From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.78 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.19-7.0.8 i686) Description of problem: The kapm-idled process consumes an excessive amount of CPU time on my IBM Thinkpad 770Z running RH7.1 Typically it is consuming ~75% of the CPU leaving only 25% CPU for idle time. The system is fairly sluggish when this process is consuming CPU time. Background niced processes get almost no CPU time. Because this is a kernel process, one cannot even kill it. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.run top on an IBM Thinkpad 770Z 2. 3. Actual Results: Process 3 is hugging ~75% of the CPU. Expected Results: An idle system would have nearly 100% of the CPU available. Additional info:
When I re-build the kernel with CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE not set, the kapm-idled no longer became a CPU hog. Is that a bug or a feature? If feature, it is certainly a mis-feature on the IBM Thinkpad 770Z.
Changed the sevarity to Normal since there is a work-a-round to compile a kernel without CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE.
It's a feature. kapm-idled is ALSO the idle task, but the one where your laptop goes into powersave mode during idle..... I agree it's a bit confusing to see it show up though.