Re: [APIC] Kernel panic, rsync corruption, intel q8200, 2.6.28-rc8

[Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>]

yakui_zhao wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-10 at 07:50 +0800, Sam Ruby wrote:
>> Len Brown wrote:
>>>>> Do you have a second computer around with a serial port ? If yes, then
>>>>> please add the following to the kernel command line:
>>>>>
>>>>>        earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200 apic=debug
>>>>>
>>>>> and connect the serial ports with a null modem cable. Fire up a
>>>>> terminal program on the second machine and capture the output.
>>>> I do have a second computer, and went out and bought a null modem adapter for
>>>> my serial cable and connected the two machines.  I've tried installing minicom
>>>> and also connecting it to ttyS0 at 115200 baud on the second machine, but when
>>>> I boot the first machine I don't see any output on the terminal.
>>> /boot/grub/menu.lst:
>>>
>>> serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
>>> terminal --timeout=300 serial console
> Do you have an opportunity to try the boot option of "acpi=off" as
> suggested by Lenb?

That also produces the "MP-BIOS bug" message and halts.

>      From the log it seems that there exists the following warning
> message:
>     >MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC
> 
>     Can you try the following boot options?
>     a. acpi_use_timer_override

That also produces the "MP-BIOS bug" message and halts.

>     b. acpi_skip_timer_override

That also produces the "MP-BIOS bug" message and halts.

>     c. noapic

With that, I can boot, but I get data corruption problems.  Data 
corruption problems I don't see when using the same hardware but with 
Microsoft Vista.  More details can be found here:

http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/01/20/noAPIC
http://intertwingly.net/stories/2009/01/22/

I am willing to install new kernels on fresh hard drives, run diagnostic 
programs and report the output, including capturing serial output.  Is 
there any data I can gather to help diagnose this problem?

>     Thanks.
>>> is what I use.
>>>
>>> this will give you a prompt from grub even before the kernel boots
>>> so you can select (and edit) your kernel via menu over the serial line
>>> if you wish.
>> I've got that working now.  I used minicom on the remote machine, 
>> capturing the output.  You can see me fumbling around, editing the 
>> kernel command and booting here:
>>
>> http://intertwingly.net/stories/2009/02/09/minicom.out
>>
>> While it is difficult to make out what I did given line wrapping, etc, 
>> what I started with was:
>>
>> /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-11-generic 
>> root=UUID=4fce230e-fe72-4685-aab0-294ef1c20efa ro noapic quiet splash
>>
>> After editing, what I had was
>>
>> /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-11-generic 
>> root=UUID=4fce230e-fe72-4685-aab0-294ef1c20efa ro quiet splash 
>> earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200 apic=debug
>>
>> As you can see, the last line I saw was "Starting up ...", after which 
>> point the "MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC" etc output 
>> appeared on the monitor that is directly connected to the machine being 
>> booted (i.e., this text did not appear on the minicom session).
>>
>>> If this doesn't work, then the kernel earlyprintk is unlikely to work 
>>> also.
>> At the moment, it looks like it works, but earlyprintk does not work for 
>> me, at least not on Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-11-generic.
>>
>>> Note that there may be some BIOS SETUP options related to the serial port 
>>> -- worth checking.
>>>
>>> Also, in minicom, be sure to turn off HW flow control
>>>
>>> there is a fancy serial console document someplace on this,
>>> probably at http://tldp.org/
>> As I have managed to get grub to talk to the serial console, I did not 
>> explore these options further.  Please let me know if there is something 
>> in particular I should explore.
>>
>>> good luck,
>>> -Len
>> - Sam Ruby
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- Sam Ruby