Re: [PATCH] HPET: Fix HPET readout for small deltas

From: Markus Trippelsdorf
Date: Mon Nov 29 2010 - 10:27:40 EST


On 2010.11.29 at 16:09 +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
>
> Some HPET implementations might require longer delay when accessing the
> HPET than what 995bd3bb5c78f3ff71339803c0b8337ed36d64fb established (8
> cycles). Generally, the proper value should be programmed by BIOS and
> written into the ACPI HPET table as the main counter minimum tick in
> periodic mode (offset 53).
>
> We assume that value as the minimum value a delta can be in order to
> reprogram the HPET successfully. For BIOSen which contain crap, we fall
> back to a default value of 128 cycles which should be sensible on all
> more or less sane HPET implementations.
>
> LKML-Reference: <20101026112052.GA1672@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <borislav.petkov@xxxxxxx>
> ---
>
> As noted before, this patch fixes the sluggishness issue on Markus' and
> my machine. And we definitely need some kind of fix for .37.

Yes. Just a minor note, the comment in hpet.c should also be updated:

diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/hpet.c b/arch/x86/kernel/hpet.c
index a0b790a..cfbbc94 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/hpet.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/hpet.c
@@ -403,9 +403,9 @@ static int hpet_next_event(unsigned long delta,
* move us behind that point easily. Now instead of reading
* the compare register back several times, we make the ETIME
* decision based on the following: Return ETIME if the
- * counter value after the write is less than 8 HPET cycles
- * away from the event or if the counter is already ahead of
- * the event.
+ * counter value after the write is less than hpet_min_tick
+ * HPET cycles away from the event or if the counter is already
+ * ahead of the event.
*/
res = (s32)(cnt - hpet_readl(HPET_COUNTER));


--
Markus
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