Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756791AbXEQMeG (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 May 2007 08:34:06 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754478AbXEQMd4 (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 May 2007 08:33:56 -0400 Received: from dedi.luli.de ([88.198.62.74]:44814 "EHLO dedi.luli.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754377AbXEQMdz (ORCPT ); Thu, 17 May 2007 08:33:55 -0400 X-Greylist: delayed 401 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Thu, 17 May 2007 08:33:54 EDT Message-ID: <464C4A22.7040709@rootdir.de> Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 14:27:14 +0200 From: Claas Langbehn User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (X11/20070403) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: LKML Subject: This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU... (on a VIA C7 CPU) Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------060004010705010101030409" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 4517 Lines: 129 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------060004010705010101030409 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, I have got a VIA EPIA EX15000G Mini-ITX mainboard with a C7 VIA Esther processor (1500MHz). There are two options in the BIOS that affect CPU feature flags: C7 CMPXCHG8 - enable/disable (Disable to install windows NT 4.0) and C7 No Execute (NX) - enable/disable I enabled both and compiled a new 2.6.22-rc1-mm1 kernel. So far so good. The problem is that the system is very unstable and crashes regularly (1-3 times a day). After a crash the bios resets the two processor flags back to disabled. But like this the kernel complains and does not continiue booting: > This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU: > 0:8 Each time this happens, I have to go to the BIOS and manually enable these flags again. That is pretty annoying! :( I attached a cpuinfo.txt. When the two flags are disabled, cx8 and nx are not listed there. Now my question is: Would it be possible to override the BIOS settings of cx8 and nx and activate it with linux anyway? The CPU supports it and I don't see any reason to disable it. I already wrote several emails to VIA months ago saying that this is probably a bug in their BIOS, but they are neitherreleasing a new BIOS nor reacting in any way. Their so called support website viaarena.com is not helping neither. Since VIA is not helping at all, the only soulution I see would be to override the BIOS'es decision. Concerning the crashes I already changed the memory module, but with no success. I'm not sure wether this is a hardware or software bug. Many regards, claas --------------060004010705010101030409 Content-Type: text/plain; name="cpuinfo.txt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="cpuinfo.txt" processor : 0 vendor_id : CentaurHauls cpu family : 6 model : 10 model name : VIA Esther processor 1500MHz stepping : 9 cpu MHz : 799.952 cache size : 128 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 nx pni est rng rng_en ace ace_en ace2 ace2_en phe phe_en pmm pmm_en bogomips : 1601.30 clflush size : 64 --------------060004010705010101030409 Content-Type: text/plain; name="dmesg.txt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="dmesg.txt" 000000 (gap: 3bf00000:a4100000) Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 243571 Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda3 ro quiet mapped APIC to ffffd000 (fee00000) mapped IOAPIC to ffffc000 (fec00000) Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done. Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done. Initializing CPU#0 PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 16384 bytes) Detected 1499.916 MHz processor. Console: colour VGA+ 80x25 Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes) Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes) Memory: 969928k/981952k available (1931k kernel code, 11472k reserved, 659k data, 192k init, 64448k highmem) virtual kernel memory layout: fixmap : 0xfffaa000 - 0xfffff000 ( 340 kB) pkmap : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000 (4096 kB) vmalloc : 0xf8800000 - 0xff7fe000 ( 111 MB) lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xf8000000 ( 896 MB) .init : 0xc038a000 - 0xc03ba000 ( 192 kB) .data : 0xc02e2c3b - 0xc03879d4 ( 659 kB) .text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc02e2c3b (1931 kB) Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok. Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 3002.19 BogoMIPS (lpj=5001917) Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 CPU: After generic identify, caps: 87c9bbff 00100000 00000000 00000000 00000081 00000000 00000000 CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line) CPU: L2 Cache: 128K (64 bytes/line) CPU: After all inits, caps: 07c9bbff 00100000 00000000 00000000 00000081 00003fcc 00000000 Compat vDSO mapped to ffffe000. CPU: Centaur VIA Esther processor 1500MHz stepping 09 Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK. --------------060004010705010101030409-- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/