Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 18 Jul 2000 18:22:44 -0700 | From | Jean Tourrilhes <> | Subject | 2.4.0-test3 oops (BIOS bug) |
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Marc Zyngier wrote : > >>>>> "JL" == Julio Lopez <julio.lopez@mailcity.com> writes: > > JL> I have been experiencing the following crashes quite often. In fact, > JL> the machine doesn't last up more than 5 minutes. > > JL> The machines are an old Pentiums 90 MHz. (HP Vectra-XU) with onboard > JL> SCSI controller (AM53/79C974) and network card (driver=PCnet/PCI > JL> 79C970). They have 32MB and 48MB respectively. > > There's a known problem with these system : > > JL> BIOS-provided physical RAM map: > JL> e820: 000000000009f800 @ 0000000000000000 (usable) > JL> e820: 0000000000000800 @ 000000000009f800 (reserved) > JL> e820: 0000000000010000 @ 00000000000e0000 (usable) <---- BUG > JL> e820: 0000000000010000 @ 00000000000f0000 (reserved) > JL> e820: 0000000001f00000 @ 0000000000100000 (usable) > JL> e820: 0000000000001000 @ 00000000fec00000 (reserved) > JL> e820: 0000000000001000 @ 00000000fee00000 (reserved) > JL> e820: 0000000000010000 @ 00000000ffff0000 (reserved) > > The little 64KB area marked as usable should be reserved (this is a > e820 bios bug). Passing mem=... argument to the kernel will fix this. > > M.
Wow ! This is a life saver ! Thanks a bundle !
I've been severly bitten by this exact precise bug, which has pretty much stalled my Linux developments on 2.4.X (disk corruption an co.). I've sent a couple of e-mail in the past on the list without answer. Here, I've got a couple of HP Vectra XU6 (P6-200, Adaptec SCSI AIC-7880, 64M to 96M ram). Due to the higher amount of memory, the lockup was slower to come, but it was basically the same. On my xu6 with 64M, it look like : ----------------------------------- BIOS-provided physical RAM map: e820: 000000000009f800 @ 0000000000000000 (usable) e820: 0000000000000800 @ 000000000009f800 (reserved) e820: 0000000000010000 @ 00000000000e0000 (usable) e820: 0000000000010000 @ 00000000000f0000 (reserved) e820: 0000000003f00000 @ 0000000000100000 (usable) e820: 0000000000001000 @ 00000000fec00000 (reserved) e820: 0000000000001000 @ 00000000fee00000 (reserved) e820: 0000000000400000 @ 00000000ffc00000 (reserved) On node 0 totalpages: 16384 zone(0): 4096 pages. zone(1): 12288 pages. zone(2): 0 pages. ----------------------------------- Other xu6 look the same. I applied your fix, and all my trouble are gone, so far...
The xu90 is a pretty old machine (I know, I have one). On the other hand, the xu6 is a pretty good and flexible machine, only 3 years old, is very widespread around here, and many people are using Linux on it. I spent enough hours trying to fight this bug, which is quite difficult to pin point, and I don't want other people to waste as much time as I did, especially if it is a known problem but not documented. So, I guess what I'm saying is that a fix for this problem would be more than welcomed in the standard kernel. Maybe there should be a BIOS blacklist ;-)
Merci encore pour le tuyeau...
Jean
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