Monthly Archives: June 2011

Enable Turbo Boost On Windows Server 2008 R2

If you have a server that has Intel processors that support Turbo Boost and you’re using Windows Server 2008 R2 in the default, Balanced Power plan, you’re probably not getting the full power of your processors.

The Processor Performance Boost Policy is a percentage value from 0 to 100.  In the default Balanced power plan this parameter is 35 percent and any value lower than 51 disables Turbo Boost .  To enable Turbo Boost , set this value to 51 or higher.  To set the Processor Performance Boost Policy to 100 for the current power plan run the command below

Powercfg -setacvalueindex scheme_current sub_processor 45bcc044-d885-43e2-8605-ee0ec6e96b59 100
Powercfg -setactive scheme_current

Ensure you run Powercfg -setactive scheme_current to enable the new settings. More information can be found in this document

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463392 Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 R2


			

			
								

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Dealing With Overscan and Windows Media Center
			

								


				

			
My Windows Media Center HTPC is connected to a Panasonic LCD TV via HDMI and has always suffered from overscan.  The Windows Media Center setup wizard applies an overscan adjustment, which fixes the problem in Media Center, but overscan is still a problem for BIOS access.


My first HTPC was an AMD build based around a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard running Windows Vista.  My current build uses the on die graphics of a Core i5 processor and Windows 7.  Both builds had an overscan problem.


The Intel graphics driver has a scaling option which is accessible by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing Graphics Properties.  This works well in Windows, but doesn’t help with BIOS access.




The resolution to my overscan problem was found in my TV setup menu.  There’s an overscan setting, which was enabled.  Disabling the overscan setting resolved all the overscan problems.  If you have the same problem it’s worth checking your TV setup too.



		
	
					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				View System Center Operations Manager Alerts As An RSS Feed
			

								


				

			
When you install System Center Operations Manager 2007, you have the option to install a Web Console Server component, see here.  The Web Console Server provides a browser based view of the monitoring pane from the Operations Console.  A useful feature of the web console is that it exposes an RSS feed of alerts.  In the screenshot below you can see an RSS button.  This loads an RSS feed of active alerts.




Other alerts related to management packs you’ve installed are also available as RSS feeds.  The example below shows the RSS button for Dell MD storage alerts.