Re: Linux 2.4.x Kernel Bug - Problem found

[Denis Vlasenko]

On 25 September 2002 19:06, DragonK wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Two days ago I've sent you a mail regarding my problem
> with the Kernel 2.4(5).x boot hangs.
>
> I'd like to thank the kind people who answered me
> back, I really appreciate their efforts.
>
> I have two news: one good, one bad :)
> The good one is that I've found the cause of the
> kernel lock-up (er...sort of).
>
> Tha bad one is that I can't do anything about it.
> I had an ideea and disabled in my BIOS all caches,
> floppy controller, ports and other stuff...
> Surprise! Kernel 2.4.18 booted (in 10 mins :). No
> lock-up!!

Congratulations!

> Ok...I went back into the BIOS and enabled internal
> cache. Boot again...Guess what? :(
> Nothing...dead.
>
> So, at least on my system, there is a problem with the
> cache. I don't think that the cache memory
> itself is bad, since I don't experience random
> failures or reboots...
>
> What should I do? If there will be a patch for this,
> where would I find it?
> Please help!

You have to patch arch/i386/setup.S with some piece of
'marker' asm code (say, infinite loop with blinking keyboard LED :-)
and move it further and further into boot process
until you find a place where it stops blinking.
You'll know then exact place of hang!
--
vda