Re: 2.4.5-ac6 and 2.4.4-ac11 boot fails with APIC timer

[Mikael Pettersson]

On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 11:27:53 +0900, <[e-mail]> wrote:

>> The message on the screen 
>>
>> calibrating APIC timer ..... 
>> .... CPU clock speed is 1395.7390MHz 
>> ... host bus clock speed is 0.0000 MHz 
>> cpu: 0, clocks: 0, slic: 0 
>>
>> Then nothing. I had to push the reset button at this point. 
>> ACPI and APM were disabled from the kernel config. 
>>
>> This boot failure messages was obtained from 
>> Pentium4 board GB-450(?) from Intel, NVIDIA M64 video. 
>> Sound Blaster 128 PCI. Netgear PNIC fast ethernet.... 
>>   
>> The same kernel was able to boot up the other Pentium 4 board from 
>> Gigabyte flawlessly. So, it depends on the motherboard manufacturers. 
>>
>> Regards to all. 
>>
>> G. Hugh Song 
>
>Replying to my own message:
>
>When I chose "No" to "APIC support on uniprocessors", the above error
>message disappeared and the machine booted up OK with 2.4.5-ac13.
>...
>I think that APIC thing was defined by Intel themselves.
>They should have implemented it the best.  How much penalty do I pay 
>by not choosing "yes" to "APIC support on uniprocessors"?

(a) the NMI watchdog didn't kill you (good), but
(b) the calibration loop detects a 0MHz bus speed and then fails
    to produce the "CPU0:<T0: ...>" line, which means it hangs in
    arch/i386/kernel/apic.c:setup_APIC_timer(), probably because
    apic_read(APIC_TMCCT) always returns zero.

Anyway, you should disable CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC on your P4 for now.
You won't lose any performance due to this, only the possibility to
use the NMI watchdog.

/Mikael