High Idle Load Average

Submitted by Jeremy
on October 6, 2007 - 2:59pm

When a Linux user reported a repeatedly high load average on an idle server, tracking the problem to a specific patch labeled, "user of the jiffies rounding code", Andrew Morton replied, "this is unexpected. High load average is due to either a task chewing a lot of CPU time or a task stuck in uninterruptible sleep." Linus Torvalds disagreed, explaining:

"We saw high loadaverages with the timer bogosity with 'gettimeofday()' and 'select()' not agreeing, so they would do things like 'date = time(..); select(.. , timeout = );' and when 'date' wasn't taking the jiffies offset into account, and thus mixing these kinds of different time sources, the select ended up returning immediately because they effectively used different clocks, and suddenly we had some applications chewing up 30% CPU time, because they were in a loop that *tried* to sleep."

Linus offered what he described as an "idiotic patch" to cause the load average to not be calculated exactly once every 5 seconds to prevent it from being in sync with something else waking up every 5 seconds, noting, "the load average is not calculated every tick, because that's not just expensive, but we also want to have some time-based decay." Arjan van de Ven pointed out that this shouldn't help, "I mean, the load gets only updated in actual timer interrupts... and on a tickless system there's very few of those around..... and usually at places round_jiffies() already put a timer on." Linus agreed with this reasoning, suggesting, "maybe Anders' problem stems partly from the fact that he really is using the tweaks to make that tickless theory more true than it tends to be on most systems?" Arjan pointed out that a lot of work has been successful in making tickless kernels wake up less, "we fixed a TON of stuff over the last months.. standard desktops (F8 / next Ubuntu) will be around 10 wakeups/sec, in a lab environment you can get below 2 ;)"


From: Anders  <anders@...>
Subject: PROBLEM: high load average when idle
Date: Oct 2, 5:37 pm 2007

Hi!

My computer suffers from high load average when the system is idle,
introduced by commit 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 .

Long story:

2.6.20 and all later versions I've tested, including 2.6.21 and
2.6.22, make the load average high. Even when the computer is totally
idle (I've tested in single user mode), the load average end up
at ~0.30. The computer is still responsive, and the only fault seems
to be the too high load average. All versions up to and including
2.6.19.7 is fine, and don't suffer from the problem.

I git bisect between 2.6.19 and 2.6.20 gave me
44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 "[PATCH] user of the jiffies
rounding code: JBD" as the first patch with the
problem. 2.6.20 with 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 reverted
works fine. 2.6.23-rc8 with 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6
reverted also works fine.

This fixes the problem:

-------------------------- fs/jbd/transaction.c -----------------------------
index cceaf57..d38e0d5 100644
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ get_transaction(journal_t *journal, transaction_t *transaction)
spin_lock_init(&transaction->t_handle_lock);

/* Set up the commit timer for the new transaction. */
- journal->j_commit_timer.expires = round_jiffies(transaction->t_expires);
+ journal->j_commit_timer.expires = transaction->t_expires;
add_timer(&journal->j_commit_timer);

J_ASSERT(journal->j_running_transaction == NULL);

I've only seen this problem on my home desktop computer. My work
desktop computer and several other computers at work don't suffer from
this problem. However, all other computers I've tested on is using
AMD64 as architecture, and not i386 as my home desktop computer.

Please let me know how I can assist in further debugging of this, if
needed.

System info:

A Debian stable system with ABIT KV7 MB, VIA KT600 chipset,
Athlon XP 1500+ CPU, GeForce DDR and Atheros AR5212 wlan
board. Details below.

I've tested without nvidia and the madwifi modules listed below, with
the same results.

eckert:/usr/src/linux-2.6>sh scripts/ver_linux
If some fields are empty or look unusual you may have an old version.
Compare to the current minimal requirements in Documentation/Changes.

