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[PATCH] ia64: cpu_idle performance bug fix
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Our performance validation on 2.6.15-rc1 caught a disastrous performance
regression on ia64 with netperf (-98%) and volanomark (-58%) compares to
previous kernel version 2.6.14-git7.  See the following chart (result
group 1 & 2).

  http://kernel-perf.sourceforge.net/results.machine_id=26.html

We have root caused it to commit 64c7c8f

This changeset broke the ia64 task resched notification.  In
sched.c:resched_task(), a reschedule IPI is conditioned upon
TIF_POLLING_NRFLAG.  However, the above changeset unconditionally set
the polling thread flag for idle tasks regardless whether pal_halt_light
is in use or not.  As a result, resched IPI is not sent from
resched_task().  And since the default behavior on ia64 is to use
pal_halt_light, we end up delaying the rescheduling task until next
timer tick, and thus cause the performance regression.

This fixes the performance bug.  I'm glad our performance suite is
turning up bad performance bug like this in time.

Signed-off-by: Ken Chen <kenneth.w.chen@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
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Chen, Kenneth W authored and Linus Torvalds committed Nov 15, 2005
1 parent 47227d5 commit 1e185b9
Showing 1 changed file with 8 additions and 7 deletions.
15 changes: 8 additions & 7 deletions arch/ia64/kernel/process.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -202,12 +202,9 @@ default_idle (void)
{
local_irq_enable();
while (!need_resched()) {
if (can_do_pal_halt) {
local_irq_disable();
if (!need_resched())
safe_halt();
local_irq_enable();
} else
if (can_do_pal_halt)
safe_halt();
else
cpu_relax();
}
}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -272,10 +269,14 @@ cpu_idle (void)
{
void (*mark_idle)(int) = ia64_mark_idle;
int cpu = smp_processor_id();
set_thread_flag(TIF_POLLING_NRFLAG);

/* endless idle loop with no priority at all */
while (1) {
if (can_do_pal_halt)
clear_thread_flag(TIF_POLLING_NRFLAG);
else
set_thread_flag(TIF_POLLING_NRFLAG);

if (!need_resched()) {
void (*idle)(void);
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
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