Ingo Molnar wrote:
quoted text
> here's two quick howtos:
> 
>   http://redhat.com/~mingo/sched-devel.git/readme-tracer.txt
>   http://redhat.com/~mingo/sched-devel.git/howto-trace-latencies.txt

These two files appear to be identical. Is this intentional?

Anyway after following your instructions a putting together a small 
script to dice the output, I collated the 10 switches which took the 
longest:

# Top ten longest switches
# Rel TS Process   Abs TS
0.122161 hald-3423 1867.821170 ***
0.039438 <idle>-0  1867.379054
0.036318 hald-3423 1867.669009
0.031362 <idle>-0  1868.002762
0.030000 hald-3423 1867.699009
0.028933 <idle>-0  1867.529238
0.028539 <idle>-0  1867.228861
0.028196 <idle>-0  1867.128731
0.027763 <idle>-0  1868.101449
0.027513 <idle>-0  1867.028606

# tracer: sched_switch from around longest switch
#
#           TASK-PID   CPU#    TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
#              | |      |          |         |
           <idle>-0     [00]  1867.608017:      0:140:R   +     3:115:S
           <idle>-0     [00]  1867.608038:      0:140:R   +  3423:120:D
           <idle>-0     [00]  1867.608045:      0:140:R ==>     3:115:R
      ksoftirqd/0-3     [00]  1867.608048:      3:115:S ==>  3423:120:R
             hald-3423  [00]  1867.629350:   3423:120:R   +  6096:120:S
             hald-3423  [00]  1867.632691:   3423:120:R   +  3827:120:S
             hald-3423  [00]  1867.669009:   3423:120:R   +  3998:120:S
             hald-3423  [00]  1867.699009:   3423:120:R   +  6097:120:S
          ***hald-3423  [00]  1867.821170:   3423:120:R ==>  6096:120:R
        rhythmbox-6096  [00]  1867.821219:   6096:120:S ==>  6097:120:R
        rhythmbox-6097  [00]  1867.821262:   6097:120:R   +  3826:120:S
        rhythmbox-6097  [00]  1867.821289:   6097:120:S ==>  3826:120:R
       pulseaudio-3826  [00]  1867.821332:   3826:120:R   +  6097:120:S
       pulseaudio-3826  [00]  1867.821374:   3826:120:S ==>  6097:120:R
        rhythmbox-6097  [00]  1867.821380:   6097:120:S ==>  3998:120:R
        rhythmbox-3998  [00]  1867.821709:   3998:120:S ==>  3827:120:R
       pulseaudio-3827  [00]  1867.824041:   3827:120:R   +  3826:120:S


quoted text
>    LatencyTOP version 0.4       (C) 2008 Intel Corporation
> 
> Cause                                                Maximum     Percentage
> Scheduler: waiting for cpu                        152.4 msec         13.8 %
> Userspace lock contention                           5.0 msec         68.0 %
> Waiting for event (poll)                            5.0 msec         14.3 %
> Waiting for event (select)                          4.9 msec          3.5 %
> msleep acpi_ec_wait acpi_ec_transaction acpi_ec_bu  1.9 msec          0.1 %
> msleep acpi_ec_wait acpi_ec_transaction acpi_ec_re  1.9 msec          0.2 %
> msleep acpi_ec_wait acpi_ec_transaction acpi_ec_bu  1.9 msec          0.1 %
> Executing raw SCSI command                          1.1 msec          0.0 %
> Waiting for TTY to finish sending                   0.4 msec          0.0 %
> 
> 
> Process rhythmbox (3998)                   Total: 328.3 msec
> Scheduler: waiting for cpu                        152.4 msec         80.0 %
> Userspace lock contention                           4.1 msec         15.7 %
> Waiting for event (poll)                            2.7 msec          4.1 %


quoted text
> you need to enable:
> 
>   CONFIG_SCHED_TRACER=y
>   CONFIG_CONTEXT_SWITCH_TRACER=y

I actually have both of these enabled but there's still no wakeup tracer 
(as mentioned in the git kernel documentation http://tinyurl.com/4f9s4l 
). The good news is that your instructions don't need the wakeup tracer.

quoted text
> it's not particularly well named though. Why doesnt it say 
> LATENCY_TRACER or something?

I agree it would be nicer if it had a better name.

quoted text
>> Additionally I think I found a trigger - unplugging the power cable 
>> from the EeePC and having it run on battery seems to then set off this 
>> periodic stall every 30 seconds... There's no CPU frequency scaling 
>> enabled either (Celeron M's seemingly don't have P states and support 
>> for cpufreq is configured out).
> 
> sounds like potential SMM triggered latencies.

I have just gone away and read about the SMM ( 
http://blogs.msdn.com/carmencr/archive/2005/08/31/458609.aspx ). If 
you're right there is pretty much nothing that can be done about the 
problem : (
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