Linux eckert.bostrom.dyndns.org 2.6.20noload #1 Mon Oct 1 21:36:19 CEST 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

Gnu C 4.1.2
Gnu make 3.81
binutils 2.17
util-linux 2.12r
mount 2.12r
module-init-tools 3.3-pre2
e2fsprogs 1.40-WIP
Linux C Library 2.3.6
Dynamic linker (ldd) 2.3.6
Procps 3.2.7
Net-tools 1.60
Console-tools 0.2.3
Sh-utils 5.97
udev 105
wireless-tools 28
Modules Loaded nls_iso8859_1 nls_cp437 nvidia wlan_tkip iptable_filter ip_tables x_tables softdog snd_via82xx snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus snd_mpu401_uart snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi wlan_scan_sta ath_rate_sample ath_pci wlan ath_hal

eckert:~> cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 6
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1500+
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1383.971
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mp mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow ts
bogomips : 2769.67
clflush size : 32

eckert:~> cat /proc/ioports
0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-0043 : timer0
0050-0053 : timer1
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-0077 : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00a1 : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : 0000:00:0f.1
0170-0177 : libata
01f0-01f7 : 0000:00:0f.1
01f0-01f7 : libata
0295-0296 : w83627hf
0376-0376 : 0000:00:0f.1
0376-0376 : libata
03c0-03df : vesafb
03f6-03f6 : 0000:00:0f.1
03f6-03f6 : libata
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
4000-407f : motherboard
4000-4003 : ACPI PM1a_EVT_BLK
4004-4005 : ACPI PM1a_CNT_BLK
4008-400b : ACPI PM_TMR
4010-4015 : ACPI CPU throttle
4020-4023 : ACPI GPE0_BLK
5000-500f : motherboard
5000-5007 : vt596_smbus
c000-c007 : 0000:00:0f.0
c000-c007 : sata_via
c400-c403 : 0000:00:0f.0
c400-c403 : sata_via
c800-c807 : 0000:00:0f.0
c800-c807 : sata_via
cc00-cc03 : 0000:00:0f.0
cc00-cc03 : sata_via
d000-d00f : 0000:00:0f.0
d000-d00f : sata_via
d400-d4ff : 0000:00:0f.0
d400-d4ff : sata_via
d800-d80f : 0000:00:0f.1
d800-d80f : libata
dc00-dc1f : 0000:00:10.0
dc00-dc1f : uhci_hcd
e000-e01f : 0000:00:10.1
e000-e01f : uhci_hcd
e400-e41f : 0000:00:10.2
e400-e41f : uhci_hcd
e800-e81f : 0000:00:10.3
e800-e81f : uhci_hcd
ec00-ecff : 0000:00:11.5
ec00-ecff : VIA8237
eckert:~> cat /proc/iomem
00000000-0009f3ff : System RAM
0009f400-0009ffff : reserved
000a0000-000bffff : Video RAM area
000c0000-000cbbff : Video ROM
000f0000-000fffff : System ROM
00100000-1feeffff : System RAM
00100000-00302afc : Kernel code
00302afd-003a7b53 : Kernel data
1fef0000-1fef2fff : ACPI Non-volatile Storage
1fef3000-1fefffff : ACPI Tables
e0000000-e7ffffff : PCI Bus #01
e0000000-e7ffffff : 0000:01:00.0
e0000000-e1ffffff : vesafb
e8000000-e9ffffff : PCI Bus #01
e8000000-e8ffffff : 0000:01:00.0
e8000000-e8ffffff : nvidia
e9000000-e900ffff : 0000:01:00.0
ea000000-ebffffff : 0000:00:00.0
ec000000-ec00ffff : 0000:00:0b.0
ec000000-ec00ffff : ath
ec010000-ec0100ff : 0000:00:10.4
ec010000-ec0100ff : ehci_hcd
fec00000-fec00fff : reserved
fee00000-fee00fff : reserved
ffff0000-ffffffff : reserved
eckert:~> cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: ATA Model: HDT722525DLA380 Rev: V44O
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: ATA Model: HDT722525DLA380 Rev: V44O
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: _NEC Model: DVD_RW ND-1300A Rev: 1.0B
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 01 Lun: 00
Vendor: HL-DT-ST Model: CD-RW GCE-8240B Rev: 1.07
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Host: scsi3 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: ATA Model: IC35L120AVV207-0 Rev: V24O
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
eckert:~# lspci -vvv
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400/KT600 AGP] Host Bridge (rev 80)
Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp. Unknown device 1408
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- Reset- FastB2B-
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
Subsystem: Global Sun Technology Inc Trust Speedshare Turbo Pro Wireless PCI Adapter
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR- TAbort- SERR-


From: Andrew Morton <akpm@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 2, 6:07 pm 2007

On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:37:31 +0200 (CEST)
Anders Bostr__m wrote:

