Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263503AbTFDPs7 (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:48:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263496AbTFDPs5 (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:48:57 -0400 Received: from grebe.mail.pas.earthlink.net ([207.217.120.46]:44434 "EHLO grebe.mail.pas.earthlink.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263503AbTFDPsn (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:48:43 -0400 Subject: Re: Strange load issues with 2.5.69/70 in both -mm and -bk trees. From: Tom Sightler To: Ingo Molnar Cc: Mike Galbraith , Arjan van de Ven , Andrew Morton , LKML In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Organization: Message-Id: <1054742447.1820.46.camel@iso-8590-lx.zeusinc.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.2.2 (1.2.2-5) Date: 04 Jun 2003 12:00:47 -0400 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (score=-3.5, required 10, AWL, EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION, IN_REP_TO, REFERENCES, SPAM_PHRASE_00_01) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1589 Lines: 38 On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 11:12, Ingo Molnar wrote: > a question - which process in your system is responsible for the sound > output? In this simple test scenario it is wine itself (the actual process which I am renicing). I verified this with a 'lsof' while sound was playing. This is why I keep saying that it almost seems as if it is the kernel itself that is being starved (perhaps starved is the wrong word here). If the environment is a simple as: pluginserver-->/dev/dsp-->hardware and renicing the pluginserver process to a lower priority is what makes the sound stop skipping, then what else can it be? I am using ALSA with OSS emulation, but I did try the OSS driver as well. My primary testing machine is a laptop with a Maestro3 sound card which is known to be buggy sometimes (although I've actually had very good success with it, especially with ALSA), but I have reproduced this issue with my desktop at home which is an Athlon 950Mhz with a Soundblaster live, although it is less noticable. It's been suggested I may be tripping some type of hardware quirk here, perhaps a shared interrupt issue, or simple PCI bandwidth or latency. I suppose this is possible and I'm looking at these kinds of tweaks, but I think they are unlikely as why would renicing a userspace process make this type of problem go away? Later, Tom - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/