On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 4:00 AM, Len Brown <lenb417@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>  after upgrading to linux kernel 3.xx I get kernel panic on boot unless I
>>> use ACPI=off in the boot parameters this happens with both Ubuntu 11.10 and
>>> Fedora 16. The mainboard is an Intel S875WP1-E running a Pentuim 4 3ghz with
>>> 3gig RAM in single-channel mode. I have performed a Bios upgrade just in
>>> case tha ACPI tables were corrupt but it makes no difference. Currently
>>> running 2.6.38-11-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP (Linux Mint) with no issues.
>
> Is this problem new in 3.1, or is it also present in 2.6.39 or 3.0?
>
> Also, do any other cmdline parmaters besides acpi=off work-around it?
> pci=noacpi
> maxcpus=1
>
> etc.

Please keep all the cc's when responding.  Saves you work, saves us work :)

Summary of what I think you're seeing (please correct if wrong):

2.6.38 (Ubuntu/Mint): works fine, even with no boot args
2.6.38 (Fedora 15): works fine, even with no boot args
2.6.40? (Fedora 15 with upgraded kernel): requires "acpi=off" to boot
3.0.0-12 (Ubuntu/Mint): requires "acpi=off" or "maxcpus=1" to boot.
"pci=noacpi" makes no difference.  with no arguments, panics as in
attached screenshot.
3.1.0-0.rc6 (Fedora 16 live CD): can't find root device, drops to
debug shell, even with "maxcpus=1"

Let's focus on Ubuntu and forget Fedora for now.

The screenshot you sent (attached) has a clue ("EIP: [<00000000>] 0x0
SS:ESP 007b:00000046 CR2: 00000000ffffffff, Fatal exception in
interrupt") but doesn't really have enough context.  I should have
suggested booting with "vga=0xf07".  That will use a smaller font, so
the photo can capture more information.  Can you try that?  You might
have to use a lower jpg quality setting or resave with gimp at a low
quality setting to make the size 100K or less for the mailing lists.

If you can boot 3.0.0-12 with "maxcpus=1", collect the dmesg log and
maybe we can compare it with the new "vga=0xf07" screenshot.

Bjorn