From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265256AbTLLPLW (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2003 10:11:22 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265257AbTLLPLW (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2003 10:11:22 -0500 Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.224.249]:34466 "EHLO main.gmane.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265256AbTLLPLT (ORCPT ); Fri, 12 Dec 2003 10:11:19 -0500 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: mru@kth.se (=?iso-8859-1?q?M=E5ns_Rullg=E5rd?=) Subject: Re: PROBLEM: floppy motor spins when floppy module not installed Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 16:11:17 +0100 Message-ID: References: <16345.51504.583427.499297@l.a> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) XEmacs/21.4 (Rational FORTRAN, linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:d9FJL8AVPU12VdMTm6Br7rU0eYY= Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "Richard B. Johnson" writes: > On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, [iso-8859-1] Måns Rullgård wrote: > >> Dale Mellor writes: >> >> > 1. Floppy motor spins when floppy module not installed. >> >> It's a known problem. Some broken BIOSes don't turn off the motor >> after probing for a disk. One solution is to change the boot priority >> in the BIOS settings so the hard disk is tried before floppy. If you >> ever need to boot from a floppy, you can change it back. > > It is not a broken BIOS! The BIOS timer that ticks 18.206 times > per second has an ISR that, in addition to keeping time, turns > OFF the FDC motor after two seconds of inactivity. This ISR is taken > away by Linux. Therefore Linux must turn off that motor! It is a > Linux bug, not a BIOS bug. Linux took control away from the BIOS > during boot. OK, but why doesn't it affect all machines? -- Måns Rullgård mru@kth.se