> Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
>
> CPU: Intel Pentium III Xeon (593.19-MHz 686-class CPU)
>   Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x6a4  Stepping = 4
>   Features=0x380a97b<FPU,VME,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,CX8,SEP,PGE,CMOV,MMX,FXSR,SSE>
>
> real memory  = 824115200 (785 MB)
> avail memory = 796700672 (759 MB)
> npx0: <math processor> on motherboard
> npx0: INT 16 interface
> acpi0: <A M I OEMRSDT> on motherboard
> acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
> Timecounter "ACPI-safe" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
> ------------
>
> The frequency should be 900MHz. The BIOS does not state CPU frequency, nor the boot sequence.
>
> In fact, if I reboot the FreeBSD virtual machine, the frequency would be different (sometimes 460MHz , others 550MHz...etc). I think this is causing a considerable degradation in the FreeBSD speed.
>
> Any suggestions in this regard ?  MSFT doesn't officially support FreeBSD, but I'm aware they support Linux on their virtual server.
>

It's typical for the cpu speed to very inside a virtual machine,
VMware does this all the time, typically it's 0 ~ 100MHz off, but
yours is way off... I did know the answer to this question but don't
remember, sorry. try a google search for VMware and cpu speed or
frequency.