So I´m back with the results with updating the libdrm since it's one of my suspects. So far I've build & installed the latest version o f librm (Release Q1 2011). The system is much more stable after that. I´ve only hat one kworker spike for about 5 Seconds since, which in my case is an improvement. Here is what i did: 1.) Download & unpack the latest *stable* libdrm release: http://dri.freedesktop.org/libdrm/libdrm-2.4.25.tar.bz2 2.) Install libraries / headers required to compile libdrm sudo apt-get install libpthread-stubs0-dev 3.) in a terminal within the unpacked libdrm directory, do ./configure make sudo make install 4.) reboot. Luckily I was able to capture that one last spike, too. Again, the intel driver, however a different call than before. # Events: 8K cycles # # Overhead Command Shared Object Symbol # ........ ............... ............................... ........................................... # 26.11% kworker/0:1 [i915] [k] i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | --- i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | |--99.79%-- sclhi | | | |--84.92%-- i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | | i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | | i2c_transfer | | drm_class_suspend | | drm_class_suspend | | i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | | drm_fb_helper_initial_config | | process_one_work | | | | | |--78.40%-- worker_thread | | | kthread | | | kernel_thread_helper | | | | | --21.60%-- process_scheduled_works | | worker_thread | | kthread | | kernel_thread_helper | | | --15.08%-- i2c_stop | i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | | |--83.99%-- i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | i2c_bit_add_numbered_bus | | i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | | i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | | i2c_transfer | | drm_class_suspend | | drm_class_suspend | | i915_gem_execbuffer_relocate_slow | | drm_fb_helper_initial_config | | process_one_work | | | | | |--79.71%-- worker_thread .....