RE: [RFC][PATCH] Runtime switching of the idle function [take 2]

[Brown, Len]

idle=poll is a really bad way to go from a power perspective.
While it is diminishing returns to get into deeper C-states,
getting into at least C1 (HALT or MONITOR/MWAIT) is very important
on many processors.

Note that if the issue at hand is the TSC stopping in deep
ACPI C-states, that there is a flag already available to limit
how deep the C-states go.  eg.

processor.max_cstate=2 will disable C3, C4 etc
You can do this at run-time by writing to
/sys/module/processor/parameters/max_cstate

I agree with Andi that we have some work to do to address
the issue directly, which is that the TSC is not reliable
under all conditions on all processors.  I think we need
some modes for TSC to detect and handle the cases where it either
stops in C3 or changes speeds, vs the systems where it actually
works the way we want it to -- constant rate that never stops.
 
>Why not just slightly cleanup and extend (eg. to ACPI) the
>hlt_counter thingy that many architectures already have?

Hmmm, I see the floppy driver invoking hlt_counter,
but it isn't clear what the general semantics and general
users are supposd to be.  Can you clue me in?

thanks,
-Len
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