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Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2005 14:04:46 -0600 (MDT)
From: Zwane Mwaikambo <zwane@arm.linux.org.uk>
To: Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com>
cc: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>, Erick Turnquist <jhujhiti@gmail.com>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Lost Ticks on x86_64
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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.