[Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

Hi,

I've got an old 2xP-II @ 400MHz Compaq AP400 system, which I'm still 
using. It has many peculiarities, so, I wouldn't be surprised if the 
answer to my questions would be "sorry, the patient is rather dead than 
alive".

Some of the problems lie in ACPI area, I tried some time ago to fix the 
ACPI tables for these machine, but never got enough time for that. So I'm 
still booting with acpi=noirq

Another problem is its battery is dead and it's hard soldered to the 
mainboard (Compaq)...

It might also have some problems with one of its 3 SCSI busses.

I compiled a .24-ish kernel for it with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 
CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS. To get the system boot at least sometimes I have 
to specify nohz=off. Then I get

* Found PM-Timer Bug on the chipset. Due to workarounds for a bug,
* this clock source is slow. Consider trying other clock sources

Without this parameter it hangs usually between

Time: acpi_pm clocksource has been installed.

and

Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 1
Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 0

Tried booting with clocksource=tsc then I've got

Marking TSC unstable due to: possible TSC halt in C2.

And then a few of these:

BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 13s! [swapper:0]

Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted (2.6.24-rc2-g8c086340 #3)
EIP: 0060:[<c0233d33>] EFLAGS: 00000283 CPU: 0
EIP is at acpi_processor_idle+0x2ae/0x477
EAX: 00000000 EBX: fffffeab ECX: 00000001 EDX: 00000001
ESI: c7c5f2d0 EDI: 00122d9f EBP: c03ddfa8 ESP: c03ddf90
 DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0000 SS: 0068
CR0: 8005003b CR2: 081dcf88 CR3: 07e46000 CR4: 000002d0
DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
 [<c01053fa>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30
 [<c0105f42>] show_trace+0x12/0x20
 [<c01024fc>] show_regs+0x1c/0x20
 [<c014fabb>] softlockup_tick+0x11b/0x150
 [<c01311f2>] run_local_timers+0x12/0x20
 [<c013168f>] update_process_times+0x2f/0x60
 [<c014597a>] tick_sched_timer+0x6a/0xe0
 [<c013fba0>] hrtimer_interrupt+0x120/0x1a0
 [<c0119ff5>] smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x55/0x90
 [<c0104e70>] apic_timer_interrupt+0x28/0x30
 [<c0102624>] cpu_idle+0x84/0xf0
 [<c0316a7d>] rest_init+0x5d/0x60
 [<c03e1a7f>] start_kernel+0x2af/0x2f0
 [<00000000>] run_init_process+0x3feff000/0x20
 =======================

so, is there any way I can still reasonably use this system? Which 
configuration / command-line parameters should I try?

If needed can provide complete dmesg (with nohz=off or with 
clocksource=tsc) and .config.

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> I've got an old 2xP-II @ 400MHz Compaq AP400 system, which I'm still 
> using. It has many peculiarities, so, I wouldn't be surprised if the 
> answer to my questions would be "sorry, the patient is rather dead than 
> alive".
> 
> Some of the problems lie in ACPI area, I tried some time ago to fix the 
> ACPI tables for these machine, but never got enough time for that. So I'm 
> still booting with acpi=noirq
> 
> Another problem is its battery is dead and it's hard soldered to the 
> mainboard (Compaq)...
> 
> It might also have some problems with one of its 3 SCSI busses.
> 
> I compiled a .24-ish kernel for it with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 
> CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS. To get the system boot at least sometimes I have 
> to specify nohz=off. Then I get

Try highres=off, too... Hehe, and even idle=poll might help.

> Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted (2.6.24-rc2-g8c086340 #3)
> EIP: 0060:[<c0233d33>] EFLAGS: 00000283 CPU: 0
> EIP is at acpi_processor_idle+0x2ae/0x477
> EAX: 00000000 EBX: fffffeab ECX: 00000001 EDX: 00000001
> ESI: c7c5f2d0 EDI: 00122d9f EBP: c03ddfa8 ESP: c03ddf90
>  DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0000 SS: 0068
> CR0: 8005003b CR2: 081dcf88 CR3: 07e46000 CR4: 000002d0
> DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
> DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
>  [<c01053fa>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30
>  [<c0105f42>] show_trace+0x12/0x20

...and disable softlockup watchdog, too...

							Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

On Sun, 2 Dec 2007, Pavel Machek wrote:

> > I compiled a .24-ish kernel for it with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 
> > CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS. To get the system boot at least sometimes I have 
> > to specify nohz=off. Then I get
> 
> Try highres=off, too... Hehe, and even idle=poll might help.

