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Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] CPU "choking" under high load
From: Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com>
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On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Daniel Quinn wrote:
>>
>> I don't know if this is a hardware issue or not, but I thought that maybe
>> I'd
>> configured my kernel incorrectly and that this might be a known issue
>> someone
>> here has run across in the past so here goes:
>>
>> My computer is a pretty impressive AMD 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+ box
>> with 2GB of RAM and for the most part, I just use it to write code at
>> work.
>> However, whenever I'm doing something CPU-intensive, two things happen:
>>
>> * The load on the box goes up to 4
>> * The box intermittently wobbles from running at full-speed and dropping
>> to
>> a crawl. This is best seen while watching Flash videos online,
>> compressing/encoding video, or compiling. Everything is fine for a
>> few
>> minutes, then suddenly the rate of compiling/compression/playback etc.
>> drops to a crawl for about 1-3minutes, then back up to full speed.
>>
>> I don't know why it's happening. I've tried various kernel options with
>> no
>> change in behaviour. Outside of that though, I don't know what to try.
>> Suggestions welcome :-(
>>
>>
>
> Shot in the dark here. Could it be that something is getting hot, or thinks
> it is getting hot, and slows down processing in a effort to cool things down
> a bit? I don't know if this is just laptops but I think there is a option
> in the kernel to do this. I don't use it but it may be worth checking into.
> Maybe it was turned on by default.
Sometimes in the BIOS this happens, too. At work a few years ago we
had a Dell laptop where it thought the temperature was 200C degrees
all the time, so it would run the fan at full speed and go into
lowest-power mode etc. Once we determined it wasn't really 200C, we
found out it was a buggy BIOS and upgrading it solved the problem.
Nobody knows why the laptop worked fine for 2 years and then suddenly
exhibited this problem, but I was glad to get it fixed so I would stop
hearing the fan blowing at max speed in the cubicle next to mine. :)