Load average never below 1.5 on dapper

Bug #50335 reported by Mario Splivalo
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When I boot dapper (upgraded from breezy via apt-get dist-upgrade) on my laptop (IBM ThinkPad R52, 1.7Ghz, 1GB, Ati X300 - pcix), load average is always above or at 1.5. I turn on my laptop, boot dapper, log in, and after 15 minutes i do 'uptime', and the load average is 1.5. When I issue 'top', and sort by CPU usage (shift-f l) i see that most cpu time went to Xorg, then to thinkpad-keys and then to multiload-applet-2. Xorg, according to top, took only 15 seconds of CPU time. I'm not sure how accurate top is on gathering those information.

When I boot dapper with 2.6.12 kernel, and replay what I mentioned above, load average is 0.05 with top times almost the same as with 2.6.15 kernel.

I tried removing fglrx driver both from xorg.conf and putting it in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, the results are the same.

On home desktop PC (Intel D850MV mb, 1.7Ghz P4, 768 MB RAMBUS, ATA disk driver) 2.6.15 works ok (also dapper upgraded from breezy), load avereage is 0.12, and I have firefox and evolution runnig.

Tags: thinkpad xorg
Revision history for this message
Mario Splivalo (mariosplivalo) wrote :

For home PC, it should say 'ATA disk drive', as opposed to SATA disks on Thinkpad.

Revision history for this message
Christopher J. Bottaro (cjbottaro) wrote :

I have the same problem. My idle cpu usage is very high. Here is a pic of top:
http://i6.tinypic.com/15573ev.png

Revision history for this message
Christopher J. Bottaro (cjbottaro) wrote :

Sorry, I forgot to add that I'm using a Centrino based notebook. Pentium M, ATI Radeon x300, SATA hard disk, PATA cdrom. I have tried using both 'ati' and 'radeon' drivers for X, neither one lowered the cpu usage any. The problem seems to be related to X because if I login into single mode and look at top, my cpu idle % is 100.

Revision history for this message
Mario Splivalo (mariosplivalo) wrote :

I solved reported problem by compiling and installing new kernel. I'm currently runnig 2.6.17.1, with fglrx driver downloaded from ati. My load average is now around 0.30, and system runs smoothly.

I recompilled 2.6.15 kernel with /boot/config.2.6.15-25, and my system was slow again. I discovered that 2.6.15 uses CONFIG_HZ=100 option. When I compile it with CONFIG_HZ=1000, 2.6.15 kernel also runs smooth. I see that 2.6.15-23 was compiled with CONFIG_HZ=1000, but that kernel (from the ubuntu package) also run poorly, although not as poor as 2.6.15-25.

I also selected IOSCHED_CFQ option (under block layer-i/o schedulers), and built the kernel for my processor. The rest of the kernel configuration I didn't touch.

Now my computer runs smoothly, I have accelerated graphics, I just need to see how well suspend/resume and hibernate/resume behaves... I'll post results here...

I'm not sure if CONFIG_HZ=100 in 2.6.15-25 was a bug, or that's the way it's supposed to be.

Revision history for this message
Nikola Čakelić (ncake) wrote :

I can confirm this bug on my Toshiba Satellite M60 132. With kernel 2.6.15-25, load average is very high, just over 1.5, sometimes 2.5, and the CPU goes from 5 - 40%. Then, when Mmike told me to try new kernel, with CONFIG_HZ=1000 in kernel 2.6.17.3 now everything runs smoothly, CPU is at 0 - 1.5% and load average is about 0.15.

description: updated
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Jérôme Guelfucci (jerome-guelfucci-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Thank you for your bug report. Do you still have this issue with the latest release of Ubuntu?

Changed in linux-source-2.6.15:
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Mario Splivalo (mariosplivalo) wrote :

If 'latest release' is 7.04, then no, I don't have this issue any more, it runs smoothly.

I still have Ubuntu 6.06 on my laptop, with 2.6.17.1 (CONFIG_HZ=1000).. .Latest distro-kernel (2.6.15-28-686) still have above described issues.

Revision history for this message
Jérôme Guelfucci (jerome-guelfucci-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Ok, I mark this as fixed.

Changed in linux-source-2.6.15:
status: Needs Info → Fix Released
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