Re: ACPI using too much CPU on idle system

In message: <20030328043524.GA18639_at_rot13.obsecurity.org>
            Kris Kennaway <kris_at_obsecurity.org> writes:
: On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 01:20:40PM -0800, Kris Kennaway wrote:
: > top -S shows the following on my machine:
: > 
: > CPU states:  0.8% user,  0.0% nice, 80.3% system, 12.9% interrupt,  6.1% idle
: > 
: >   PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
: >    11 root     -16    0     0K    12K RUN    563:23 32.23% 32.23% idle
: >     7 root     -84    0     0K    12K actask   1:33 18.51% 18.51% acpi_task2
: >     5 root     -84    0     0K    12K actask   1:33 18.21% 18.21% acpi_task0
: >     6 root     -84    0     0K    12K actask   1:33 17.82% 17.82% acpi_task1
: >    21 root     -68 -187     0K    12K WAIT     0:55  4.98%  4.98% irq9: fxp0 atapci0*
: >    17 root     -24 -143     0K    12K WAIT     0:06  0.83%  0.83% swi6: acpitaskq
: >  
: > The machine is supposedly idle..no process, disk or network activity,
: > so I can't see any reason for all this kernel CPU activity.  What is
: > going on?  Is this some kind of software-emulated CPU step-down
: > because ACPI has decided my CPU is too fast? :)
: 
: Hello, ACPI people?  I haven't had any response to this yet.

I've seen this on a dying battery on my Dell i8000.  From time to
time, it just eats lots of CPU trying to get the battery's status.
Could also be a defective battery bay.  But I see very similar
results.

Warner