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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="ts_linux-guest-high-cpu">
  <title>Linux Guests May Cause a High CPU load</title>
  
  <body>
    <p>Some legacy Linux guests may cause a high CPU load even if the guest system appears to be idle. This can be caused by a high timer frequency of the guest kernel. Some older Linux distributions ship a Linux kernel configured for a timer frequency of 1000Hz. We recommend recompiling the guest kernel and selecting a timer frequency of 100Hz.</p>
    <p>Linux kernels shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as well as kernels of related Linux distributions, such as CentOS and Oracle Linux, support a kernel parameter <i>divider=N</i>. Hence, such kernels support a lower timer frequency without recompilation. Add the kernel parameter <i>divider=10</i> to select a guest kernel timer frequency of 100Hz.</p>
  </body>
  
</topic>
