Hi, I noticed this on an older kernel and reproduced it on -rc6: I boot the (RT) kernel with isolcpus=4-15 nohz=on nohz_full=4-15 rcu_nocbs=4-15 rcu_nocb_poll and compiled a NOHZ_FULL kernel. If I pin a shell onto the isolated CPU and do nothing then everything seems fine. If I issue commands, this happens: tick_nohz_handler() -> update_process_times() -> rcu_sched_clock_irq() rcu_sched_clock_irq() invokes rcu_pending() which returns true due to | /* Have RCU grace period completed or started? */ | if (rcu_seq_current(&rnp->gp_seq) != rdp->gp_seq || | unlikely(READ_ONCE(rdp->gpwrap))) /* outside lock */ | return 1; And it is the first check of the two. Later I see | /* Is the RCU core waiting for a quiescent state from this CPU? */ | gp_in_progress = rcu_gp_in_progress(); | if (rdp->core_needs_qs && !rdp->cpu_no_qs.b.norm && gp_in_progress) | return 1; which triggers it but then "later" it fallbacks to the first case again. In both cases it wakes the rcuc/ thread on the isolated CPU. Is this something that needs to happen on the isolated CPU or can this be excluded for rcu_rdp_is_offloaded() CPUs? Sebastian