Some time ago there was a message on the list discussing problems if more than one irq is pending from the second 8259. On the Blackhawk I suffer this problem very badly, scsi, network and mouse are all via the second controller. The problem is with 2.3.x kernels. 2.2 versions had it fixed doing a loop until no more irqs are present on the second controller. The attached patch implements a workaround for the problem by disabling all irqs from the second chip for a very short time (in i8259_mask_and_ack_irq()) and than re-enabling the usual ones. Doing so seems to re-issue the required edge on the line going to the first controller. It is probably nor the cleanest way of handling the problem but up to now the one which solves the problem on my Blackhawk. The patch is relative the the 2.3.35 version from cvs.on.openprojects.net Alois.