686 kernel wastes CPU power

[Tommy Trussell]

On 4/13/06, Matt Patterson <matt at v8zman.com> wrote:
>
> I am not terribly concerned about verifying that more processor time is
> being used. The fan runs more, the temp is hotter, and the battery life is
> shorter. Using the basic tools like top, I see things like "system monitor",
> xorg, firefox, gnome-terminal all taking much larger chunks of cpu when I
> run the 686 kernel.
>
> I am not familiar with how to test an applications performance/cpu usage
> using time. If someone offers a quick tutorial I will be happy to do the
> tests and report here.
>
> One clue that I think may be related is that I have noticed a different feel
> under the 386 kernel. The responsiveness, entirely unrelated to the machine
> speed (which is always adequate), is slower in the 386 kernel. Mouse clicks
> react less quickly, etc. Perhaps the 686 kernel enables more aggressive
> polling of certain functionalities and thus impacts more on the CPU.

this may have nothing to do with your issue because I use a desktop
system, but I noticed that when I switched to the 686 kernel I lost
some power-related behavior, such as the system will not power down
completely (it goes throught the shutdown process and the hard drive
spins down, but the power never goes off).

I'm going to boot under the 386 kernel and confirm the behavior before
I file a report -- I'm having some other issues with dapper but there
are a few other features added since Breezy that (even with trouble)
make Dapper very nice indeed.