unstable system question

[Rick Stevens]

On Fri, 2007-09-21 at 19:08 -0400, jim ruxton wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-21-09 at 00:25 -0400, jim ruxton wrote:
> > On Thu, 2007-20-09 at 16:29 -0400, jim ruxton wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 2007-09-20 at 13:19 -0400, jim ruxton wrote:
> > > > > My system keeps slowing down and locking up. The only thing I've found
> > > > > is that I get the following system message when this happens. I'm
> > > > > assuming this is related but it may just be a coincidence or a result of
> > > > > the lockup.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Sep 20 04:05:35 localhost kernel: Clocksource tsc unstable (delta =
> > > > > 84348170175 ns)
> > > > > Sep 20 04:05:35 localhost kernel: Time: acpi_pm clocksource has been
> > > > > installed.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I tried adding notsc to my boot file ie.
> > > > > 
> > > > > kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.22.5-49.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb
> > > > > quiet notsc
> > > > > 
> > > > > but tsc still is loaded at boot. Any one have any thoughts on this. As
> > > > > you can see above I'm on FC6 with 2.6.22 Kernel.
> > 
> > > > 
> > > > notsc is only valid on IA32 (Itanium) processors.  You might try
> > > > booting with "clocksource=acpi_pm" initially to see if that helps.
> > > Thanks Rick I will try this and see if it helps.
> > 
> > Adding clocksource=acpi_pm didn't help unfortunately. I'm trying pci=
> > noacpi next to see if that makes a difference. Any other suggestions? 
> 
> So far my system has stabilized since I added pci=noapci to my
> grub.conf . Is there something I should do to narrow down the problem
> within acpi or should I just live with noacpi on my laptop?

You could try "acpi_skip_timer_override" or its opposite
"acpi_use_timer_override".  Not sure which is the best bet.  Does this
beastie use an nVidia chipset?

There's several other options available, but not having issues myself,
I can't say which may work.  Here's a snapshot of the docs:

acpi=           [HW,ACPI,X86-64,i386]
                Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
                Format: { force | off | ht | strict | noirq }
                force -- enable ACPI if default was off
                off -- disable ACPI if default was on
                noirq -- do not use ACPI for IRQ routing
                ht -- run only enough ACPI to enable Hyper Threading
                strict -- Be less tolerant of platforms that are
                   not strictly ACPI specification compliant.

One other thing I might mention is to see if there's an updated BIOS
for your machine and if so, install it.
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- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer             rstevens at internap.com -
- CDN Systems, Internap, Inc.                http://www.internap.com -
-                                                                    -
-   You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.    -
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