HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Peter Clifton]

Hi, I've got an issue with my HP Compaq nc6320, where it won't boot off
its battery without softlocking on CPU#0. I remember it booting ok off
battery occasionally in the past, but once I've seen the fault - the
only way I can get it to boot is off AC. (I usually boot off AC anyway).

I'm presuming ACPI as a good starting point, since that is an area where
AC / Battery may make a difference.

Can anyone suggest a debugging procedure to identify the cause of a
softlock, and where would be appropriate (which category) to file a
kernel bug for this?

-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)

Re: HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Luming Yu]

The first thing is to make sure you are running the latest bios, kernel.
Then, you need to sort out the kernel component/modules/drivers that
cause the problem.
If you guess it is ACPI issue, pleas test boot option acpi=off to see
if the problem goes away. If you guess it is battery issue, please
remove battery module, etc.
Please don't forget to enter a bug in bugzilla.kernel.org.

Thanks,
Luming

On 1/17/07, Peter Clifton <pcjc2@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hi, I've got an issue with my HP Compaq nc6320, where it won't boot off
> its battery without softlocking on CPU#0. I remember it booting ok off
> battery occasionally in the past, but once I've seen the fault - the
> only way I can get it to boot is off AC. (I usually boot off AC anyway).
>
> I'm presuming ACPI as a good starting point, since that is an area where
> AC / Battery may make a difference.
>
> Can anyone suggest a debugging procedure to identify the cause of a
> softlock, and where would be appropriate (which category) to file a
> kernel bug for this?
>
>

Re: HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Len Brown]

try also "apm=off" -- since the ACPI/APM dependency checking
is currently broken in some configs.

On Tuesday 16 January 2007 22:04, Luming Yu wrote:
> The first thing is to make sure you are running the latest bios, kernel.
> Then, you need to sort out the kernel component/modules/drivers that
> cause the problem.
> If you guess it is ACPI issue, pleas test boot option acpi=off to see
> if the problem goes away. If you guess it is battery issue, please
> remove battery module, etc.
> Please don't forget to enter a bug in bugzilla.kernel.org.
> 
> Thanks,
> Luming
> 
> On 1/17/07, Peter Clifton <pcjc2@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Hi, I've got an issue with my HP Compaq nc6320, where it won't boot off
> > its battery without softlocking on CPU#0. I remember it booting ok off
> > battery occasionally in the past, but once I've seen the fault - the
> > only way I can get it to boot is off AC. (I usually boot off AC anyway).
> >
> > I'm presuming ACPI as a good starting point, since that is an area where
> > AC / Battery may make a difference.
> >
> > Can anyone suggest a debugging procedure to identify the cause of a
> > softlock, and where would be appropriate (which category) to file a
> > kernel bug for this?
> >
> >
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-acpi" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

Re: HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Peter Clifton]

On Tue, 2007-01-16 at 22:15 -0500, Len Brown wrote:
> try also "apm=off" -- since the ACPI/APM dependency checking
> is currently broken in some configs.
> 
> On Tuesday 16 January 2007 22:04, Luming Yu wrote:
> > The first thing is to make sure you are running the latest bios, kernel.
> > Then, you need to sort out the kernel component/modules/drivers that
> > cause the problem.
> > If you guess it is ACPI issue, pleas test boot option acpi=off to see
> > if the problem goes away. If you guess it is battery issue, please
> > remove battery module, etc.
> > Please don't forget to enter a bug in bugzilla.kernel.org.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Luming

Ok, I've tested acpi=off and apm=off with the stock Ubuntu kernel. It
didn't softlock with either, but I'll try to use one of the two when
booting now to ensure it is consistent.

with acpi=off, there was a backtrace printed from an unloved IRQ11, and
the sound card wasn't particularly happy. These HP laptops seem very
picky - perhaps I should buy an IBM next time for linux!

I've filed a bug, #7840, http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7840

It is under ACPI/Other. Attached to that bug is dmesg output from the
normal AC boot, and battery boots with acpi=off, api=off, also an
acpidump output from the normal AC boot.

I will check the bios, and vanilla kernel tests when I get chance.
Unfortunately, it seems quite hard to get a kernel config which exactly
matches a stock Ubuntu one (for keeping as few variables changed as
possible). I can recompile a kernel source deb for Ubuntu quite happily,
but it produces a huge number of versions, and takes many many hours
(brings me back to using linux on a [34]86 :))

Thanks for your input Luming, Len.

