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

[Kostas Oikonomou]

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}

And ps -aux | head:

[ko at wiley ~]$ ps -aux | head
USER        PID  %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TT  STAT STARTED    TIME COMMAND
root         11 175.9  0.0      0    32 ??  RL    7:29PM 6:53.36 [idle]
root          0   0.0  0.1      0  2672 ??  DLs   7:29PM 0:00.37 [kernel]
root          1   0.0  0.0   6276   416 ??  SLs   7:29PM 0:00.07 /sbin/init --
root          2   0.0  0.0      0    16 ??  DL    7:29PM 0:00.00 [crypto]
root          3   0.0  0.0      0    16 ??  DL    7:29PM 0:00.00 [crypto returns]
root          4   0.0  0.0      0    16 ??  DL    7:29PM 0:00.00 [ctl_thrd]
root          5   0.0  0.0      0    96 ??  DL    7:29PM 0:00.03 [zfskern]

I don't understand what is going on.

					Kostas