# so high [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

## waterloo2005

powertop says:

44.7% (582.1)   [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

So high.

I use gentoo-sources 2.6.34-r12. 

what is the matter ? thanks

Top causes for wakeups:

  41.1% (610.7)   [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

  19.1% (284.1)   firefox

  18.9% (281.4)   [extra timer interrupt]

   3.6% ( 53.4)   [ehci_hcd:usb2] <interrupt>

   3.6% ( 53.4)   USB device 2-2.4 : USB Receiver (Logitech)

   3.4% ( 50.2)   [kernel core] __mod_timer (<ffffffffa03b9e00>)

----------

## idella4

Were you doing a make at the time?

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## waterloo2005

at that time , I do nothing

[img]http://bildr.no/thumb/764195.jpeg[/img]

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## idella4

Hmmm, just as well you post your │ │        Power management and ACPI options  ---> settings.  Very little to go on with this.  It is using far too much, as if there is a make going on that you don't know about.  Don't even know the kernel version & type you are using.

----------

## waterloo2005

```

#

# Power management and ACPI options

#

CONFIG_ARCH_HIBERNATION_HEADER=y

CONFIG_PM=y

CONFIG_PM_DEBUG=y

CONFIG_PM_ADVANCED_DEBUG=y

# CONFIG_PM_VERBOSE is not set

CONFIG_CAN_PM_TRACE=y

CONFIG_PM_TRACE=y

CONFIG_PM_TRACE_RTC=y

CONFIG_PM_SLEEP_SMP=y

CONFIG_PM_SLEEP=y

# CONFIG_PM_SLEEP_ADVANCED_DEBUG is not set

CONFIG_SUSPEND_NVS=y

CONFIG_SUSPEND=y

# CONFIG_PM_TEST_SUSPEND is not set

CONFIG_SUSPEND_FREEZER=y

CONFIG_HIBERNATION=y

CONFIG_PM_STD_PARTITION="/dev/sda10"

CONFIG_PM_RUNTIME=y

CONFIG_PM_OPS=y

CONFIG_ACPI=y

CONFIG_ACPI_SLEEP=y

CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS=y

CONFIG_ACPI_PROCFS_POWER=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_POWER_METER is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_SYSFS_POWER=y

CONFIG_ACPI_PROC_EVENT=y

CONFIG_ACPI_AC=y

CONFIG_ACPI_BATTERY=y

CONFIG_ACPI_BUTTON=y

CONFIG_ACPI_VIDEO=y

CONFIG_ACPI_FAN=y

CONFIG_ACPI_DOCK=y

CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR=y

CONFIG_ACPI_HOTPLUG_CPU=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_PROCESSOR_AGGREGATOR is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_THERMAL=y

CONFIG_ACPI_NUMA=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_CUSTOM_DSDT is not set

CONFIG_ACPI_BLACKLIST_YEAR=0

# CONFIG_ACPI_DEBUG is not set

# CONFIG_ACPI_PCI_SLOT is not set

CONFIG_X86_PM_TIMER=y

CONFIG_ACPI_CONTAINER=y

# CONFIG_ACPI_SBS is not set

# CONFIG_ACPI_HED is not set

# CONFIG_ACPI_APEI is not set

# CONFIG_SFI is not set