Regards,

Peter Clifton

Re: HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Peter Clifton]

On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 14:21 +0000, Peter Clifton wrote:

> Ok, I've tested acpi=off and apm=off with the stock Ubuntu kernel. It
> didn't softlock with either, but I'll try to use one of the two when
> booting now to ensure it is consistent.

Ok, having tried some more, apm=off can still give a softlock. Will keep
trying with acpi=off.

Peter C.

Re: HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Peter Clifton]

On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 11:04 +0800, Luming Yu wrote:
> The first thing is to make sure you are running the latest bios, kernel.
> Then, you need to sort out the kernel component/modules/drivers that
> cause the problem.
> If you guess it is ACPI issue, pleas test boot option acpi=off to see
> if the problem goes away. If you guess it is battery issue, please
> remove battery module, etc.
> Please don't forget to enter a bug in bugzilla.kernel.org.
> 
> Thanks,
> Luming

AFAIK, I'm on the current bios.. I updated it when I initially had
problems with CPU Frequency scaling. I'll check.

Kernel.. still debugging with the Ubuntu one, but will try a fresh
vanilla one when I get free time (not needing the machine for work).

I've tried booting with init=/bin/sh to drop me into the initrd of the
system, then grabbed an acpidump when booting on battery. It was the
same as AC.

Manually bootstrapping the root file-system, (not via normal init),
allowed me to play about with what might cause the lockup, and it seems
that it may be related to the Intel wireless driver: ipw3945.

When I loaded it, it failed to find firmware - no crash. (I'd not got
udev running to help hotplug the firmware for it).

I loaded udev, and re-tried loading the wireless. Appologies that this
crash dump is a type-up, I think the key points should be here - no
time-stamps, but a full trace is listed.

[ loading ipw3945 module via modprobe ]
...
[ Detects ]
[ Prints module copyright ]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:08:00.00[A] -> GSI16 (level,low) -> IRQ 169
ipw3945: Detected .... 3945ABG ....
BUG: Soft lockup ... CPU#0

<c01481cf> softlockup_tick+0x9f/0xf0   <c012bee1> update_process_times
+0x31/0x80

<c0114d13> smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x53/0x60   <c010413c>
apic_timer_interrupt+0x1c/0x30

<f8a240f7> ipw_bg_alive_start+0x67/0xa0 [ipw3945]   <c0132702>
run_workqueue+0x72/0xf0

<f8a24090> ipw_bg_alive_start+0x0/0xa0 [ipw3945]   <c01331d0>
worker_thread+0x0/0x140

<c0135f8b> kthread+0xab/0xe0   <c0135ee0> ktherad+0x0/0e0

<c0101005> kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0x10


Hope that helps cast some light on the problem..

Regards

Peter Clifton

Re: HP Compaq nc6320 - Booting on battery power causes softlock

[Peter Clifton]

On Sat, 2007-02-03 at 15:02 +0000, Peter Clifton wrote:
> [ loading ipw3945 module via modprobe ]
> ...
> [ Detects ]
> [ Prints module copyright ]
> ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:08:00.00[A] -> GSI16 (level,low) -> IRQ 169
> ipw3945: Detected .... 3945ABG ....
> BUG: Soft lockup ... CPU#0
> 
> <c01481cf> softlockup_tick+0x9f/0xf0   <c012bee1> update_process_times
> +0x31/0x80
> 
> <c0114d13> smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x53/0x60   <c010413c>
> apic_timer_interrupt+0x1c/0x30
> 
> <f8a240f7> ipw_bg_alive_start+0x67/0xa0 [ipw3945]   <c0132702>
> run_workqueue+0x72/0xf0
> 
> <f8a24090> ipw_bg_alive_start+0x0/0xa0 [ipw3945]   <c01331d0>
> worker_thread+0x0/0x140
> 
> <c0135f8b> kthread+0xab/0xe0   <c0135ee0> ktherad+0x0/0e0
> 
> <c0101005> kernel_thread_helper+0x5/0x10
> 
> 
> Hope that helps cast some light on the problem..

Never-mind.. looks like it has been discovered elsewhere..

http://bughost.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1096

I'm not sure why it only happens on battery though.

Thanks for your help.

Peter Clifton