On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 01:38:41PM +0000, Zheng, Lv wrote: > > - raw_spin_lock(&ghes_nmi_lock); > > + if (!atomic_add_unless(&ghes_in_nmi, 1, 1)) > > + return ret; > > + > > if (atomic_cmpxchg(&ghes_in_nmi, 0, 1)) > return ret; Ok, now I understand what you mean. We absolutely want to use atomic_add_unless() because we get to save us the expensive LOCK; CMPXCHG if the value was already 1. Which is exactly what this patch is trying to avoid - a thundering herd of cores CMPXCHGing a global variable. I.e., movl ghes_in_nmi(%rip), %ecx # MEM[(const int *)&ghes_in_nmi], c cmpl $1, %ecx #, c je .L311 #, <--- exit here if ghes_in_nmi == 1. leal 1(%rcx), %edx #, D.37163 movl %ecx, %eax # c, c #APP # 177 "./arch/x86/include/asm/atomic.h" 1 .pushsection .smp_locks,"a" .balign 4 .long 671f - . .popsection 671: lock; cmpxchgl %edx,ghes_in_nmi(%rip) # D.37163, MEM[(volatile u32 *)&ghes_in_nmi] # 0 "" 2 #NO_APP -- Regards/Gruss, Boris. ECO tip #101: Trim your mails when you reply. -- -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-acpi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html