Looking at the kernel CPUFreq Governors documentation[1], It looks like powersave is actually a pretty poor default value for many applications, but especially servers.
I'm not sure about low-power applications like laptops, and how power usage is affected by frequency on other architectures. Perhaps defaulting to the performance governor unless one of the more intelligent governors is available? [1]https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to linux in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1579278 Title: Consider changing default CPU frequency scaling governor back to "performance" Status in linux package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Status in linux source package in Xenial: Incomplete Bug description: Hi, With the new Ubuntu archive servers, we saw constantly high load and after some tinkering, we found that it was mostly CPUs being woken up to see if they should enter idle states. Changing the CPU frequency scaling governor to "performance" saw a considerable drop. Perf report using the following commands: | perf record -g -a sleep 10 | perf report | Samples: 287K of event 'cycles:pp', Event count (approx.): 124776998906 | Children Self Command Shared Object Symbol | + 55.24% 0.20% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] cpu_startup_entry | + 53.51% 0.00% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] start_secondary | + 53.02% 0.08% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] call_cpuidle | + 52.94% 0.02% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] cpuidle_enter | + 31.81% 0.67% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] cpuidle_enter_state | + 29.59% 0.12% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] acpi_idle_enter | + 29.45% 0.05% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] acpi_idle_do_entry | + 29.43% 29.43% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] acpi_processor_ffh_cstate_enter | + 20.51% 0.04% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] ret_from_intr | + 20.47% 0.12% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] do_IRQ | + 19.30% 0.07% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] irq_exit | + 19.18% 0.07% apache2 [kernel.kallsyms] [k] entry_SYSCALL_64_fastpath | + 18.80% 0.17% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] __do_softirq | + 16.45% 0.11% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] net_rx_action | + 16.25% 0.43% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] be_poll | + 14.74% 0.21% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] be_process_rx | + 13.61% 0.07% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] napi_gro_frags | + 12.58% 0.04% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] netif_receive_skb_internal | + 12.48% 0.03% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] __netif_receive_skb | + 12.42% 0.24% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] __netif_receive_skb_core | + 12.41% 0.00% apache2 [unknown] [k] 0x00007f27983b5028 | + 12.41% 0.00% apache2 [unknown] [k] 0x00007f2798369028 | + 11.49% 0.16% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] ip_rcv | + 11.29% 0.09% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] ip_rcv_finish | + 10.77% 0.05% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] ip_local_deliver | + 10.70% 0.06% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] ip_local_deliver_finish | + 10.55% 0.22% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] tcp_v4_rcv | + 10.10% 0.00% apache2 [unknown] [k] 0000000000000000 | + 10.01% 0.04% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] tcp_v4_do_rcv Expanding in a few of those, you'll see: | - 55.24% 0.20% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] cpu_startup_entry | - 55.04% cpu_startup_entry | - 52.98% call_cpuidle | + 52.93% cpuidle_enter | + 0.00% ret_from_intr | 0.00% cpuidle_enter_state | 0.00% irq_entries_start | + 1.14% cpuidle_select | + 0.47% schedule_preempt_disabled | 0.10% rcu_idle_enter | 0.09% rcu_idle_exit | + 0.05% ret_from_intr | + 0.05% tick_nohz_idle_enter | + 0.04% arch_cpu_idle_enter | 0.02% cpuidle_enter | 0.02% tick_check_broadcast_expired | + 0.01% cpuidle_reflect | 0.01% menu_reflect | 0.01% atomic_notifier_call_chain | 0.01% local_touch_nmi | 0.01% cpuidle_not_available | 0.01% menu_select | 0.01% cpuidle_get_cpu_driver | + 0.01% tick_nohz_idle_exit | + 0.01% sched_ttwu_pending | 0.00% set_cpu_sd_state_idle | 0.00% native_irq_return_iret | 0.00% schedule | + 0.00% arch_cpu_idle_exit | 0.00% __tick_nohz_idle_enter | 0.00% irq_entries_start | 0.00% sched_clock_idle_wakeup_event | 0.00% reschedule_interrupt | + 0.00% apic_timer_interrupt | + 0.20% start_secondary | + 0.00% x86_64_start_kernel | + 53.51% 0.00% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] start_secondary | + 53.02% 0.08% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] call_cpuidle | - 52.94% 0.02% swapper [kernel.kallsyms] [k] cpuidle_enter | - 52.92% cpuidle_enter | + 31.81% cpuidle_enter_state | + 20.01% ret_from_intr | + 0.51% apic_timer_interrupt | 0.28% native_irq_return_iret | + 0.09% reschedule_interrupt | 0.05% irq_entries_start | 0.05% do_IRQ | 0.05% common_interrupt | 0.02% sched_idle_set_state | 0.01% acpi_idle_enter | 0.01% ktime_get | 0.01% restore_regs_and_iret | 0.01% restore_c_regs_and_iret | + 0.01% call_function_single_interrupt | 0.00% native_iret | + 0.00% call_function_interrupt | 0.00% smp_apic_timer_interrupt | 0.00% smp_reschedule_interrupt | 0.00% smp_call_function_single_interrupt | + 0.02% start_secondary To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1579278/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
