ksoftirqd Using 20-25% of CPU with only GUI running

[poet_imp]

When I start VirtualBox, before I even think of starting a virtual machine, I look at system utilization and notice ksoftirqd using a very significant portion of my box; usually 20-25%.

Here is what I see in top:

Code: Select all

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
    7 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S   21  0.0   0:11.80 ksoftirqd/1

Is this a known issue? Is there something I can do to make it not do this?

$ uname -a
Linux xxx.xxx.com 2.6.22.1-41.fc7 #1 SMP Fri Jul 27 18:10:34 EDT 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ rpm -qa | grep -i virt
VirtualBox-1.4.0_21864_fedora7-1

$ sudo /usr/bin/smoltSendProfile
<snip>
Platform: i686
BogoMIPS: 6403.40
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Model: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz
Number of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 3199
System Memory: 2026
System Swap: 1983
Vendor: BUYMPC
System:
Form factor: unknown
Kernel: 2.6.22.1-41.fc7
<snip>

[poet_imp]

Interesting... I was hoping for at least a "I am noticing the same things... " post. Am I the only one seeing this?

[vor]

I was seeing this too using a 2.6.22 kernel and VirtualBox from svn. Just starting the VirtualBox gui was causing the problem even if no VM's were running. Getting the latest bits from svn today made the problem go away so it would seem the problem will be fixed with the new version of VirtualBox.

[vor]

Actually, I take that back. It appeared to be fixed but then I realized I didn't have the kernel module loaded. Once the kernel module is loaded, it still uses the 20% CPU while idle even with the latest bits from svn.

[c0nv1ct]

Same issue here, seems to have started around the time i upgraded my kernel to 2.6.22. I get 2 processes, ksoftirqd/0 and ksoftirqd/1, both using 10-20% cpu. I'm using vbox 1.4.0 though, havent tried svn version yet.

[c0nv1ct]

Problem still exists in 1.5.0 OSE

[frank]

Please could you attach your kernel configuration?

Thanks,

Frank

[frank]

Please could you try to boot with the

nohz=off

Linux kernel command line parameter?

[nc42]

What does nohz=no do? It seems to work

[frank]

This option prevents the host Linux to enter the tickless mode. In this mode the kernel timer is programmed in one-shot mode, contrary to the periodic mode which is normally used. VirtualBox currently does not play well with host kernels in one-shot mode. We are working on a solution. Until we fixed it, use this option to restore the old behavior.

[thripsi]

I had the same problem with ksoftirqd on (k)ubuntu 7.10
(linux 2.6.22-14-generic, VirtualBox 1.5.0 OSE).
The boot option "nohz=off" did solve the problem .

[Pépou]

Please could you try to boot with the

nohz=off

Linux kernel command line parameter?

Sorry but I've got the CPU problem too. Where can we change the kernel configuration ??

Thank you. My guest is ubuntu gusty.

[frank]

The guest is not relevant, only the host in that case.

[Pépou]

Sorry I confused myself. My host is ubuntu gusty, and my guest is windows XP.. So I need to do this modification !

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Ingo]

In / boot/grub/menu.list for bootloader grub or in /etc/lilo.conf for bootloader lilo.