massive loss of timer interrupts and hence system time is dramatically behind rtc clock (and dramatically behind our place in the space-time continuum as well). losses of >20% wall time not unusual. symptoms manifest when: * ripping cds (setuid root, real-time scheduler) * burning cds (setuid root, real-time scheduler) * playing mp3s with xmms (*not root*) hardware config (see wozzle.geeksrus.net on rhn): asus pc3j133 (?i'm at work, not home?) via chipset aha-2930cu atapi cdrom as hdd tdk atapi cd-rw as scd0 creative audio pci (es1371) diamond supraexpress 56k usb modem logitech usb mouse voodoo 3000 agp video smc pci 10/100 ethernet
There is a known problem with via chipsets and losing time. It seems to sometimes reset itself to a frequency of 18Hz (the Windows default) while Linux programmed it to 100Hz. It should be worked around as of the Linux 2.2.19-pre1 kernel.