> My computer suffers from high load average when the system is idle,
> introduced by commit 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 .
>
> Long story:
>
> 2.6.20 and all later versions I've tested, including 2.6.21 and
> 2.6.22, make the load average high. Even when the computer is totally
> idle (I've tested in single user mode), the load average end up
> at ~0.30. The computer is still responsive, and the only fault seems
> to be the too high load average. All versions up to and including
> 2.6.19.7 is fine, and don't suffer from the problem.
>
> I git bisect between 2.6.19 and 2.6.20 gave me
> 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 "[PATCH] user of the jiffies
> rounding code: JBD" as the first patch with the
> problem. 2.6.20 with 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 reverted
> works fine. 2.6.23-rc8 with 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6
> reverted also works fine.
>
> This fixes the problem:
>
> -------------------------- fs/jbd/transaction.c -----------------------------
> index cceaf57..d38e0d5 100644
> @@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ get_transaction(journal_t *journal, transaction_t *transaction)
> spin_lock_init(&transaction->t_handle_lock);
>
> /* Set up the commit timer for the new transaction. */
> - journal->j_commit_timer.expires = round_jiffies(transaction->t_expires);
> + journal->j_commit_timer.expires = transaction->t_expires;
> add_timer(&journal->j_commit_timer);
>
> J_ASSERT(journal->j_running_transaction == NULL);
>
>
> I've only seen this problem on my home desktop computer. My work
> desktop computer and several other computers at work don't suffer from
> this problem. However, all other computers I've tested on is using
> AMD64 as architecture, and not i386 as my home desktop computer.
>
> Please let me know how I can assist in further debugging of this, if
> needed.

This is unexpected. High load average is due to either a task chewing a
lot of CPU time or a task stuck in uninterruptible sleep.

Can you please work out which of these is happening? Run `top' on an idle
system. Is the CPU less than 1% loaded?

Run

ps aux | grep " D"

or something like that on an idle system, see if you can spot a task which
is spending time in D state.

If there's a task whcih is spending time in D state, try running

echo w > /proc/sysrq-trigger ; dmesg -c > foo

the check "foo" to see if it has a task in D state (search foo for " D ").
If it's not there, do the sysrq again, repeat until you've managed to
capture a trace of the blocked task.

If it turns out that the CPU really is spending excess amounts of time
being busy then a kernel profile would be a good way of finding out where
it is spinning. Or run sysrq-P from the keyboard a few times.

-


From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 2, 6:32 pm 2007

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007, Andrew Morton wrote:
>
> This is unexpected. High load average is due to either a task chewing a
> lot of CPU time or a task stuck in uninterruptible sleep.

Not necessarily.

We saw high loadaverages with the timer bogosity with "gettimeofday()" and
"select()" not agreeing, so they would do things like

date = time(..)
select(.. , timeout = )

and when "date" wasn't taking the jiffies offset into account, and thus
mixing these kinds of different time sources, the select ended up
returning immediately because they effectively used different clocks, and
suddenly we had some applications chewing up 30% CPU time, because they
were in a loop that *tried* to sleep.

And I wonder if the same kind thing is effectively happening here: the
code is written so that it *tries* to sleep, but the rounding of the clock
basically means that it's trying to sleep using a different clock than the
one we're using to wake things up with, so some percentage of the time it
doesn't sleep at all!

I wonder if the whole "round_jiffies()" thing should be written so that it
never rounds down, or at least never rounds down to before the current
second!

I have to say, I also think it's a bit iffy to do "round_jiffies()" at all
in that per-CPU kind of way. The "per-cpu" thing is quite possibly going
to change by the time we actually add the timer, so the goal of trying to
get wakeups to happen in "bunches" per CPU should really be done by
setting a flag on the timer itself - so that we could do that rounding
when the timer is actually added to the per-cpu queues!

Now, I think the JBD "t_expires" field should never be "near" in seconds,
so I do find it a bit surprising that this rounding can have any effect,
but on the other hand it clearly *does* have some effect, so.. It migt
just be interacting with some other use, of course.

