SI Reasoning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> There are good stretches of the day where my CPU spins
> at around 50% or more and the process spinning is
> kapm-idled. This is not a problem in 7.2.
--=-=-=
http://www.tux.org/lkml/#s14-1:
1.Why is kapmd using so much CPU time?
(REG) Don't worry, it's not stealing valuable CPU time from
other processes. It's just consuming idle cycles (normally
charged to the idle task, which is displayed differently in
top). Normally, when your system is idle, the system idle
task is run, and this is shown as idle time (i.e. the "unused"
CPU time is not charged to a specific process). With APM
(Advanced Power Management), a special idle task (kapmd) is
required so that greater power saving techniques can be
enabled. So now, the "unused" CPU time is charged to the kapmd
task instead.
--=-=-=
--=-=-=
http://olstrans.sourceforge.net/release/OLS2000-apm/OLS2000-apm.html:
In 2.2 and before, we basically had a hook into the idle loop, so that
if we had APM enabled, we would just tell the BIOS that we're
idle. In 2.3, Linus thought it would be a good idea if we had a
separate power management idle loop, so (he) we invented the
kernel APM daemon and I started getting bug reports about this
process that was using all our time, called kapmd. And if you sat
there just running top on a 2.3 kernel, the top process, if you're
not doing anything else, will be kapmd and it will be using like
85% or 90% or 95% of your CPU time. These people were worried
because it was idle: why is it using all of the time? Well
actually, it's just that the time is getting accounted to that
process. It's not doing anything, it's the idle loop. [26m, 12s]
--=-=-=
--
MandrakeSoft Inc http://www.chmouel.org
--Chmouel