Re: [RFC][PATCH] i386 x86-64 Eliminate Local APIC timer interrupt

[Zwane Mwaikambo]

On Fri, 29 Apr 2005, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005, Venkatesh Pallipadi wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Background: 
> > Local APIC timer stops functioning when CPU is in C3 state. As a
> > result the local APIC timer interrupt will fire at uncertain times, depending
> > on how long we spend in C3 state. And this has two side effects
> > * Idle balancing will not happen as we expect it to.
> > * Kernel statistics for idle time will not be proper (as we get less LAPIC
> >   interrupts when we are idle). This can result in confusing other parts of
> >   kernel (like ondemand cpufreq governor) which depends on this idle stats.
> > 
> > 
> > Proposed Fix: 
> > Attached is a prototype patch, that tries to eliminate the dependency on 
> > local APIC timer for update_process_times(). The patch gets rid of Local APIC 
> > timer altogether. We use the timer interrupt (IRQ 0) configured in 
> > broadcast mode in IOAPIC instead (Doesn't work with 8259). 
> > As changing anything related to basic timer interrupt is a little bit risky, 
> > I have a boot parameter currently ("useapictimer") to switch back to original 
> > local APIC timer way of doing things.
> 
> This all looks like it'll contend on irq0 related locks really badly, have 
> you profiled this?

Hmm ok i see you have IRQ_PER_CPU, so please ignore my statement.

Thanks,
	Zwane
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