[Jetson Xavier Nx] Risks of CPU usage hitting 100%

[sharvit.dabir]

Hi,
Thanks for answering my earlier query here: [Jetson Xavier Nx] GPU (gv11b) ideal behavior for real-time robotics-perception - #5 by DaneLLL

I have a similar question regarding CPU. We have noticed that one or two CPU cores on Xavier-NX often stay near100% (either high CPU usage like 98% or 100%) for more than 5 seconds during our application run-time.

We have coded an average CPU (instantaneous average of all cores) monitoring function also, that shows that at a specific point in run-time when there is a Neural-Network getting swapped, the average of all cores touches 100% (i.e. all CPU’s are at the max)

What are the risks of such behavior?
We have a redundant-software system in place that monitors this in order to stop the application before a “catastrophe”. Is this behavior considered catastrophic in the first place?

[DaneLLL]

Hi,
If the system is at full loading it may triggers over-current event. And the event will degrade throughput. If it doesn’t frequently trigger over-current event in the use-case, it should be fine to have 100% loading. If the event is frequently triggered, we suggest customize a power mode for the use-case, to reduce the over-current condition.

[sharvit.dabir]

By “over-current” event what exactly are you referring to?

• Is it the same as software or hardware shutdown in case of temperature of one of the zones exceeding 95 degrees C?..

Or

• I’ve read about the clock frequency getting adjusted if CPU load increases on Jetson devices.

Also, what does ‘degraded throughput’ mean?

Thanks!

[DaneLLL]

Hi,
Please refer to mechanism of hardware throttling in developer guide:
Jetson Xavier NX Series and Jetson AGX Xavier Series — NVIDIA Jetson Linux Developer Guide 1 documentation