kernel-packages team mailing list archive

[Oliver Grawert <ogra@xxxxxxxxxx>]

one thing i noticed is that after dropping intel_pstate=disable from teh kernel commandline, thermald does not seem to star/run at all .. starting it manually i captured http://paste.ubuntu.com/11541063/ 
note that the behavior gets minimally better with thermald running, but switching workspaces is still as slow as about 20-30 sec in slow motion ... 
http://imgur.com/Ukuv34t shows one terminal with the script above and one terminal with htop running ... this is with thermald active ... the CPU normally switches between 800MHz and 2.8GHz with the ondemand governor in use ... 
with thermald i se it between 133MHz and at very short spikes up to 3.5GHz (but even when the cores run at that sped the system only gets responsive for a few seconds)

turning intel_pstate back off gets me a relatively usable system back
...

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1460399

Title:
  ivybridge system gets completely unusable after upgrade to vivid
  thanks to defaulting to immature intel_pstate driver

Status in linux package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in linux source package in Vivid:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  I finally got around to upgrade my work laptop (first gen dell XPS
  sputnik system (ivy bridge)) yesterday, to find myself with a
  completely unusable and sluggish desktop, constantly spinning CPU fans
  and a hot enough laptop case that you can burn your fingers after the
  first reboot after install ... the device didn't stay on for more than
  10-15min in a row before the BIOS temperature monitor initiated
  emergency shutdowns.

  i also noticed a constant load average above 30.00 in htop

  after a few hours of researching i found that we apparently switched
  to the intel_pstate driver by default in vivid ...

  running a very simple script like:
  while true; do 
      clear
      cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep MHz
      sleep 1
  done

  ...revealed that the cores unconditionally switch to something like
  133MHz even though there is currently a lot going on in the system
  (firefox trying to recover 150 tabs after boot, evolution syncing with
  an IMAP server etc). it looks to me like the intel_pstate driver (at
  least on ivybridge hardware) is far from being ready for end users and
  if i wouldn't have known how to do a detailed research on these issues
  i would most likely have switched to another distro or to a different
  known working ubuntu release. could we turn this default back to the
  ondemand cpufreq governor in an SRU until the driver has matured
  enough, so we do not lose our ivybridge users and do not generate bad
  press ?

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
  Package: linux-image-3.19.0-18-generic 3.19.0-18.18
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-18.18-generic 3.19.6
  Uname: Linux 3.19.0-18-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1.1
  Architecture: amd64
  AudioDevicesInUse:
   USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
   /dev/snd/controlC0:  ogra       2120 F.... pulseaudio
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Sun May 31 11:53:35 2015
  DistributionChannelDescriptor:
   # This is a distribution channel descriptor
   # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
   canonical-oem-somerville-precise-amd64-20120703-2
  HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=145593f3-8085-4308-99b1-e1ff9c80f273
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-11-05 (572 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20120703-15:08
  MachineType: Dell Inc. XPS L322X
  ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
  ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-18-generic root=UUID=d0a6e4d2-9705-4ce3-97be-8ec33e06f2cb ro quiet splash intel_pstate=disable crashkernel=384M-:128M vt.handoff=7
  RelatedPackageVersions:
   linux-restricted-modules-3.19.0-18-generic N/A
   linux-backports-modules-3.19.0-18-generic  N/A
   linux-firmware                             1.143.1
  SourcePackage: linux
  SystemImageInfo:
   current build number: 0
   device name: 
   channel: daily
   last update: Unknown
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to vivid on 2015-05-30 (0 days ago)
  dmi.bios.date: 08/28/2013
  dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.bios.version: A10
  dmi.board.name: 0PJHXN
  dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.board.version: A00
  dmi.chassis.type: 8
  dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.chassis.version: 0.1
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA10:bd08/28/2013:svnDellInc.:pnXPSL322X:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0PJHXN:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr0.1:
  dmi.product.name: XPS L322X
  dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

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