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FIXME: use hyper-v time counter (rather than i8254) to calibrate TSC
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The i8254 PIT counter emulated by Hyper-V is not reliable.

In probe_tsc_freq() -> DELAY -> init_ops.early_delay() -> i8254_delay(),
getit() can return these values when it is invoked 10 times:
  1 pit count0 = 228
  2 pit count0 = 131
  3 pit count0 = 34
  4 pit count0 = 65473 <-- this is a normal wrap-around.
  5 pit count0 = 65375
  6 pit count0 = 65278
  7 pit count0 = 65180
  8 pit count0 = 65388 <-- this is bad!
  9 pit count0 = 65290
 10 pit count0 = 65193

For the 8th time, the 'delta' in i8254_delay() is < 0 while
it shouldn't, so the later "delta += i8254_max_count;" and
"ticks_left -= delta" will cause i8254_delay() to wait shorter than
expected, and finally probe_tsc_freq() get a smaller 'tsc_freq'.

A smaller 'tsc_freq' can cause time inaccuracy in dtrace.
It can also cause warnings like

calcru: runtime went backwards from 50 usec to 25 usec for pid 0 (kernel)
calcru: runtime went backwards from 1471 usec to 743 usec for pid 0 (kernel)
calcru: runtime went backwards from 40 usec to 20 usec for pid 0 (kernel)
calcru: runtime went backwards from 18 usec to 9 usec for pid 0 (kernel)
calcru: runtime went backwards from 46204978 usec to 23362331 usec for pid 0 (kernel)

We use Hyper-V time counter, which is much more reliable than i8254,
to calibrate TSC.

Signed-off-by: Dexuan Cui <decui@microsoft.com>
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dcui committed Dec 17, 2015
1 parent 7c29ef1 commit 07acbd8
Showing 1 changed file with 11 additions and 0 deletions.
11 changes: 11 additions & 0 deletions sys/x86/x86/delay.c
Expand Up @@ -95,12 +95,23 @@ delay_tc(int n)
return (1);
}

#define HV_X64_MSR_TIME_REF_COUNT 0x40000020
void
DELAY(int n)
{
uint64_t now, end;

if (delay_tc(n))
return;
//FIXME: XXX: need to find a way to do this cleanly...
#if 1
now = rdmsr(HV_X64_MSR_TIME_REF_COUNT);
end = now + n * 10;

while (now < end)
now = rdmsr(HV_X64_MSR_TIME_REF_COUNT);
#else

init_ops.early_delay(n);
#endif
}

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