[CentOS] cpuspeed causing hangs on warm boots

Sat Aug 12 11:27:24 UTC 2006
Johnny Hughes <mailing-lists at hughesjr.com>

On Tue, 2006-08-08 at 18:10 -0400, Dan Halbert wrote:
> We are using CentOS-4.3 (x86_64) with Opteron servers, and noticed a 
> problem with cpuspeed:
> 
> If we reboot by doing  "# reboot" or similar from a shell, the boot will 
> hang not long after cpuspeed starts. The machine freezes: ctrl-alt-del 
> doesn't work, and only pressing the reset button or a power cycle will 
> restart the machine.
> 
> If we reboot from power-up or by pressing the reset button, there is no 
> hang, and the boot proceeds normally.
> 
> Another strange thing is that only some boxes have this problem. Others, 
> seemingly identical, reboot just fine. We've compared the BIOS settings, 
> the CPU steppings, etc., and they seem to be identical. It's very odd. 
> Maybe we're missing a BIOS setting, but we couldn't find a difference.
> 
> We've fixed this just by turning off the cpuspeed service.
> 
> It took some trial and error to figure out this was caused by cpuspeed.  
> Misleadingly, the hang doesn't occur immediately after "Starting 
> cpuspeed: [OK]" prints. Instead it occurs when trying to bring up a 
> network interface, which is almost right after cpuspeed starting. With 
> the original 2.6.9-34.ELsmp, it's at "Bringing up interface eth0". With 
> the 2.6.9-34.0.2.ELsmp (and all other rpms updated), it hangs at 
> "Bringing up loopback interface". This may just be a timing thing.
> 
> We can just forget about cpuspeed, but if any of you have any advice, 
> we'd appreciate it. Otherwise I am basically posting this to save 
> diagnostic time for those who encounter these symptoms in the future.
> 
> These are dual-core dual Opteron 265/270 servers with Tyan K8SD Pro 
> motherboards.
> 
> Thanks,
> Dan

Personally, I don't like cpuspeed ... and I turn it off all the time
except on laptops.

I have also had issues, especially on AMD machines, with cpuspeed.
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