Re: SMP Pentium III, GA-6VXDC7 MoBo. -- 2.4.18-pre7 SMP not working

["W. Michael Petullo" <mike@flyn.org>]

>> I have a home-built dual Pentium III computer which does not seem to
>> want to run recent SMP kernels.  The computer is built on a Gigabyte
>> GA-6VXDC7 motherboard, which is in turn based on a VIA Apollo Pro chip-set.
>> It is an exclusively SCSI system -- I do not compile any IDE drivers
>> into my kernel.
>>
>> Kernel 2.4.12 works fine when compiled with SMP on.  However, anything
>> newer fails to load when compiled with SMP support.  In the failing cases,
>> lilo prints its uncompressing kernel and booting kernel messages followed
>> by a system hang -- the kernel never prints anything.
>>
>> Kernel.org
>> Vanilla              CONFIG_SMP=y            # CONFIG_SMP is not set
>> Version              SMP Status              UP Status
>> ======================================================
>> 2.4.10               SMP works               Fine
>> 2.4.11               Wouldn't touch          Wouldn't touch
>> 2.4.12               SMP Works               Fine
>> 2.4.13               SMP does not boot       Fine
>> 2.4.14               Did not try             Did not try
>> 2.4.15               Did not try             Did not try
>> 2.4.16               SMP does not boot       Fine
>> 2.4.17               SMP does not boot       Fine
>> 2.4.18-pre7          SMP does not boot       Fine
>> 
>> Since the kernel does not even peep an oops message, I'm not sure where
>> to start debugging.  Is anyone else having similar problems?

> I'm having a lot of trouble debugging this one.
> [...]

Apparently there is some type of conflict introduced in 2.4.13's APM code.
I finally got 2.4.17 to boot with SMP enabled after I disabled APM.
Though APM is not SMP safe, I have been using successfully it for its
power-off feature.

I will look closer at the 2.4.13 APM changes to try and determine what
broke my SMP.

--
Mike

:wq