Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 13:28:05 +0100 From: Shawn <shawnh@f2s.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Strange pauses and cpu usage - FreeBSD 6.1 Message-ID: <20060528132805.475e8850@freeBSD> In-Reply-To: <20060528050235.GA19706@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <20060527011413.738aecd3@freeBSD> <20060528001836.GA42222@ibm.maison> <20060528050235.GA19706@xor.obsecurity.org>
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On Sun, 28 May 2006 01:02:35 -0400 Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> wrote: > On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 02:18:36AM +0200, Xavier Chantry wrote: > > On Sat, May 27, 2006 at 01:14:13AM +0100, Shawn wrote: > > > I'm having a strange problem with cpu usage with my Athlon XP. > > > Every so often there seems to be a pause where the system comes > > > under heavy load for no apparent reason. If xmms was playing then > > > I get a buzz sound and the mouse pointer stops just for a split > > > second, the same with mplayer and vlc. Using Opera or firefox > > > also seems to have a strange effect where the mouse pointer > > > freezes while pages load, and if there is an animated gif on the > > > page the cpu usage goes to 100%. > > > > > > The jabber client Gajim also makes the cpu get stuck at 100%. > > > When I used gnome, nautilus did the same thing until i stopped > > > and started the process in the system monitor. I have searched > > > around and found this tip from the handbook but it had no effect. > > > > > > hint.apic.0.disabled="1" in /boot/loader.conf > > > > > > This happens with the generic kernel and the one i compiled for > > > myself. It also lasts for a random amount of time, sometimes it > > > is barely noticeable and sometimes it happens for over a second. > > > Running neverwinter nights makes the system pause for 10-20 > > > seconds seemingly randomly. > > > > > > > My system behaves much better than that, I've no mouse freeze and no > > system pauses, but I did have occasonial sound skips using 4bsd on > > 6.1. Switching to the ULE scheduler seems to fix this problem, but > > other things may behave worse. > > One year ago, it was actually the opposite, sound in ULE was really > > jerky, and mouse pointer too while eg launching an app. > > Did you already try both schedulers ? > > Check for interrupt sharing with vmstat -i. Shared interrupts cause > performance loss especially if it's sharing with a giant-locked driver > like USB. > > Kris I tried switching to ULE and while the sound skipping seems to have stopped, the other problems remain. vmstat -i gives me: interrupt total rate irq0: clk 69873 984 irq7: ppc0 2 0 irq8: rtc 8944 125 irq10: atapci0++ 2409 33 irq11: nvidia0++ 5264 74 irq12: pcm0 rl0+ 41 0 irq15: ata1 47 0 Total 86580 1219 So it seems that net and sound are sharing irq12, and just before i see the freeBSD bootloader i can see that irq12 is used for the usb controller. Is this my problem? I have no irq settings in the BIOS and i tried a device hint for pcm to move it up to irq13 but had no luck. Forgive me if I am missing something obvious somewhere along the line, I only started using freeBSD a few weeks ago and I am totally new to BSD in general. Thanks for the help! ~shawn
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