idle process keeping cpu 150% busy in freebsd 9.1-amd64

[Steven Hartland]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kostas Oikonomou" <k.oikonomou at att.net>
To: "John Baldwin" <jhb at freebsd.org>
Cc: <freebsd-amd64 at freebsd.org>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: idle process keeping cpu 150% busy in freebsd 9.1-amd64


> The core will always look like it is "running" in top, even when it is asleep. That is just how FreeBSD accounts for idle CPU 
> time. The only thing I was hoping would change is the fan having to run. You can try kldload'ing coretemp and seeing if the 
> processor temperatures are different when deeper CX states are enabled (or when powerd is running) to see if it is having any 
> affect on the temperatures in your box.
>
> First the good news.  It looks like the problem is solved on the laptop (Core i7). It took one more reboot after I put 
> "performance_cx_lowest=LOW" in /etc/rc.conf.
>
> However, the problem is still there on the HP desktop (AMD 7550).  This has only
> Cx state, C1, so "performance_cx_lowest=LOW" had no effect.
>
> The symptoms with this machine are that top does not show anything running besides idle, and neither does ps -aux.  Yet the 
> Gnome System monitor applet that I have on the bottom panel shows significant cpu activity.
> And the fan starts running within 5 minutes after the system finishes booting.
>
> Here is what top -S -H says:
>
>
> last pid:  2645;  load averages:  1.14,  0.78,  0.34               up 0+00:02:17  19:31:35
> 356 processes: 3 running, 338 sleeping, 15 waiting
> CPU:  0.2% user,  0.0% nice, 18.9% system,  0.0% interrupt, 80.9% idle
> Mem: 187M Active, 36M Inact, 354M Wired, 13M Cache, 3323M Free
> Swap: 2048M Total, 2048M Free
>
>   PID USERNAME   PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE   C   TIME   WCPU COMMAND
>    11 root       155 ki31     0K    32K CPU0    0   1:45 89.99% idle{idle: cpu0}
>    11 root       155 ki31     0K    32K RUN     1   1:40 83.98% idle{idle: cpu1}
>     0 root       -16    0     0K  2672K sched   0   1:03  0.00% kernel{swapper}
>   462 root       -21  r31   912M 33216K select  0   0:10  0.00% Xorg
>  1968 ko          52    0   209M  7144K select  0   0:04  0.00% pulseaudio{pulseaudio}
>  1968 ko          52    0   209M  7144K select  1   0:03  0.00% pulseaudio{pulseaudio}
>     7 root       -16    -     0K    16K ccb_sc  0   0:02  0.00% xpt_thrd
>    12 root       -84    -     0K   240K WAIT    1   0:01  0.00% intr{irq1: atkbd0}
>    12 root       -60    -     0K   240K WAIT    0   0:01  0.00% intr{swi4: clock}
>  1969 ko          20    0   323M 21968K select  0   0:00  0.00% gnome-panel{gnome-panel}
>    12 root       -96    -     0K   240K WAIT    1   0:00  0.00% intr{irq16: vgapci0+}
>  2196 ko          20    0   294M 18052K select  0   0:00  0.00% gnome-netstatus-app{gnome-
>  1811 ko          20    0   320M 19116K select  1   0:00  0.00% gnome-settings-daem{gnome-
>    15 root       -68    -     0K   128K -       1   0:00  0.00% usb{usbus0}
>  2200 ko          20    0   360M 21808K select  1   0:00  0.00% clock-applet{clock-applet}
>  1458 root        30   10 10376K  3448K select  0   0:00  0.00% devd
>  2028 ko          20    0   218M 25652K select  0   0:00  0.00% python
>  2272 ko          20    0   280M 20044K select  1   0:00  0.00% gnome-terminal{gnome-termi
>  2198 ko          20    0   295M 20552K select  1   0:00  0.00% stickynotes_applet{stickyn
>  1405 ko          20    0   156M 13152K select  0   0:00  0.00% gnome-session{gnome-sessio
>   417 haldaemon   20    0 56952K  6136K select  0   0:00  0.00% hald{hald}


Assuming this is a dual core machine, your missing ~25% of your overall
CPU time, identifying where this is might help.

Does the following give any hints to this: top -S -H -I -C -s1

    Regards
    Steve 


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