Re: Too many timer interrupts in NO_HZ

From: Vaidyanathan Srinivasan
Date: Sun Mar 02 2008 - 15:25:35 EST


* Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> [2008-03-02 11:57:09]:
[sniped]

>
> please show us powertop -d output; that way we can at least see sort of what
> is going on...

Here you go...

[root@XXXX sv]# powertop -d
PowerTOP 1.9 (C) 2007 Intel Corporation

Collecting data for 15 seconds
< Detailed C-state information is only available on Mobile CPUs (laptops) >
P-states (frequencies)
2.40 Ghz 0.0%
2.13 Ghz 0.0%
1.87 Ghz 0.0%
1.60 Ghz 100.0%
Wakeups-from-idle per second : 3.1 interval: 15.0s
no ACPI power usage estimate available
Top causes for wakeups:
41.4% ( 2.4) <interrupt> : eth0
17.2% ( 1.0) ip : bnx2_open (bnx2_timer)
9.2% ( 0.5) <kernel core> : neigh_table_init_no_netlink (neigh_periodic_timer)
3.4% ( 0.2) <kernel IPI> : function call interrupts
3.4% ( 0.2) init : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
3.4% ( 0.2) python : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
3.4% ( 0.2) <kernel core> : __netdev_watchdog_up (dev_watchdog)
3.4% ( 0.2) sendmail : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
3.4% ( 0.2) <kernel core> : page_writeback_init (wb_timer_fn)
2.3% ( 0.1) <interrupt> : aacraid
2.3% ( 0.1) rc.sysinit : start_this_handle (commit_timeout)
1.1% ( 0.1) <kernel core> : sk_reset_timer (tcp_delack_timer)
1.1% ( 0.1) sshd : sk_reset_timer (tcp_write_timer)
1.1% ( 0.1) <kernel core> : cache_register (delayed_work_timer_fn)
1.1% ( 0.1) <kernel core> : init_nonfatal_mce_checker (delayed_work_timer_fn)
1.1% ( 0.1) crond : do_nanosleep (hrtimer_wakeup)
1.1% ( 0.1) <kernel core> : neigh_add_timer (neigh_timer_handler)

Suggestion: increase the VM dirty writeback time from 5.00 to 15 seconds with:
echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
This wakes the disk up less frequenty for background VM activity

Suggestion: enable the noatime filesystem option by executing the following command:
mount -o remount,noatime / or by pressing the T key
noatime disables persistent access time of file accesses, which causes lots of disk IO.

--Vaidy

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