Debian: kworker/u:7 using up 30% of CPU resources
 

I'm using Debian Sid with Linux kernel 3.3.0-trunk (3.3.2-experimental) and I've noticed that kworker/u:7 uses up to 30% CPU resources and the last time I've tried 3.3.0-rc6, kworker/u:1 uses up to 20% in one of two CPU cores. I don't know what is causing it, so according to the article with noacpi or acpi=off, since I've set acpi=off in /etc/default/grub, I thought this might solve my problem.

For some reason, I can't SSH into my Debian server, probably because the kernel got hang up? I've just made a mistake as I'm unsure if very new computers need ACPI to function. Do they?

I mean, what is causing kworker/u:7 or kworker/u:1 to use up a lot of CPU resources? Linux 3.3.0-trunk did work when kworker is not using any CPU resources, but after a few minutes after reboot (maybe around 10 to 20 minutes? I don't know), it does.

usually when kworker is running that high root is doing something.

like cron, logrotate, updatedb, or one of the security apps like tiger, clamav, etc is doing something. On my laptop when I first boot I usually have to wait about 5 minutes to get anything done for those reasons. If you look in top or ps aux you will most likely see a power intensive service running. If its not a root/cron function then it is one of the evil triplets;
nepomuk/strigi, akonadi, desktop effects; I disable them all,

I would re-enable ACPI no reason for it to be disabled.

Okay. I'll have to head over to Tallahassee (planning to go to Disney World this Thursday) as I'm in Altha (mom's house) and I don't have access to my server in my apartment.

Thanks for your help.

I just got a notification on my phone warning me that kworker/u:7 is using greater than 50% CPU resources.

This is a Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). I got the alert from the Watchdog Lite app which monitors apps for excessive resource consumption.

This is the first time I've gotten this alert, and am curious to know why a "high root linux" thing would be consuming so much CPU all of the sudden.

A drop of paranoia; Has my phone been hijacked by something I installed?