Bug 1044600

I just finished the upgrade from Fedora 19 to Fedora 20 on my Thinkpad T60. I can see the mouse pointer stuttering, mainly while the computer is loading from the hard disk.
My desktop environment is KDE




+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #748217 +++

Description of problem:
Pointer in Xfce starts to stutter randomly making it hard to move around. Problem also occurs in other desktop environments when using Fedora.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 15

How reproducible:
Start Xfce / other desktop environment and after a few minutes problem starts.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:
I have noticed the following when running top:

root: kworker/0:2 kworker/1:2 CPU usage can go up to 70% when not doing anything else other than move around the screen.

--- Additional comment from  on 2011-10-23 13:27:48 EDT ---

The problem is faced by many laptop users. Unfortunately there appears to be little documentation ref kworker. 

Some users have said the following helps: echo N> /sys/module/drm_kms_helper/parameters/poll but I do not what why...

Can anyone advise why this is an issue and when a fix will be available?

Thanks

--- Additional comment from  on 2011-10-30 13:08:27 EDT ---

I have tested Fedora 16 too and the same problem is occurring with the GNOME (x86_64). It would appear to be an issue with kernels since Fedora 15.

I have also tested Debian 6 and can confirm there is not problem with 2.6.32 (x86_64).

--- Additional comment from  on 2011-11-11 15:20:40 EST ---

drm_kms_helper.poll=0 in grub / boot may help.

--- Additional comment from Chuck Ebbert on 2011-11-29 04:36:50 EST ---

What kernel version are you using?

--- Additional comment from  on 2011-12-01 17:11:15 EST ---

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for your response. 

In terms of kernel it makes no difference if I use the version supplied with the Fedora 15 / 16 release or the latest the stuttering still occurs. In addition because CPU uses increases so much battery life drops considerably and is almost half what I would get if using a Windows OS.

Unfortunately the problem makes using Linux distros unbearable and since I have not been able to 100% resolve this I have removed Linux. I am willing to do tests using Fedora 16 (life usb) if this will help.

Thanks

--- Additional comment from Josh Boyer on 2012-06-07 11:03:02 EDT ---

Do you still see this with an F17 live image?

--- Additional comment from  on 2012-06-09 06:48:36 EDT ---

Hi Josh,

I will be doing a test with Fedora 17 x86_64 Live image on a USB stick and provide feedback soon.

--- Additional comment from  on 2012-06-09 12:36:27 EDT ---

Unfortunately there is still stutter although it does seem a little better than previous releases of Fedora. Battery life again does show a drop when the stuttering is occuring.

Bear in mind I only had Firefox and the GNOME 3 file manager when this started hapening.

--- Additional comment from Josh Boyer on 2012-07-11 13:52:14 EDT ---

Fedora 15 has reached it's end of life as of June 26, 2012.  As a result, we will not be fixing any remaining bugs found in Fedora 15.

In the event that you have upgraded to a newer release and the bug you reported is still present, please reopen the bug and set the version field to the newest release you have encountered the issue with.  Before doing so, please ensure you are testing the latest kernel update in that release and attach any new and relevant information you may have gathered.

Thank you for taking the time to file a report.  We hope newer versions of Fedora suit your needs.

--- Additional comment from  on 2012-12-28 06:20:12 EST ---

The problem continues with Fedora 17 and 18 beta. Is their ever going to be a fix?

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-03-07 14:28:44 EST ---

Until now it always helped when i executed (kernels before 3.8)

echo N> /sys/module/drm_kms_helper/parameters/poll

Recently I've upgraded to kernel 3.8.1 on my Lenovo T400 and system became VERY laggy even after disabling polling. 

The quickiest way how to trigger mouse stuttering is to switch to gnome-shell overview and start scrolling among application icons.

TOP output:
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                                                         
 6846 root      20   0     0    0    0 R  28.6  0.0   0:18.93 kworker/u:3                                                                                     
 7564 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   3.6  0.0   0:01.93 kworker/0:1                                                                                     
 1663 cqs       20   0 1980m 309m  32m S   3.3  8.0   7:28.30 gnome-shell                                                                                     
 6789 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   3.3  0.0   0:07.27 kworker/1:0                                                                                     
 5907 cqs       20   0  715m  23m  12m S   1.3  0.6   0:05.03 gnome-terminal           

