diff --git a/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/vm_power_management.rst b/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/vm_power_management.rst
index 24eb5675e8..1b6de8e936 100644
--- a/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/vm_power_management.rst
+++ b/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/vm_power_management.rst
@@ -423,6 +423,8 @@ described below:
    0.01 but will need adjustment for different workloads
 
    This parameter can be used multiple times for different sets of cores.
+   The branch ratio mechanism can also be useful for non-PMD cores and
+   hyper-threaded environments where C-States are disabled.
 
 
 Compiling and Running the Guest Applications
diff --git a/examples/vm_power_manager/oob_monitor_x86.c b/examples/vm_power_manager/oob_monitor_x86.c
index 3c514475f1..a5b1c168c3 100644
--- a/examples/vm_power_manager/oob_monitor_x86.c
+++ b/examples/vm_power_manager/oob_monitor_x86.c
@@ -96,12 +96,12 @@ apply_policy(int core)
 	g_branch_misses = miss_diff;
 
 	if (hits_diff < (INTERVAL*100)) {
-		/* Likely no workload running on this core. Skip. */
-		return -1.0;
+		/* Likely no workload running on this core. */
+		ratio = 0.0;
+	} else {
+		ratio = (float)miss_diff * (float)100 / (float)hits_diff;
 	}
 
-	ratio = (float)miss_diff * (float)100 / (float)hits_diff;
-
 	/*
 	 * Store the last few directions that the ratio indicates
 	 * we should take. If there's on 'up', then we scale up