Ok, for now I've compiled a kernel with all "advanced" features off like 
hrt, nohz. Will see how it behaves. But thanks for the hints.

> > Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted (2.6.24-rc2-g8c086340 #3)
> > EIP: 0060:[<c0233d33>] EFLAGS: 00000283 CPU: 0
> > EIP is at acpi_processor_idle+0x2ae/0x477
> > EAX: 00000000 EBX: fffffeab ECX: 00000001 EDX: 00000001
> > ESI: c7c5f2d0 EDI: 00122d9f EBP: c03ddfa8 ESP: c03ddf90
> >  DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0000 SS: 0068
> > CR0: 8005003b CR2: 081dcf88 CR3: 07e46000 CR4: 000002d0
> > DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
> > DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
> >  [<c01053fa>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30
> >  [<c0105f42>] show_trace+0x12/0x20
> 
> ...and disable softlockup watchdog, too...

So, you think those BUGs are bogus?

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Pavel Machek]

On Mon 2007-12-03 22:45:06, Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Dec 2007, Pavel Machek wrote:
> 
> > > I compiled a .24-ish kernel for it with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 
> > > CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS. To get the system boot at least sometimes I have 
> > > to specify nohz=off. Then I get
> > 
> > Try highres=off, too... Hehe, and even idle=poll might help.
> 
> Ok, for now I've compiled a kernel with all "advanced" features off like 
> hrt, nohz. Will see how it behaves. But thanks for the hints.

Let us know...

> > > CR0: 8005003b CR2: 081dcf88 CR3: 07e46000 CR4: 000002d0
> > > DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
> > > DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
> > >  [<c01053fa>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30
> > >  [<c0105f42>] show_trace+0x12/0x20
> > 
> > ...and disable softlockup watchdog, too...
> 
> So, you think those BUGs are bogus?

Well.... you want to make old machine usable, right? Disabling
warnings is fair game.
									Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Pavel Machek wrote:

> On Mon 2007-12-03 22:45:06, Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > On Sun, 2 Dec 2007, Pavel Machek wrote:
> 
> > > > CR0: 8005003b CR2: 081dcf88 CR3: 07e46000 CR4: 000002d0
> > > > DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
> > > > DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
> > > >  [<c01053fa>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30
> > > >  [<c0105f42>] show_trace+0x12/0x20
> > > 
> > > ...and disable softlockup watchdog, too...
> > 
> > So, you think those BUGs are bogus?
> 
> Well.... you want to make old machine usable, right? Disabling
> warnings is fair game.

Ouch, but not if a CPU __really__ gets stuck for 13 seconds...

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Pavel Machek wrote:

> On Mon 2007-12-03 22:45:06, Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > On Sun, 2 Dec 2007, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > 
> > > > I compiled a .24-ish kernel for it with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 
> > > > CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS. To get the system boot at least sometimes I have 
> > > > to specify nohz=off. Then I get
> > > 
> > > Try highres=off, too... Hehe, and even idle=poll might help.
> > 
> > Ok, for now I've compiled a kernel with all "advanced" features off like 
> > hrt, nohz. Will see how it behaves. But thanks for the hints.
> 
> Let us know...

Ok, it cold-booted (after a power-off, which is usually the most 
difficult case for this machine) once fine. On another boot it was 
veeeeery slow. I have a dmesg from that boot, here're some of the first 
differences with a subsequent normal boot:

-apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
+apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x0b (Driver version 1.16ac)

...

 Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
+serial 00:08: activated
 00:08: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3e8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
+serial 00:09: activated
 00:09: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2e8 (irq = 3) is a NS16550A

...

 ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
 PIIX4: IDE controller (0x8086:0x7111 rev 0x01) at  PCI slot 0000:00:14.1
 PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
-PIIX4: IDE port disabled
+    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x58c0-0x58c7, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
     ide1: BM-DMA at 0x58c8-0x58cf, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
+Probing IDE interface ide0...
 Probing IDE interface ide1...
 Probing IDE interface ide0...
 Probing IDE interface ide1...

"+" is the slow boot. A reboot helped. And I've got two soft lockups now 
on that new boot each for 13s (hm, it's always 13s...:-() and this time I 
didn't specify "clocksource=tsc" as the last time.

On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Robert Hancock wrote:

> On a machine that old, you shouldn't need ACPI to detect both CPUs, it should
> be able to use MPS..

Don't know the details, but remember it didn't work without ACPI. The only 
solution was acpi=noirq.

