How can I tell if my pc is actually using the two PIII 550 CPUs?

ExCIA · 04-25-2005, 04:38 AM

Since my machine has a dual PIII 550MHz (Acer Altos 11K) with 2GB ECC SDRAM.

How can I tell if my machine is actually using the two processors since I've upgraded the kernel?

kernel-image-2.6.8-2-i686-smp

I checked the version using uname -a and this is what was displayed:

debian:~#

Linux debian 2.6.8-2-686-smp #1 SMP Mon Jan 24 02:32:52 EST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

debian:~#

What does #1 SMP means? Does that means that it is only using one of the processors?

Brian Knoblauch · 04-25-2005, 07:54 AM

It's telling you that you're using the first compile of the Symmetric Multi Processing kernel. The fact that you're using the SMP kernel is a good indication that you're most likely using both processors. Try using the "top" command and see if it helps. Some versions of top clearly indicate dual processors, while others do not... So it can prove you're using both, but probably won't prove you're on just one...

ExCIA · 04-25-2005, 10:26 AM

I tried the top command and I cannot tell:

Code:

Last login: Mon Apr 25 12:30:01 2005
debian:~# top
top - 16:29:17 up  4:58,  1 user,  load average: 0.06, 0.04, 0.00
Tasks:  64 total,   1 running,  63 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  1.2% us,  0.7% sy,  0.0% ni, 98.2% id,  0.0% wa,  0.0% hi,  0.0% si
Mem:   2068304k total,   482800k used,  1585504k free,    39148k buffers
Swap:   393552k total,        0k used,   393552k free,   352736k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 2751 root      16   0  5752 4248 2636 S  2.0  0.2   5:38.78 ddclient
 5860 root      16   0  2064 1048 1856 R  0.3  0.1   0:01.07 top
    1 root      16   0  1504  512 1352 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.70 init
    2 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.18 migration/0
    3 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0
    4 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.17 migration/1
    5 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ksoftirqd/1
    6 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 events/0
    7 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 events/1
    8 root       7 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.01 khelper
   24 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kblockd/0
   25 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.02 kblockd/1
   47 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 pdflush
   48 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.37 pdflush
   49 root      25   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kswapd0
   50 root      12 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/0
   51 root       5 -10     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 aio/1
  187 root      25   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.03 kseriod
  207 root      25   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_0
  208 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ahc_dv_0
  212 root      19   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 scsi_eh_1
  213 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 ahc_dv_1
  255 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:02.57 kjournald
  299 root      12  -4  1492  460 1336 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.13 udevd
 1278 root      15   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khubd
 2119 root      16   0  2376  868 2164 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 dhclient
 2125 daemon    16   0  1612  460 1440 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 portmap
 2608 root      15   0  2260  820 2092 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.09 syslogd
 2611 root      16   0  2408 1488 1344 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.26 klogd
 2649 messageb  15   0  2092 1008 1928 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.07 dbus-daemon-1

Can you tell?

Brian Knoblauch · 04-25-2005, 10:40 AM

Looks like you are. If you add up the user proc % from the apps, you get "2.3%". Top is reporting "1.2%" total user process time. This indicates 2 processors to me. If everything is idle, except a thread maxing out at 100% utilization, you'll still only be at 50% on the machine since it's 2 processors...

ExCIA · 04-25-2005, 11:49 AM

Sorry... I don't quite follow you?

Could that all coming from one processor?

gbhil · 04-25-2005, 01:49 PM

/proc/acpi/processor or /sys/devices/system/cpu

do you have CPU0
and CPU1 directories?

Both with same timestamp?
If so, you're using both.

ExCIA · 04-25-2005, 02:07 PM

Yes. It is there and both were created around 12:30pm.

Thank you, Brian Knoblauch and gbhil.