serial console vs system performance

[William Reich]

Hello all...

We have observed that when we have a serial console configured
at 115200 baud rate, and a kernel module issuing LOTS of printk
messages,
the timing between our user space applications and kernel modules
gets really messed up.
In the same test without the serial console configured, no problems
are observed.

My question is - is there any documentation available that talks
about how the serial port is configured when used for the console ?
Polling ? Interrupt ?

I am trying to search for a better solution than simply
"get rid of the printk output". This question is related to both RH4 and
RH5...

thanks

wr