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Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:28:27 -0500
From: Thomas Hood <jdthood@mail.com>
Subject: Re: 2.4.18-pre7 slow ... apm problem
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0201290351520.7623-100000@boston.corp.fedex.com>
To: Jeff Chua <jchua@fedex.com>
Cc: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
        Linux Kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>,
        Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw@ithnet.com>
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On Mon, 2002-01-28 at 15:11, Jeff Chua wrote:
> Sorry, just got off a long flight from San Diego to Singapore. Anyway,
> slow ... means that even without vmware, if I just hit return, the lines
> would scroll for about every 10 lines and there'll be a litte pause (<0.3
> sec). With pre6, there's no such behavior, and if CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE is
> not set, the "pause" goes away.

Suggestion: Try setting the idle_threshold to a higher value,
e.g., 98.  (The default value is 95.)

Question to all: Would it be a good idea to de-idle the CPU
inside interrupt handlers?

> "host" system is linux. "guest" system is linux (actually, I tried with NT
> as well, same problem).
> 
> The sympton is when I try to ping the "host" from vmware's "guest" system,
> the first response came back to the guest's console. Then if I don't type
> anything or don't move the mouse on the guest's console, I won't see any
> further response on the guest's linux console. Even with a lot of mouse
> movement or pressing the keys, the response is still very slow with "ping".

> If I ping from the "host" linux console to the "guest" linux system,
> responses came back, and does not hang. I'll double check this last point.
> Got to recompile the kernel again.

Try disabling APM cpu idling (set apm idle_threshold to 100) in the
_guest_ OS.  (Leave it enabled in the host OS.)  Tell us what happens.

Also try disabling APM cpu idling (set apm idle_threshold to 100) in
the _host_ OS.  (Leave it enabled in the guest OS.)  Tell us what
happens.

I repeat: You do not need to recompile the kernel to enable/disable
APM cpu idle: to disable it simply set idle_threshold to 100.



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