The hrtimer work in -mm does improve on the situation, although there
appears to be some occasional cache line contention for xtime. The
following patch (which is similiar to my previously submitted patch)
is applicable to 2.6.16-mm1 and does take care of at least a good
portion of that.
Index: linux/kernel/hrtimer.c
===================================================================
--- linux.orig/kernel/hrtimer.c 2006-03-27 09:43:40.000000000 -0600
+++ linux/kernel/hrtimer.c 2006-03-27 12:35:47.416054373 -0600
@@ -604,14 +604,17 @@ int hrtimer_get_res(const clockid_t whic
*/
static inline void run_hrtimer_queue(struct hrtimer_base *base)
{
- struct rb_node *node;
+ struct rb_node *node = base->first;
+
+ if (!node)
+ return;
if (base->get_softirq_time)
base->softirq_time = base->get_softirq_time();
spin_lock_irq(&base->lock);
- while ((node = base->first)) {
+ while (node) {