```

```

 # emerge --info

Portage 2.1.8.3 (default/linux/amd64/10.0, gcc-4.4.4, glibc-2.12.1-r3, 2.6.35-gentoo-r13 x86_64)

=================================================================

System uname: Linux-2.6.35-gentoo-r13-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_Duo_CPU_T9600_@_2.80GHz-with-gentoo-1.12.14

Timestamp of tree: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:15:01 +0000

ccache version 2.4 [enabled]

app-shells/bash:     4.1_p7

dev-java/java-config: 2.1.11-r1

dev-lang/python:     2.6.5-r3, 3.1.2-r4

dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r7

dev-util/cmake:      2.8.1-r2

sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.14-r1

sys-apps/sandbox:    2.3-r1

sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.65-r1

sys-devel/automake:  1.7.9-r2, 1.8.5-r4, 1.10.3, 1.11.1

sys-devel/binutils:  2.20.1-r1

sys-devel/gcc:       4.4.4-r2

sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1

sys-devel/libtool:   2.2.10

sys-devel/make:      3.81-r2

virtual/os-headers:  2.6.36

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"

ACCEPT_LICENSE="*"

CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=core2 -pipe"

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/lib/hsqldb"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c"

CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=core2 -pipe"

DISTDIR="/usr/distfiles"

FEATURES="assume-digests ccache distlocks fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirrors.xmu.edu.cn/gentoo"

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"

LINGUAS="en zh zh_CN zh_TW en_US"

MAKEOPTS="-j4"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/portage/local/layman/science /usr/portage/local/layman/sunrise /usr/portage/local/layman/devnull /usr/portage/local/layman/gentoo-china /usr/portage/local/layman/enlightenment /usr/portage/local/myebuild /usr/portage"

SYNC="rsync://mirrors.xmu.edu.cn/gentoo-portage"

USE="X a52 aac aalib acl acpi aim alsa amd64 asf avahi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts blas bzip2 cairo cdparanoia cdr chm cjk cleartype cli corefonts cracklib crypt cups cxx dbus divx4linux dri dv dvd dvdread emacs encode examples exif ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif gnome gphoto2 gpm gtk hal hdaps iconv ieee1394 java jpeg lame laptop lm_sensors mad midi mjpeg mmx modules mp3 mp4 mpeg msn mudflap multilib ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl pic png ppds pppd python qq quicktime rar readline session spell sse sse2 sse3 ssl startup-notification svg sysfs tcpd threads tiff truetype type1 unicode wifi xft xine xinerama xml xorg xscreensaver xulrunner xv xvid zip zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en zh zh_CN zh_TW en_US" PHP_TARGETS="php5-2" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="radeon vesa intel fglrx" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" 

Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

```

Thanks

----------

## idella4

waterloo2005,

```

Wakeups-from-idle per second : 18.2     interval: 5.0s                                  

no ACPI power usage estimate available

Top causes for wakeups:

  29.1% ( 10.0)   [ath] <interrupt>

  28.5% (  9.8)   [kernel core] hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer)

  19.8% (  6.8)   [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

  14.5% (  5.0)   [kernel core] __mod_timer (cursor_timer_handler)

   5.8% (  2.0)   [kernel core] add_timer_on (clocksource_watchdog)

   0.6% (  0.2)   [kernel core] enqueue_task_rt (sched_rt_period_timer)

   0.6% (  0.2)   init

   0.6% (  0.2)   wpa_supplicant

   0.6% (  0.2)   events/1

Suggestion: increase the VM dirty writeback time from 5.00 to 15 seconds with:

  echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs

This wakes the disk up less frequently for background VM activity

```

```

Wakeups-from-idle per second : 25.2     interval: 5.0s                                  

no ACPI power usage estimate available

Top causes for wakeups:

  22.0% ( 10.6)   [kernel core] hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer)

  20.3% (  9.8)   [ath] <interrupt>

  18.7% (  9.0)   [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

  12.0% (  5.8)   PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad interrupt

  10.4% (  5.0)   [kernel core] __mod_timer (cursor_timer_handler)

   4.1% (  2.0)   [kernel core] add_timer_on (clocksource_watchdog)

   1.7% (  0.8)   [ahci, hda_intel] <interrupt>

   1.2% (  0.6)   btrfs-endio-met

   0.8% (  0.4)   btrfs-genwork-0

   0.8% (  0.4)   btrfs-worker-0

   0.8% (  0.4)   btrfs-submit-0

   0.8% (  0.4)   btrfs-endio-0

```

with nothing else and with your power settings.  I think just post the whole config with wgetpaste, power settings are not all inclusive for this.  There must be something else at play, unless you can track and select and post it.

----------

## waterloo2005

This is my kernel config file .

http://pastebin.ca/2000628

Thanks

----------

## Etal

Does this happen on a fresh boot, with no programs (such as firefox) running?

----------

## waterloo2005

below is after fresh boot.

[img]http://bildr.no/thumb/764557.jpeg[/img]

----------

## idella4

waterloo2005. currently compiling your config

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Wakeups-from-idle per second : 33.9     interval: 5.5s                                  
> 
> no ACPI power usage estimate available
> ...

 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Wakeups-from-idle per second : 36.4     interval: 5.0s                                  
> 
> no ACPI power usage estimate available
> ...