Linus
-

From: Chuck Ebbert <cebbert@...>
Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle
Date: Oct 2, 6:33 pm 2007

On 10/02/2007 06:07 PM, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:37:31 +0200 (CEST)
> Anders Bostr__m wrote:
>
>> My computer suffers from high load average when the system is idle,
>> introduced by commit 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 .
>>
>> Long story:
>>
>> 2.6.20 and all later versions I've tested, including 2.6.21 and
>> 2.6.22, make the load average high. Even when the computer is totally
>> idle (I've tested in single user mode), the load average end up
>> at ~0.30. The computer is still responsive, and the only fault seems
>> to be the too high load average. All versions up to and including
>> 2.6.19.7 is fine, and don't suffer from the problem.
>>
>> I git bisect between 2.6.19 and 2.6.20 gave me
>> 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 "[PATCH] user of the jiffies
>> rounding code: JBD" as the first patch with the
>> problem. 2.6.20 with 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6 reverted
>> works fine. 2.6.23-rc8 with 44d306e1508fef6fa7a6eb15a1aba86ef68389a6
>> reverted also works fine.
>>
>> This fixes the problem:
>>
>> -------------------------- fs/jbd/transaction.c -----------------------------
>> index cceaf57..d38e0d5 100644
>> @@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ get_transaction(journal_t *journal, transaction_t *transaction)
>> spin_lock_init(&transaction->t_handle_lock);
>>
>> /* Set up the commit timer for the new transaction. */
>> - journal->j_commit_timer.expires = round_jiffies(transaction->t_expires);
>> + journal->j_commit_timer.expires = transaction->t_expires;
>> add_timer(&journal->j_commit_timer);
>>
>> J_ASSERT(journal->j_running_transaction == NULL);
>>
>>
>> I've only seen this problem on my home desktop computer. My work
>> desktop computer and several other computers at work don't suffer from
>> this problem. However, all other computers I've tested on is using
>> AMD64 as architecture, and not i386 as my home desktop computer.
>>
>> Please let me know how I can assist in further debugging of this, if
>> needed.
>
> This is unexpected. High load average is due to either a task chewing a
> lot of CPU time or a task stuck in uninterruptible sleep.
>

Or, everybody wakes up at once right when we are taking a sample. :)
-


From: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 2, 7:26 pm 2007

On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:33:58 -0400
> Or, everybody wakes up at once right when we are taking a sample. :)

nice try but we sample every timer tick; this code being timer driven
makes it what you say it is regardless of *which* timer tick it
happens at ;)
-


From: Chuck Ebbert <cebbert@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 3, 1:32 pm 2007

On 10/02/2007 07:26 PM, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:33:58 -0400
>> Or, everybody wakes up at once right when we are taking a sample. :)
>
> nice try but we sample every timer tick; this code being timer driven
> makes it what you say it is regardless of *which* timer tick it
> happens at ;)
>

But we reduce the number of samples because some ticks just never
happen when the timers get rounded:

No rounding:

tick ............... tick
1 running 1 running

Rounded:

tick
2 running

In the first case the average is 1, but it's 2 in the second.

-


From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 3, 2:02 pm 2007

On Wed, 3 Oct 2007, Chuck Ebbert wrote:
>
> But we reduce the number of samples because some ticks just never
> happen when the timers get rounded:
>
> No rounding:
>
> tick ............... tick
> 1 running 1 running
>
> Rounded:
>
> tick
> 2 running
>
> In the first case the average is 1, but it's 2 in the second.

In fact, I think this is it!

The load average is not calculated every tick, because that's not just
expensive, but we also want to have some time-based decay. So it's
calculated every LOAD_FREQ ticks.

And guess what: LOAD_FREQ is defined to be exactly five seconds.

So imagine if the timer gets to be in sync with another event that happens
every five seconds - let's pick at random a 5-second JBD transaction
thing?

Anders - does this idiotic patch make a difference for you?

Without this, I can easily imagine that the rounding code tends to try to
round to an even second, and the load-average code generally also runs at
even seconds!

Linus

---
include/linux/sched.h | 2 +-
1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
index a01ac6d..643de0f 100644
--- a/include/linux/sched.h
+++ b/include/linux/sched.h
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ extern unsigned long avenrun[]; /* Load averages */

#define FSHIFT 11 /* nr of bits of precision */
#define FIXED_1 (1<


From: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 3, 2:20 pm 2007

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Without this, I can easily imagine that the rounding code tends to try to
> round to an even second, and the load-average code generally also runs at
> even seconds!
>
> Linus
>
> ---
> include/linux/sched.h | 2 +-
> 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
> index a01ac6d..643de0f 100644
> --- a/include/linux/sched.h
> +++ b/include/linux/sched.h
> @@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ extern unsigned long avenrun[]; /* Load averages */
>
> #define FSHIFT 11 /* nr of bits of precision */
> #define FIXED_1 (1< -#define LOAD_FREQ (5*HZ) /* 5 sec intervals */
> +#define LOAD_FREQ (5*HZ+1) /* ~5 sec intervals */

not sure this is going to help; I mean, the load gets only updated in
actual timer interrupts... and on a tickless system there's very few
of those around..... and usually at places round_jiffies() already put
a timer on.

