[PATCH 3.10 06/65] sched/idle/x86: Restore mwait_idle() to fix boot hangs, to improve power savings and to improve performance

Greg Kroah-Hartman
2015-05-02T19:50:39Z

From: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>

commit b253149b843f89cd300cbdbea27ce1f847506f99 upstream.

In Linux-3.9 we removed the mwait_idle() loop:

69fb3676df33 ("x86 idle: remove mwait_idle() and "idle=mwait" cmdline param")

The reasoning was that modern machines should be sufficiently
happy during the boot process using the default_idle() HALT
loop, until cpuidle loads and either acpi_idle or intel_idle
invoke the newer MWAIT-with-hints idle loop.

But two machines reported problems:

1. Certain Core2-era machines support MWAIT-C1 and HALT only.
MWAIT-C1 is preferred for optimal power and performance.
But if they support just C1, cpuidle never loads and
so they use the boot-time default idle loop forever.

2. Some laptops will boot-hang if HALT is used,
but will boot successfully if MWAIT is used.
This appears to be a hidden assumption in BIOS SMI,
that is presumably valid on the proprietary OS
where the BIOS was validated.

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60770

So here we effectively revert the patch above, restoring
the mwait_idle() loop. However, we don't bother restoring
the idle=mwait cmdline parameter, since it appears to add
no value.

Maintainer notes:

For 3.9, simply revert 69fb3676df
for 3.10, patch -F3 applies, fuzz needed due to __cpuinit use in
context For 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, this patch applies cleanly

Tested-by: Mike Galbraith <bitbucket@online.de>
Signed-off-by: Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>
Acked-by: Mike Galbraith <bitbucket@online.de>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # 3.9+
Cc: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Ian Malone <ibmalone@gmail.com>
Cc: Josh Boyer <jwboyer@redhat.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Mike Galbraith <efault@gmx.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/345254a551eb5a6a866e048d7ab570fd2193aca4.1389763084.git.len.brown@intel.com
[ Ported to recent kernels. ]
[ Mike: 3.10 backport ]
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Mike Galbraith <efault@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
---
arch/x86/kernel/process.c | 49 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 49 insertions(+)

--- a/arch/x86/kernel/process.c
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/process.c
@@ -398,6 +398,52 @@ static void amd_e400_idle(void)
default_idle();
}

+/*
+ * Intel Core2 and older machines prefer MWAIT over HALT for C1.
+ * We can't rely on cpuidle installing MWAIT, because it will not load
+ * on systems that support only C1 -- so the boot default must be MWAIT.
+ *
+ * Some AMD machines are the opposite, they depend on using HALT.
+ *
+ * So for default C1, which is used during boot until cpuidle loads,
+ * use MWAIT-C1 on Intel HW that has it, else use HALT.
+ */
+static int prefer_mwait_c1_over_halt(const struct cpuinfo_x86 *c)
+{
+ if (c->x86_vendor != X86_VENDOR_INTEL)
+ return 0;
+
+ if (!cpu_has(c, X86_FEATURE_MWAIT))
+ return 0;
+
+ return 1;
+}
+
+/*
+ * MONITOR/MWAIT with no hints, used for default default C1 state.
+ * This invokes MWAIT with interrutps enabled and no flags,
+ * which is backwards compatible with the original MWAIT implementation.
+ */
+
+static void mwait_idle(void)
+{
+ if (!current_set_polling_and_test()) {
+ if (static_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_CLFLUSH_MONITOR)) {
+ mb();
+ clflush((void *)&current_thread_info()->flags);
+ mb();
+ }
+
+ __monitor((void *)&current_thread_info()->flags, 0, 0);
+ if (!need_resched())
+ __sti_mwait(0, 0);
+ else
+ local_irq_enable();
+ } else
+ local_irq_enable();
+ __current_clr_polling();
+}
+
void __cpuinit select_idle_routine(const struct cpuinfo_x86 *c)
{
#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
@@ -411,6 +457,9 @@ void __cpuinit select_idle_routine(const
/* E400: APIC timer interrupt does not wake up CPU from C1e */
pr_info("using AMD E400 aware idle routine\n");
x86_idle = amd_e400_idle;
+ } else if (prefer_mwait_c1_over_halt(c)) {
+ pr_info("using mwait in idle threads\n");
+ x86_idle = mwait_idle;
} else
x86_idle = default_idle;
}