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

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, there are spikes seen that are caused by host/system
• when looking at the esxtop CPU tab ("c"), expanding the system world ("e" > "1") and sorting by %RUN ("R"), see this  next to the idle worlds ("IDLEx"), a group named IPMI on top of the list.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

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:

Reduce the polling rate for the ipmi module using the following command:

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

Reboot the host to apply changes.

The default values for the options are:

regMaxPolls=400000
regPollIntrvUs=2

If the issue persists despite making this change, 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 file a support request with the VMware Support.

Additional Information

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