(also.. one thing that might make Chuck's theory wrong is that the
sampling code doesn't sample timer activity since that's run just
after the sampler in the same irq)
-


From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 3, 2:28 pm 2007

On Wed, 3 Oct 2007, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>
> not sure this is going to help; I mean, the load gets only updated in actual
> timer interrupts... and on a tickless system there's very few of those
> around..... and usually at places round_jiffies() already put a timer on.

Yeah, you're right. Although in practice, at least on a system running
X, I'd expect that there still is lots of other timers going on, hiding
the issue.

Hmm. Maybe Anders' problem stems partly from the fact that he really is
using the tweaks to make that tickless theory more true than it tends to
be on most systems?

Linus
-


From: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...> Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle Date: Oct 3, 2:29 pm 2007

Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> On Wed, 3 Oct 2007, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
>> not sure this is going to help; I mean, the load gets only updated in actual
>> timer interrupts... and on a tickless system there's very few of those
>> around..... and usually at places round_jiffies() already put a timer on.
>
> Yeah, you're right. Although in practice, at least on a system running
> X, I'd expect that there still is lots of other timers going on, hiding
> the issue.

eh not really; on a normal distro desktop you maybe have 10
wakeups/sec or so; on a tuned one you have 2 or less.

>
> Hmm. Maybe Anders' problem stems partly from the fact that he really is
> using the tweaks to make that tickless theory more true than it tends to
> be on most systems?

we fixed a TON of stuff over the last months.. standard desktops (F8 /
next Ubuntu) will be around 10 wakeups/sec, in a lab environment you
can get below 2 ;)
-

From: Anders  <anders@...>
Subject: Re: PROBLEM: high load average when idle
Date: Oct 3, 4:15 pm 2007

>>>>> "LT" == Linus Torvalds writes:

LT> On Wed, 3 Oct 2007, Chuck Ebbert wrote:
>>
>> But we reduce the number of samples because some ticks just never
>> happen when the timers get rounded:
>>
>> No rounding:
>>
>> tick ............... tick
>> 1 running 1 running
>>
>> Rounded:
>>
>> tick
>> 2 running
>>
>> In the first case the average is 1, but it's 2 in the second.

LT> In fact, I think this is it!

LT> The load average is not calculated every tick, because that's not just
LT> expensive, but we also want to have some time-based decay. So it's
LT> calculated every LOAD_FREQ ticks.

LT> And guess what: LOAD_FREQ is defined to be exactly five seconds.

LT> So imagine if the timer gets to be in sync with another event that happens
LT> every five seconds - let's pick at random a 5-second JBD transaction
LT> thing?

LT> Anders - does this idiotic patch make a difference for you?

Yes, it does, it fixes the load average!!! I guess we have something
here!

Why does this problem only show up on my computer? Any idea?

/ Anders

LT> Without this, I can easily imagine that the rounding code tends to try to
LT> round to an even second, and the load-average code generally also runs at
LT> even seconds!

LT> Linus

LT> ---
LT> include/linux/sched.h | 2 +-
LT> 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

LT> diff --git a/include/linux/sched.h b/include/linux/sched.h
LT> index a01ac6d..643de0f 100644
LT> --- a/include/linux/sched.h
LT> +++ b/include/linux/sched.h
LT> @@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ extern unsigned long avenrun[]; /* Load averages */

LT> #define FSHIFT 11 /* nr of bits of precision */
LT> #define FIXED_1 (1< -#define LOAD_FREQ (5*HZ) /* 5 sec intervals */
LT> +#define LOAD_FREQ (5*HZ+1) /* ~5 sec intervals */
LT> #define EXP_1 1884 /* 1/exp(5sec/1min) as fixed-point */
LT> #define EXP_5 2014 /* 1/exp(5sec/5min) */
LT> #define EXP_15 2037 /* 1/exp(5sec/15min) */
-