 

Using yours I had a frozen mouse so had to reboot into my own kernel.  I'm no hardware expert, just learning the ropes.  Take mine and adapt it to your system.  It appears it is in your kernel settings.

----------

## Etal

Seems like a known bug...

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/524281

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=521944

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=635813

----------

## idella4

Etal,

it's a bug in what component?.  The first is a 2.6.32.  It took the whole kernel config to replicate, but it's fine in my own kernel-2.6.35.  If I can get a good output in mine, which is the bug?

----------

## Etal

I haven't read through all the bugs since I don't have the issue, but it seems to be in the kernel.

----------

## idella4

waterloo2005, what is the current status?  Can always try the 2.6.36.

Edit:  re following post, I am puzzled.  My system should suffer this too.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Linked to Debian bug 521944 based on comment 84 . I can confirm this happens under Ubuntu Lucid with an Intel Atom N280, so I don't think this is restricted to Core 2 Duo.
> 
> 

 

The first ubuntu bug cites it occurring on a dual core 2 cpu, just like mine.

```

genny linux-2.6.36-hardened-r2 # uname -a

Linux genny 2.6.36 #4 SMP Tue Nov 23 21:22:34 WST 2010 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

```

yet 

```

Wakeups-from-idle per second : 68.5     interval: 10.0s                                          

no ACPI power usage estimate available

Top causes for wakeups:

  30.0% ( 57.8)   USB device  2-2 : Comfort Optical Mouse 1000 (Microsoft)

  21.9% ( 42.2)   [ohci_hcd:usb2] <interrupt>

  18.7% ( 36.0)   firefox

  11.3% ( 21.8)   kworker/0:0

   5.9% ( 11.3)   [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

   5.0% (  9.7)   [ath] <interrupt>

   2.3% (  4.5)   konsole

   1.4% (  2.7)   [kernel core] hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer)

   0.6% (  1.1)   [ahci, hda_intel] <interrupt>

   0.5% (  1.0)   [nvidia] <interrupt>

   0.5% (  1.0)   [kernel core] __mod_timer (nv_kern_rc_timer)

.............................

```

unless this proves it is in fact occurring.

this

```

powertop

44.7% (582.1) [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick 

```

is the core of kernel shortcoming of this post.  My reading is  

   5.9% ( 11.3)   [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick

Anyway, don't know.

----------

## nephros

It's a known kernel bug and 2.6.36.1 still has it. Last known good version was 2.6.34.5

For some people, booting with  nohz=off highres=off helps.

See the links Etal posted.

----------

## waterloo2005

my now kernel is gentoo-sources 2.6.35-r13.

below is screen shot when I just only run firefox in E17 desktop.

[img]http://bildr.no/thumb/765274.jpeg[/img]

I also install gnome 2.30.1 . I try powertop in gnome, the figure is high too.

I meet the problem when I use gentoo-sources 2.6.34-r12 (the first time I use powertop is in 2.6.34-r12).

So I update kernel to gentoo-sources 2.6.35-r13. 

The problem still exists. 

Thanks

----------

## idella4

waterloo2005,

I have outlined my limited understanding of this scenario.  My kernel 2.6.35 and 2.6.36 s do not display this flaw.  See my previous post, you haven't taken up the offer to modify my kernel-2.6.35-gentoo, which is fine, to your system.  I've confirmed your config does have the flaw on my pc, but have as yet refrained from working it to a good state.  So I gave you mine,  which is very close to your system type.  Alternatively you can try regressing to 2.6.34-r5 or prior which is reported to be absent of the flaw.

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## waterloo2005

 *idella4 wrote:*   

> waterloo2005,
> 
> I have outlined my limited understanding of this scenario.  My kernel 2.6.35 and 2.6.36 s do not display this flaw.  See my previous post, you haven't taken up the offer to modify my kernel-2.6.35-gentoo, which is fine, to your system.  I've confirmed your config does have the flaw on my pc, but have as yet refrained from working it to a good state.  So I gave you mine,  which is very close to your system type.  Alternatively you can try regressing to 2.6.34-r5 or prior which is reported to be absent of the flaw.

 

I revise my kernel config according your config file .

Now that figure decreases one half.

[img]http://bildr.no/thumb/765994.jpeg[/img]

This is my kernel config now : http://pastebin.ca/2002712

Thanks

----------

## idella4

waterloo2005,

that's just grand

----------

