Re: QUESTION: Network hangs with BP6 and 2.4.x kernels, hardware

Andrew Morton
2001-01-13T02:06:46Z

Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> On Sat, 13 Jan 2001, Frank de Lange wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 04:36:33PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > It may well not be disable_irq() that is buggy. In fact, there's good
> > > reason to believe that it's a hardware problem.
> >
> > I am inclined to believe it IS a hardware problem... If disable_irq were buggy,
> > wouldn't the problem occur more frequently in other irq-heavy areas? A quick
> > count shows that disable_irq* is used in 84 sourcefiles in the driver/*
> > directory. This includes drivers which generate many interrupts in a short
> > timeframe (like ide).
>
> IDE is not my favourite example of a "known stable driver". Also, in many
> cases IDE is for historical reasons connected to an EDGE io-apic pin (ie
> it's still considered an ISA interrupt). Which probably wouldn't show this
> problem anyway.
>

3c59x calls disable_irq() once per minute, and seems to be
one of the most-affected drivers.