Performance charts in vSphere Client show frequent CPU usage spikes for ESXi 7.0 even when there are no virtual machines are running

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Performance charts in vSphere Client show frequent CPU usage spikes for ESXi 7.0 even when there are no virtual machines are running
• when looking at Advanced Performance > View: System, you see that the spikes are caused by host/system
• when looking at the esxtop CPU tab ("c"), expanding the system world ("e" > "1") and sorting by %RUN ("R"), you find next to the idle worlds ("IDLEx"), a group named IPMI on top of the list

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x

Cause

This is a rare issue, which can affect ESXi 7.0 when running on AMD EPYC CPUs.

Resolution

Currently there is no resolution. VMware engineering is aware of this issue.
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Workaround:

To work around this issue, reduce the polling rate for the ipmi module using the following command:

# esxcfg-module --set-options "regMaxPolls=200000 regPollIntrvUs=4" ipmi

Afterwards reboot the host to apply the change.

The default values for the options are:

regMaxPolls=400000
regPollIntrvUs=2

Should you find that the issue persists despite making this change, please reset both options to their default values:

# esxcfg-module --set-options "regMaxPolls=400000 regPollIntrvUs=2" ipmi

Reboot the host again to apply the change, then please file a support request with the VMware Support.

Additional Information

For more information on how to change module options, please see Configuring advanced driver module parameters in ESX/ESXi (1017588)