RE: Catching NForce2 lockup with NMI watchdog

["b@netzentry.com" <b@netzentry.com>]

 >Everyone with this problem should turn on the nmi_watchdog, as
 >someone may
 >have the right circumstances to produce an oops where the
 >others didn't.
 >
 >I say that you're not serious about getting this fixed unless
 >you're going
 >to do all of:

To quote Allen Martin:

 >NVIDIA doesn't provide a windows driver to setup APIC interrupts.
 >
 >APIC functionality is exported through the ACPI methods and MP
 >table in the system BIOS which the motherboard vendors supply.

 >Likely the root of the problem has to do with the way the Linux
 >kernel is using the ACPI methods to setup the interrupts which
 >is different from win 9x/2k/XP.  I can help track this down,
 >unfortunately so far I've been unable to reproduce the hangs
 >on any of the boards I have.

and

 >> Do you know whether the nforce2's with apic support the timer
 >> (IRQ 0) in
 >> IO-APIC mode?  To me, it seems like a bug:
 >> "Dec  4 20:13:11 tesore kernel: ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not
 >> connected to
 >> IO-APIC"
 >> (This message originates in arch/i386/kernel/io_apic.c)
 >>
 >
 >Yes, Win 9x/2k/XP use the system timer on irq0 and have no problem.  I
 >haven't looked at this yet.
 >

Is it not possible that Linux could be made to handling this hardware
correctly?


 >
 > o turn on nmi_watchdog
 > o try the patches posted[1]
 > o contact nvidia or your motherboard manufacturer saying you
 >need linux
 >   support, and return the board if they don't. (phone, fax,
 >email, or even
 >   local office if there is one)
 >
 >I bought a VIA board to avoid the problems I expected from the
 >nforce, and I
 >needed a system (server) that would *work* now.
 >
 >[1] If you're worried about your file system, just boot the
 >patched kernel in
 >single mode, and that will mount all of your file systems
 >read-only so there
 >will be little chance of corruption.
 >
 >Mike