2002-09-22 09:37:18

by walairat kladmuk

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Kernel Issues


I have a problem installing Mandrake 8.2.

Installation appears to work fine but when I try and boot the system the
following is a copy of the kernel messages as boot fails (last 8 lines)

PCI <something>
PCI <something>
PCI <something>
PCI <something>
Isapnp: Scanning for PnP Cards
CPU0: Machine Check Exception: 00000000000000000007
Bank 3: b40000000000000000000083b at 0000000000000001fc0003b3
Kernel Panic: Unable to continue

Having played around with numerous installation techniques (full/min,
various partition configs/types) over the last 4 days I haven't made any
progress.

I even tried Red Hat 7.3 (Valhalla) and the same happened.

I built the system last week.
Here is an outline of my system:

Motherboard:
http://www.octek.com.hk/products/ATI/ati13xp-mse.htm

CPU:
AMD Athlon 1.6 XP

RAM:
256MB 266 DDR one module (1 free)

HD:
Seagate 40MB

CDROM:
LG DVD Drive

No PCI Cards mounted or AGP cards.

Sound and Video is onboard, see http above for details.

In my exploring of the installation via the rescue mode, I noticed the
Config file in boot and was wondering how this is used? Is this only used
when compiling the kernel or would changes make any difference now? A few of
the switches looked promising to try playing with but since I am not really
sure where to start compiling the kernel some advice here would help. Where
do I find documentation on what each config_Switch in the config file does
for example?

The third party kernel modules that are asked for when installing might also
be worth a try... advice here appreciated.

My gut feeling is that given the error message the boot fails when looking
for an ISApnp card... my motherboard is very new
(http://www.octek.com.hk/products/ATI/ati13xp-mse.htm) and doesn't have an
ISA slot.

Can anyone offer me a little advice here? Is there any way to do it without
having to recompile the kernel? (Not done this before relatively new to
Linux, though I have plenty of time to burn :)

D Scaife
[email protected] (yahoo only sends html style mail which list sees as
spam hence the reason this comes from elsewhere)

p.s. Also played with the System.map and tried deleting all those lines
beginning with isapnp... no luck... these are shots in the dark :)ut feeling
is that given the error message the boot fails when looking for an ISApnp
card... my motherboard is very new (see profile) and doesn't have an ISA
slot.


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2002-09-22 09:50:57

by jbradford

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Kernel Issues

> I have a problem installing Mandrake 8.2.
>
> Installation appears to work fine but when I try and boot the system the
> following is a copy of the kernel messages as boot fails (last 8 lines)
>
> PCI <something>
> PCI <something>
> PCI <something>
> PCI <something>
> Isapnp: Scanning for PnP Cards
> CPU0: Machine Check Exception: 00000000000000000007
> Bank 3: b40000000000000000000083b at 0000000000000001fc0003b3
> Kernel Panic: Unable to continue
>
> Having played around with numerous installation techniques (full/min,
> various partition configs/types) over the last 4 days I haven't made any
> progress.
>
> I even tried Red Hat 7.3 (Valhalla) and the same happened.

Try downloading this boot disk image from ftp.slackware.com, (or a mirror):

/pub/slackware/slackware-current/bootdisks/bare.i

write it to a disk, and boot from it.

Let us know whether it gets to the point where it asks you for the next disk or not. If the kernel panics before that point, there is definitely something wrong.

If it does panic before asking for the next disk, you could try the lowmem.i boot disk in the same directory, and let us know whether that boots as well.

John.

2002-09-22 10:37:47

by Matti Aarnio

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Kernel Issues

On Sun, Sep 22, 2002 at 09:42:21AM +0000, walairat kladmuk wrote:
> I have a problem installing Mandrake 8.2.
>
> Installation appears to work fine but when I try and boot the system the
> following is a copy of the kernel messages as boot fails (last 8 lines)
>
> PCI <something>
> PCI <something>
> PCI <something>
> PCI <something>
> Isapnp: Scanning for PnP Cards
> CPU0: Machine Check Exception: 00000000000000000007
> Bank 3: b40000000000000000000083b at 0000000000000001fc0003b3
> Kernel Panic: Unable to continue

This is reporting memory problems. However you should not
have 4 banks of memory... Possibly your single memory module
is at Bank-1 when it should be at Bank-0 connector ?
(That should manifest a lot earlier, though..)

If the MCE code is broken (it is possible) at your hardware,
try booting with boot-line option "nomce".

