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From: Andreas Mohr <andi@rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Cc: B.Zolnierkiewicz@elka.pw.edu.pl, linux-ide@vger.kernel.org,
	kernel list <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH -mm] ide_end_drive_cmd(): avoid instruction pipeline stall
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:13:51 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20060630161351.GA17434@rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de> (raw)

Use an independently-formatted "unsigned int" for data instead of a
restrictive "u16" to avoid instruction fetch pipeline stalls
probably caused by the byte calculations later.


ide_end_drive_cmd() uses an u16 variable for the result of an INW()
which it then does some byte masking operations on.
On my P3/700, this results in a highly visible IFU_MEM_STALL oprofile blip
when doing a simple "load 30 larger GUI apps in parallel" benchmark
(which takes about 1:30 or so, BTW):
The ide_end_drive_cmd() IFU_MEM_STALL amounts to 0.59% of all IFU_MEM_STALL
events during the profiling, with this opcode line amounting to > 95%
IFU_MEM_STALL within the function itself.

Replacing the u16 by an architecture-independently formatted unsigned int
to ease the byte-masking operations:

	/* no u16 here: caused severe IFU_MEM_STALL! */
	unsigned int data                               = hwif->INW(IDE_DATA_REG);
	args->tfRegister[IDE_DATA_OFFSET]       = (data) & 0xFF;
	args->hobRegister[IDE_DATA_OFFSET]      = (data >> 8) & 0xFF;

completely puts ide_end_drive_cmd() off the IFU_MEM_STALL radar during
repeated profiling attempts (after a fresh reboot with the modified kernel),
as opposed to having been the *top* oprofile trace item before.

I suppose that this is something like a textbook example of why it's
sometimes not beneficial to not use native-sized (i.e., 32bit) variables,
right?

Run-tested on 2.6.17-mm4.

Signed-off-by: Andreas Mohr <andi@lisas.de>


diff -urN linux-2.6.17-mm4.orig/drivers/ide/ide-io.c linux-2.6.17-mm4.my/drivers/ide/ide-io.c
--- linux-2.6.17-mm4.orig/drivers/ide/ide-io.c	2006-06-29 11:57:12.000000000 +0200
+++ linux-2.6.17-mm4.my/drivers/ide/ide-io.c	2006-06-30 11:54:12.000000000 +0200
@@ -397,7 +397,8 @@
 			
 		if (args) {
 			if (args->tf_in_flags.b.data) {
-				u16 data				= hwif->INW(IDE_DATA_REG);
+				/* no u16 here: caused severe IFU_MEM_STALL! */
+				unsigned int data				= hwif->INW(IDE_DATA_REG);
 				args->tfRegister[IDE_DATA_OFFSET]	= (data) & 0xFF;
 				args->hobRegister[IDE_DATA_OFFSET]	= (data >> 8) & 0xFF;
 			}

             reply	other threads:[~2006-06-30 16:13 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2006-06-30 16:13 Andreas Mohr [this message]
2006-06-30 17:26 ` [PATCH -mm] ide_end_drive_cmd(): avoid instruction pipeline stall Alan Cox
2006-06-30 18:00   ` Andrew Morton
2006-06-30 18:21     ` Alan Cox

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