Re: [BISECTED] 2.6.35.*: horrible (exponential? >linear) slowdown to unusability (HPET)

From: Nix
Date: Tue Sep 14 2010 - 16:18:43 EST


On 14 Sep 2010, Thomas Gleixner said:

> On Fri, 10 Sep 2010, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> On Fri, 10 Sep 2010, Nix wrote:
>> >
>> > I suspect current_clocksource doesn't do what we think it does, or the
>> > clocksource and 'clock event device' are not the same.)
>>
>> Right, they are not the same. clocksource provides us a read out
>> device for timekeeping (usually a simple increasing counter). clock
>> event device is used to generate timer interrupts.
>>
>> HPET provides both functionalities.
>>
>> The patch you bisected is affecting the clock events part of the
>> HPET. So yes, it's not a clock source problem.
>
> Another question. If you add hpet=verbose (or revert that commit) does
> the printk_once in hpet_set_next_event() show up in dmesg ?
>
> "hpet: compare register read back failed."

Well, given that I reverted that commit in the past (during the
bisection) and also added hpet=verbose[1], I'd have expected it to turn
up in my past syslogs. There is no sign of it, in syslogs back to 2009.


[1] and indeed am running 2.6.35.4 with hpet=verbose and no symptoms
on the affected system *now* -- a mystery because I thought the
hpet=verbose-turns-it-off code was removed, but turning on verbose
still seems to quash the bug?! or perhaps it's slightly
intermittent and every N boots I'm lucky enough to miss it. I'm
slightly chary of rebooting to find out ;}
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