Or perhaps you are running with kernel optimized for intel
Pentum-III+ and some deep detail disagrees with AMD Athlon XP ?

The installation boot kernels are very "unadvanced", 386, or such.
The installed kernel tries to be as advanced as the system allows.

I haven't had a need to guide the installation to use some other
kernel, than its own internal default, however you might want
to try to get it to install a 486 or 586 kernel.

Then, latter, install an alternate kernel optimized for Athlon XP,
and select it manually during the boot.

> Having played around with numerous installation techniques (full/min,
> various partition configs/types) over the last 4 days I haven't made any
> progress.
>
> I even tried Red Hat 7.3 (Valhalla) and the same happened.
>
> I built the system last week.
> Here is an outline of my system:
>
> Motherboard:
> http://www.octek.com.hk/products/ATI/ati13xp-mse.htm
>
> CPU:
> AMD Athlon 1.6 XP
>
> RAM:
> 256MB 266 DDR one module (1 free)
>
> HD:
> Seagate 40MB
>
> CDROM:
> LG DVD Drive
>
> No PCI Cards mounted or AGP cards.
>
> Sound and Video is onboard, see http above for details.
...
> Can anyone offer me a little advice here? Is there any way to do it
> without having to recompile the kernel? (Not done this before relatively
> new to Linux, though I have plenty of time to burn :)
>
> D Scaife
> [email protected] (yahoo only sends html style mail which list sees
> as spam hence the reason this comes from elsewhere)

That is odd.. MSN also sends HTML as default, but can be
configured not to do so. Odd if Yahoo does not give
option to control that... At the bottom of "Compose"
page there is some "HTML" related control. Make sure that
one is off.

> p.s. Also played with the System.map and tried deleting all those lines
> beginning with isapnp... no luck... these are shots in the dark :)ut
> feeling is that given the error message the boot fails when looking for an
> ISApnp card... my motherboard is very new (see profile) and doesn't have an
> ISA slot.

The "Config" and "System.map" files relate to the kernel you are
using, and are produced during its compilation. Editing them
afterwards won't affect a thing -- except harm certain parts of
kernel error reporting support at klogd.

/Matti Aarnio

2002-09-22 10:43:59

by Willy Tarreau

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Kernel Issues

On Sun, Sep 22, 2002 at 09:42:21AM +0000, walairat kladmuk wrote:

a few questions :
- are you sure your CPU isn't overclocked (should be about 1.3 Ghz) ?
- are you sure your RAM doesn't have defects (try memtest) ?
- what are the kernel versions shipped with those distros ?
- perhaps your bios setup has ECC ram enabled or some other bad settings ?

> HD:
> Seagate 40MB

I suppose it's 40 GB instead.

> In my exploring of the installation via the rescue mode, I noticed the
> Config file in boot and was wondering how this is used?

it's used when you want to recompile your kernel. Copy it as
/usr/src/linux/.config, start "make oldconfig" to see if options have changed
between it and the kernel you try to compile, then "make menuconfig" and
disable unwanted options (perhaps machine check exception). Then
"make clean && make dep && make bzImage modules", and try to boot on the new
bzImage (arch/i386/boot/bzImage).

> The third party kernel modules that are asked for when installing might
> also be worth a try... advice here appreciated.

it seems as your kernel hangs very early, too early to even load a module.

> My gut feeling is that given the error message the boot fails when looking
> for an ISApnp card... my motherboard is very new
> (http://www.octek.com.hk/products/ATI/ati13xp-mse.htm) and doesn't have an
> ISA slot.

try passing "noisapnp" in this case. But you don't need ISA slots to have
onboard ISA chips anyway.

> D Scaife
> [email protected] (yahoo only sends html style mail which list sees
> as spam hence the reason this comes from elsewhere)

I also have a yahoo account without this problem because I've disabled
HTML mails.

> p.s. Also played with the System.map and tried deleting all those lines
> beginning with isapnp... no luck... these are shots in the dark :)ut

System.map is used by insmod, ksymoops and other tools which need to know
the address of certain kernel symbols. That's unrelated to your problem.
Your problem comes from the kernel image itself. At this stage, it cannot
read any file. BTW, have you tried with the kernel used by the install to boot ?

> feeling is that given the error message the boot fails when looking for an
> ISApnp card... my motherboard is very new (see profile) and doesn't have an
> ISA slot.

Your motherboard isn't unique ; these days, it's very hard to find a
motherboard providing at least one ISA slot.

hoping this helps,
Willy