System state too high for too long...

From: Dan A. Dickey
Date: Tue Jun 07 2005 - 11:29:46 EST


This problem has now been persistent enough in the last few kernels
I've run that I've subscribed (once again) to the linux-kernel list
and would like to report it.
I'm using gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r9.

When the system is compiling something, the state typically
stays at about 85-95% system time. This just really does not
seem right for my workload, and additionally only appeared
a few releases ago (sorry, I didn't bother to track it - I thought
it might go away in a release or two; but it has not).

Here is a little output of 'vmstat 5' when this is happening:
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system--
----cpu----
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us
sy id wa
1 0 12752 61548 57252 211092 0 0 2 50 1083 810 11
89 0 0
1 0 12752 57572 57320 211160 0 0 0 63 1089 683 9
91 0 0
1 0 12752 63288 57328 211220 0 0 8 39 1084 765 11
89 0 0
1 0 12752 60648 57348 211200 0 0 0 56 1086 647 6
94 0 0
1 0 12752 54972 57348 211200 0 0 0 3 1079 659 8
92 0 0
1 0 12752 62284 57348 211268 0 0 4 53 1087 807 17
83 0 0
1 0 12752 59400 57356 211328 0 0 0 34 1222 1919 17
83 0 0

Can someone help me to debug this further? Thanks.
-Dan

--
Dan A. Dickey
dan.dickey@xxxxxxxxxx

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