diff -r 86dbf3cacacc -r 4d9030fe341f hotspot/src/share/vm/runtime/thread.cpp
--- a/hotspot/src/share/vm/runtime/thread.cpp	Wed Jul 28 17:57:43 2010 -0400
+++ b/hotspot/src/share/vm/runtime/thread.cpp	Tue Aug 03 08:13:38 2010 -0400
@@ -1020,7 +1020,7 @@
 // timer interrupts exists on the platform.
 
 WatcherThread* WatcherThread::_watcher_thread   = NULL;
-bool           WatcherThread::_should_terminate = false;
+volatile bool  WatcherThread::_should_terminate = false;
 
 WatcherThread::WatcherThread() : Thread() {
   assert(watcher_thread() == NULL, "we can only allocate one WatcherThread");
@@ -1052,8 +1052,26 @@
 
     // Calculate how long it'll be until the next PeriodicTask work
     // should be done, and sleep that amount of time.
-    const size_t time_to_wait = PeriodicTask::time_to_wait();
-    os::sleep(this, time_to_wait, false);
+    size_t time_to_wait = PeriodicTask::time_to_wait();
+
+    // we expect this to timeout - we only ever get unparked when
+    // we should terminate
+    {
+      OSThreadWaitState osts(this->osthread(), false /* not Object.wait() */);
+
+      jlong prev_time = os::javaTimeNanos();
+      for (;;) {
+        int res= _SleepEvent->park(time_to_wait);
+        if (res == OS_TIMEOUT || _should_terminate)
+          break;
+        // spurious wakeup of some kind
+        jlong now = os::javaTimeNanos();
+        time_to_wait -= (now - prev_time) / 1000000;
+        if (time_to_wait <= 0)
+          break;
+        prev_time = now;
+      }
+    }
 
     if (is_error_reported()) {
       // A fatal error has happened, the error handler(VMError::report_and_die)
@@ -1115,6 +1133,12 @@
   // it is ok to take late safepoints here, if needed
   MutexLocker mu(Terminator_lock);
   _should_terminate = true;
+  OrderAccess::fence();  // ensure WatcherThread sees update in main loop
+
+  Thread* watcher = watcher_thread();
+  if (watcher != NULL)
+    watcher->_SleepEvent->unpark();
+
   while(watcher_thread() != NULL) {
     // This wait should make safepoint checks, wait without a timeout,
     // and wait as a suspend-equivalent condition.
@@ -1364,6 +1388,8 @@
 
   this->create_stack_guard_pages();
 
+  this->cache_global_variables();
+
   // Thread is now sufficient initialized to be handled by the safepoint code as being
   // in the VM. Change thread state from _thread_new to _thread_in_vm
   ThreadStateTransition::transition_and_fence(this, _thread_new, _thread_in_vm);
@@ -2955,6 +2981,9 @@
     return status;
   }
 
+  // Should be done after the heap is fully created
+  main_thread->cache_global_variables();
+
   HandleMark hm;
 
   { MutexLocker mu(Threads_lock);
@@ -3230,6 +3259,9 @@
     WatcherThread::start();
   }
 
+  // Give os specific code one last chance to start
+  os::init_3();
+
   create_vm_timer.end();
   return JNI_OK;
 }