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Robert Hancock]

Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, Robert Hancock wrote:
> 
>> Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
>>> I've got an old 2xP-II @ 400MHz Compaq AP400 system, which I'm still using.
>>> It has many peculiarities, so, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer to my
>>> questions would be "sorry, the patient is rather dead than alive".
>> How about disabling ACPI entirely, acpi=off on kernel command line? I wouldn't
>> be surprised to see a lot of ACPI stuff broken on an older machine like that..
> 
> See above - it's an SMP.
> 
> Thanks
> Guennadi
> ---
> Guennadi Liakhovetski
> 

On a machine that old, you shouldn't need ACPI to detect both CPUs, it 
should be able to use MPS..

-- 
Robert Hancock      Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@nospamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Guennadi Liakhovetski]

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, Robert Hancock wrote:

> Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> > 
> > I've got an old 2xP-II @ 400MHz Compaq AP400 system, which I'm still using.
> > It has many peculiarities, so, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer to my
> > questions would be "sorry, the patient is rather dead than alive".
> 
> How about disabling ACPI entirely, acpi=off on kernel command line? I wouldn't
> be surprised to see a lot of ACPI stuff broken on an older machine like that..

See above - it's an SMP.

Thanks
Guennadi
---
Guennadi Liakhovetski

Re: [Timers SMP] can this machine be helped?

[Robert Hancock]

Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've got an old 2xP-II @ 400MHz Compaq AP400 system, which I'm still 
> using. It has many peculiarities, so, I wouldn't be surprised if the 
> answer to my questions would be "sorry, the patient is rather dead than 
> alive".
> 
> Some of the problems lie in ACPI area, I tried some time ago to fix the 
> ACPI tables for these machine, but never got enough time for that. So I'm 
> still booting with acpi=noirq
> 
> Another problem is its battery is dead and it's hard soldered to the 
> mainboard (Compaq)...
> 
> It might also have some problems with one of its 3 SCSI busses.
> 
> I compiled a .24-ish kernel for it with CONFIG_NO_HZ and 
> CONFIG_HIGH_RES_TIMERS. To get the system boot at least sometimes I have 
> to specify nohz=off. Then I get
> 
> * Found PM-Timer Bug on the chipset. Due to workarounds for a bug,
> * this clock source is slow. Consider trying other clock sources
> 
> Without this parameter it hangs usually between
> 
> Time: acpi_pm clocksource has been installed.
> 
> and
> 
> Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 1
> Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 0
> 
> Tried booting with clocksource=tsc then I've got
> 
> Marking TSC unstable due to: possible TSC halt in C2.
> 
> And then a few of these:
> 
> BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 13s! [swapper:0]
> 
> Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted (2.6.24-rc2-g8c086340 #3)
> EIP: 0060:[<c0233d33>] EFLAGS: 00000283 CPU: 0
> EIP is at acpi_processor_idle+0x2ae/0x477
> EAX: 00000000 EBX: fffffeab ECX: 00000001 EDX: 00000001
> ESI: c7c5f2d0 EDI: 00122d9f EBP: c03ddfa8 ESP: c03ddf90
>  DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0000 SS: 0068
> CR0: 8005003b CR2: 081dcf88 CR3: 07e46000 CR4: 000002d0
> DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
> DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
>  [<c01053fa>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x30
>  [<c0105f42>] show_trace+0x12/0x20
>  [<c01024fc>] show_regs+0x1c/0x20
>  [<c014fabb>] softlockup_tick+0x11b/0x150
>  [<c01311f2>] run_local_timers+0x12/0x20
>  [<c013168f>] update_process_times+0x2f/0x60
>  [<c014597a>] tick_sched_timer+0x6a/0xe0
>  [<c013fba0>] hrtimer_interrupt+0x120/0x1a0
>  [<c0119ff5>] smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x55/0x90
>  [<c0104e70>] apic_timer_interrupt+0x28/0x30
>  [<c0102624>] cpu_idle+0x84/0xf0
>  [<c0316a7d>] rest_init+0x5d/0x60
>  [<c03e1a7f>] start_kernel+0x2af/0x2f0
>  [<00000000>] run_init_process+0x3feff000/0x20
>  =======================
> 
> so, is there any way I can still reasonably use this system? Which 
> configuration / command-line parameters should I try?
> 
> If needed can provide complete dmesg (with nohz=off or with 
> clocksource=tsc) and .config.

How about disabling ACPI entirely, acpi=off on kernel command line? I 
wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of ACPI stuff broken on an older 
machine like that..

-- 
Robert Hancock      Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@nospamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/