Re: Lost Ticks on x86_64

Zwane Mwaikambo
2005-08-07T19:59:16Z

On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Lee Revell wrote:

> > It's most likely bad SMM code in the BIOS that blocks the CPU too long
> > and is triggered in idle. You can verify that by using idle=poll
> > (not recommended for production, just for testing) and see if it goes away.
> >
>
> WTF, since when do *desktops* use SMM? Are you telling me that we have
> to worry about these stupid ACPI/SMM hardware bugs on the desktop too?

It's a general platform thing and has been around for ages now...
Intel's ICH* definitely use it for example and those are on a lot of
desktop systems. For example, turning on "Legacy USB support" will
generate periodic SMIs.