Re: [PATCH] x86/PCI: Convert force_disable_hpet() to standard quirk

[Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>]

Feng,

On Fri, Nov 27 2020 at 14:11, Feng Tang wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 12:27:34AM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> On Thu, Nov 26 2020 at 09:24, Feng Tang wrote:
>> Yes, that can happen. But OTOH, we should start to think about the
>> requirements for using the TSC watchdog.
>> 
>> I'm inclined to lift that requirement when the CPU has:
>> 
>>     1) X86_FEATURE_CONSTANT_TSC
>>     2) X86_FEATURE_NONSTOP_TSC
>
>>     3) X86_FEATURE_NONSTOP_TSC_S3
> IIUC, this feature exists for several generations of Atom platforms,
> and it is always coupled with 1) and 2), so it could be skipped for
> the checking.

Yes, we can ignore that bit as it's not widely available and not
required to solve the problem.

>>     4) X86_FEATURE_TSC_ADJUST
>>     
>>     5) At max. 4 sockets
>> 
>> The only reason I hate to disable HPET upfront at least during boot is
>> that HPET is the best mechanism for the refined TSC calibration. PMTIMER
>> sucks because it's slow and wraps around pretty quick.
>> 
>> So we could do the following even on platforms where HPET stops in some
>> magic PC? state:
>> 
>>   - Register it during early boot as clocksource
>> 
>>   - Prevent the enablement as clockevent and the chardev hpet timer muck
>> 
>>   - Prevent the magic PC? state up to the point where the refined
>>     TSC calibration is finished.
>> 
>>   - Unregister it once the TSC has taken over as system clocksource and
>>     enable the magic PC? state in which HPET gets disfunctional.
>
> This looks reasonable to me. 
>
> I have thought about lowering the hpet rating to lower than PMTIMER, so it
> still contributes in early boot phase, and fades out after PMTIMER is
> initialised.

Not a good idea. pm_timer is initialized before the refined calibration
finishes.

Thanks,

        tglx