POWERTOP output:
368.4 wakeups/second, 12.3 GPU ops/second, 0.0 VFS ops/sec, 40.3 GFX wakes/sec and 67.7% CPU use
Usage 	Events/s 	Category 	Description
1893 rpm 		Device 	Laptop fan
52.2% 	8.4 	kWork 	i915_hotplug_work_func
0.3% 	82.1 	Interrupt 	[46] i915
0.2% 	78.7 	Interrupt 	PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse
5.5% 	40.8 	Process 	/usr/bin/gnome-shell
0.5% 	46.7 	Timer 	tick_sched_timer
0.1% 	32.7 	kWork 	od_dbs_timer
0.4% 	21.9 	Process 	gnome-terminal
0.1% 	15.3 	Interrupt 	[7] sched(softirq)
0.7% 	12.2 	Process 	/usr/bin/Xorg :0 -background none -verbose -auth /var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-BSmIYl/database -seat seat0 -nolisten tcp vt1
2.4% 	2.5 	Process 	[kworker/u:3]

POWERTOP - software power consumers
Usage 	Wakeups/s 	GPU ops/s 	Disk IO/s 	GFX Wakeups/s 	Category 	Description
521.6 ms/s 	4.2 	4.1 			kWork 	i915_hotplug_work_func
3.2 ms/s 	81.8 	0.2 			Interrupt 	[46] i915
1.7 ms/s 	78.7 				Interrupt 	PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse
55.4 ms/s 	35.7 	5.1 		20.8 	Process 	/usr/bin/gnome-shell
5.3 ms/s 	46.7 				Timer 	tick_sched_timer

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-06-21 12:06:14 EDT ---

I'm going to try Fedora 19 but I wont hold my breath as there seems little response from Fedora / RH.

masaj, thanks for adding your update.

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-06-21 13:36:49 EDT ---

(In reply to my_linux from comment #12)
> I'm going to try Fedora 19 but I wont hold my breath as there seems little
> response from Fedora / RH.
> 
> masaj, thanks for adding your update.

Hi my_linux,

I'm afraid nobody is going to fix this, so either you throw your laptop out of window or stay with 3.7.9

I've been testing many kernels since my last comment and all with the same result, unusable.

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-06-21 13:37:57 EDT ---

BTW, the same slowness is spotted also on other distros like newest Ubuntu, etc.. with kernel higher than 3.8

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-06-27 03:16:56 EDT ---

Yep it's been going on for far too long, however, I find it hard to believe it's only this laptop that is showing this issue.

Throwing the laptop out the windows is out of the question ;-). I've installed Windows 7 on a SSD and it's extremely quick so no Linux distro unless a VM.

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-07-05 06:52:48 EDT ---

I think good news are arriving here!

"A big pain relief, at least on affected systems, is Ebgert Eich's hotplug irq storm mitigation work. With the modeset locking rework from 3.9 this should get rid of the last reason to boot with the drm_kms_helper.poll=0 option. Finally no longer a sluggish cursor and delayed screen updates!"

http://blog.ffwll.ch/2013/04/neat-drmi915-stuff-for-310.html

--- Additional comment from Justin M. Forbes on 2013-10-18 17:07:41 EDT ---

*********** MASS BUG UPDATE **************

We apologize for the inconvenience.  There is a large number of bugs to go through and several of them have gone stale.  Due to this, we are doing a mass bug update across all of the Fedora 18 kernel bugs.

Fedora 18 has now been rebased to 3.11.4-101.fc18.  Please test this kernel update (or newer) and let us know if you issue has been resolved or if it is still present with the newer kernel.

If you have moved on to Fedora 19, and are still experiencing this issue, please change the version to Fedora 19.

If you experience different issues, please open a new bug report for those.

--- Additional comment from Justin M. Forbes on 2013-11-27 11:15:28 EST ---

*********** MASS BUG UPDATE **************

We apologize for the inconvenience.  There is a large number of bugs to go through and several of them have gone stale.  

It has been over a month since we asked you to test the 3.11 kernel updates and let us know if your issue has been resolved or is still a problem. When this happened, the bug was set to needinfo.  Because the needinfo is still set, we assume either this is no longer a problem, or you cannot provide additional information to help us resolve the issue.  As a result we are closing with insufficient data. If this is still a problem, we apologize, feel free to reopen the bug and provide more information so that we can work towards a resolution

If you experience different issues, please open a new bug report for those.

--- Additional comment from  on 2013-11-28 01:57:11 EST ---

Hello, just fyi, this problem disappeared with kernel 3.12. Thanks!