[INFO] nforce2 + linux + lockups

[sphere]

Hi,

I have started a small site intended as a knowledge base for problems related to nforce2 + linux + lockups. If you experience lockups under Linux that seems to be related to heavy io, please check out the URL below. NVIDIA has remained pretty tacent about all this, but there is a support request with AMD. I'm interested in setups that work or do not work. Refer to the site on how to submit a report if you wish to do so. People with boards not yet listed are encouraged to submit a report.

Thanks.

http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/index.html

[galaxor]

Hi Sphere,

thanks for this link.
I tried the two patches for A7N8X-Dx (rev 2.0) for 2.6.1 in 2.6.2. Without these patches I had unmotivated (e.g. not load/IO dependent!) lockups about once an hour. Thanks

[kgroombr]

I had severe lockups with my NF7-S motherboard. My first solution (with a very new kernel since older kernels didn't support nolapic) was to build a kernel with no APIC support and to send the kernel the noapic nolapic options.

Recently I found that these BIOS settings worked as well and now I have APIC functioning:

System Bios Cacheable: Disabled
Video RAM Cacheable: Disabled
AGP Aperture Size: 128M
FSB Spread Spectrum: Disabled
AGP Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Thermal-Throttling: Disabled
Enhanced PCI Performance: Enabled
CPU Disconnect Function: Disabled
PCI Latency: 64 clocks

Not sure what the key BIOS setting is, but it worked for me.

Ken

[sphere]

Originally posted by kgroombr
I had severe lockups with my NF7-S motherboard. My first solution (with a very new kernel since older kernels didn't support nolapic) was to build a kernel with no APIC support and to send the kernel the noapic nolapic options.

Recently I found that these BIOS settings worked as well and now I have APIC functioning:

System Bios Cacheable: Disabled
Video RAM Cacheable: Disabled
AGP Aperture Size: 128M
FSB Spread Spectrum: Disabled
AGP Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Thermal-Throttling: Disabled
Enhanced PCI Performance: Enabled
CPU Disconnect Function: Disabled
PCI Latency: 64 clocks

Not sure what the key BIOS setting is, but it worked for me.

Ken

I'm pretty sure your lockups are related to the bios disconnect function. Disabling it will have your CPU run a lot hotter when your system is idle. If this doesn't bother you, then leave it like this, else try the patches by Ross Dickson. I have to try them myself still, but I'm in the middle of a traineeship and I need my time for other stuff.

[cglinux]

For those who don't fancy recompiling/patching kernels etc., try adding the "nolapic" option to your kernel command line (usually in /etc/lilo.conf). That seemed to fix things for me. (I've also got "noapic acpi=off").

My system has not crashed since.

I'm using 2.4.22-26mdk

Col

[sphere]

http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/index.html

Currently featuring 7 setups, or 5, depending on how you count. Missing MSI, Chaintech and Gigabyte setups. Possibly others, but I can't think of more. Please email me your setup if you think it is a relevant addition.

See the page for details.

Thanks,

Arjen