Note there are lots of complaints about ksoftirqd getting into such states: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2003/04/msg00087.html http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-devel/2006-04/msg00489.html http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=388745 -- ksoftirqd eats all cpu https://launchpad.net/bugs/49141