time problems

[Lowell Gilbert]

bram <bram at diomedia.be> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I am running 6.1-RELEASE-p2-AMD64 on a dual AMD opteron system.
> Lately (after installing a twa-3ware raid controller I think) time
> just stops.
> We leave at work one evening and the clock is set ok.
> The next morning the clock is set at 3 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock,
> sometimes there is no clock anymore,
> when we type date, it just returns to the next line without any output
> whatsoever.
>
> This is very annoying, I've set a crontab task every 5 minutes to
> re-update the date but it does not help (wich leads to my believe that
> time has stopped).
>
> So, what could this be, and can I work around the problem ?
>
> Every service this machine runs stops working at such a time (no ssh
> etc), the local keyboard still works.

Hmm.  My first guess would be interrupt problems, most likely with the
timer interrupt itself but possibly something else interfering with it.
Keep an eye on 'vmstat -i'.