From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261284AbULTJJL (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Dec 2004 04:09:11 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261276AbULTJJL (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Dec 2004 04:09:11 -0500 Received: from webmail.sub.ru ([213.247.139.22]:13585 "HELO techno.sub.ru") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261287AbULTJIx (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Dec 2004 04:08:53 -0500 Message-ID: <21322.195.133.60.161.1103533647.squirrel@195.133.60.161> In-Reply-To: <20041219231250.457deb12.akpm@osdl.org> References: <1329986.1103525472726.JavaMail.tomcat@pne-ps1-sn1> <20041219231250.457deb12.akpm@osdl.org> Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:07:27 +0300 (MSK) Subject: Re: 2.6.10-rc3: kswapd eats CPU on start of memory-eating task From: mr@ramendik.ru To: "Andrew Morton" Cc: lista4@comhem.se, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au, mr@ramendik.ru, kernel@kolivas.org, riel@redhat.com User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a X-Mailer: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hello, > Did anyone come up with a simple step-by-step procedure for reproducing > the > problem? It would be good if someone could do this, because I don't think > we understand the root cause yet? Here's a step-by-step explanation of the way I test this: - Get the Memory Eater and compile it: http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/12/13/272 - Do a clean boot - Start top, and some app that has a clock and preferrably a CPU graph (to monitor screen freezes and CPU load; it's IceWM for me) - Start the Memory Eater - Give it an amount of megabytes that is more than the actual RAM size. I use a value of 300, as my computer has 256 M RAM. - Enjoy :) "eatmemory" will slowly eat up more and more RAM (visible in top as RSS); under 2.6.8.1 no screen freezes come, and under 2.6.9 and 2.6.10-rc3 they do come; under 2.6.10-rc3 I also see high CPU periods for kswapd. Yours, Mikhail Ramendik