tsc reliability for Intel Core 2 Duo "Conroe"

From: Dan Magenheimer
Date: Wed May 26 2010 - 13:42:12 EST


Looking through code following up on the separate TSC-related
thread, I noticed that my Intel Core 2 Duo "Conroe" box
is determined to have an unstable TSC, so falls back
to clocksource==hpet.

While a Conroe has X86_FEATURE_CONSTANT_TSC and not
X86_FEATURE_NONSTOP_TSC, a Conroe is only able to enter
C0 and C1 (unlike its sister Intel Core 2 Duo processor
"Merom" which can enter C0-C3).

I was under the impression (possibly from an earlier kernel
version?) that tsc_constant PLUS inability to enter deep-C
states would result in an acceptably stable TSC to use
as a clocksource (assuming it passes a TSC warp test).

So is this a bug? Or is my impression incorrect?

See tsc_check_state() in drivers/acpi/processor_idle.c.
I can submit a patch, but wanted to check first.
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