On 2011.06.06 at 18:34 +0200, Vincent Guittot wrote: > On 6 June 2011 16:16, Markus Trippelsdorf <markus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On 2011.06.06 at 15:11 +0200, Vincent Guittot wrote: > >> On 6 June 2011 13:20, Markus Trippelsdorf <markus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> > On 2011.06.06 at 09:35 +0200, Vincent Guittot wrote: > >> >> On 2 June 2011 13:41, Markus Trippelsdorf <markus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> >> > On 2011.06.01 at 20:00 +0200, Markus Trippelsdorf wrote: > >> >> >> But I have found the root cause of symptoms described above by > >> >> >> bisection. It turned out that 2.6.39 is also affected, so I've bisected > >> >> >> down to 2.6.38. > >> >> >> This is the result: > >> >> >> > >> >> >> 5cb2c3bd0c5e0f3ced63f250ec2ad59d7c5c626a is the first bad commit > >> >> >> commit 5cb2c3bd0c5e0f3ced63f250ec2ad59d7c5c626a > >> >> >> Author: Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@xxxxxxxxxx> > >> >> >> Date: Mon Feb 7 17:14:25 2011 +0100 > >> >> >> > >> >> >> [CPUFREQ] calculate delay after dbs_check_cpu > >> >> >> > >> >> >> When I revert the above in 3.0-rc1 the CONFIG_NO_HZ=y symptoms vanish. > >> >> > > >> >> > >> >> The patch, you have mentioned, solves a problem when ondemand governor > >> >> goes from highest frequency to a lower one. Without the patch, the > >> >> governor uses the longest sampling period (sampling period * scaling > >> >> down factor) with a low frequency during the 1st period after > >> >> decreasing the frequency. This can lead to a large time frame > >> >> (sampling period * scaling down factor) with a low frequency but an > >> >> overloaded cpu. > >> > > >> > The problem with the patch is that it results in an ondemand behavior > >> > that almost totally ignores the middle frequencies (2100 and 2500 MHz in > >> > my case) with CONFIG_NO_HZ. If you also set the sampling_down_factor to > >> > something like >=100 then the CPU will spend much of the time at the top > >> > frequency even if there is no workload whatsoever. > >> > > >> > >> In fact, one main goal of the ondemand governor is to switch to max > >> frequency as soon as there is a cpu activity is detected to ensure the > >> responsiveness of the system. If your idle activity is made of burst > >> of cpu activity and your sampling period is small, your sytems will > >> switch between the highest and the lowest frequency. At the contrary, > >> the conservative governor modifies the frequency in a step by step > >> manner. > > > > Understood. But this a change in behavior due to your patch. > > > >> >> The other correction of the patch is linked to the powersave bias > >> >> mode. The governor didn't use the right period for the low frequency > >> >> step (freq_lo_jiffies) but a larger one (sampling period * scaling > >> >> down factor). The ratio between low and high frequency was not the > >> >> right one. > >> >> > >> >> Do you use the powersave bias mode ? > >> > > >> > No. > >> > > >> >> Could you give us more statistics : the number of state transition > >> >> could be an interesting value. Is there a difference with and without > >> >> CONFIG_NO_HZ ? What is your sampling rate ? > >> > > >> > These are my settings: > >> > > >> > ignore_nice_load 0 > >> > io_is_busy 0 > >> > powersave_bias 0 > >> > sampling_down_factor 200 > >> > sampling_rate 10000 > >> > sampling_rate_min 10000 > >> > up_threshold 95 > >> > > >> > cat sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/stats/* on an otherwise idle > >> > machine with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 5cb2c3bd0c5e0f reverted: > >> > 3200000 532 > >> > 2500000 172 > >> > 2100000 2703 > >> > 800000 20995 > >> > 153 > >> > > >> > >> With this configuration (without the patch), there is a period of 2 > >> seconds with a low frequency when the governor comes back from the > >> highest frequency. During these 2 seconds, you will not be able to go > >> back to max frequency. So, if your cpu is overloaded during this 2 > >> seconds period, you will not increase your frequency. For this use > >> case, your cpufreq responsiveness is more then 2 seconds. > > > > I don't see these 2 second delays (being stuck on a low frequency) on my > > system. On the contrary as soon as there is sufficient load it switches > > to the highest frequency immediately. > > > > Let assume that your system is at the highest frequency > > without the patch, you have the following sequence : > > ->do_dbs_timer > -> delay = usecs_to_jiffies(dbs_tuners_ins.sampling_rate * > dbs_info->rate_mult); // delay will be equal to 10000*200=2000000us > -> dbs_check_cpu > Let assume that your cpu load is quite small > -> freq_next = max_load_freq / (dbs_tuners_ins.up_threshold > - dbs_tuners_ins.down_differential); //freq_next is set to your lowest > frequency > -> __cpufreq_driver_target(policy, freq_next, CPUFREQ_RELATION_L); > -> queue_delayed_work_on(cpu, kondemand_wq, &dbs_info->work, delay); > > the delay value is set to sampling_rate * rate_mult but the frequency > is the lowest one which is not the correct behavior of the > sampling_down_factor feature. > the patch only solves this issue. > > IMHO, the previous results were "good" because of the bug in the > sampling_down_factor which was "filtering" some cpu activities after > decreasing the frequency. OK, this explains the issue that I was seeing. To prove the point here are the "emerge" times of the ncurses library in Gentoo (unpacking, configuration, compiling and installing) for different sampling_down_factors. sampling_down_factor merge time (with your patch) 1 1 minute and 59 seconds. 20 1 minute and 47 seconds. 100 1 minute and 29 seconds. 150 1 minute and 24 seconds. 200 1 minute and 22 seconds. 300 1 minute and 20 seconds. 500 1 minute and 12 seconds. 1500 1 minute and 7 seconds. (with patch reverted) 1 2 minutes and 4 seconds. 20 1 minute and 55 seconds. 200 1 minute and 41 seconds. As you can see your patch always beats the reverted case. It also shows that sampling_down_factor makes a huge difference in compilation time. -- Markus -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe cpufreq" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
