Re: 2.6.{30,31} x86_64 ahci problem - irq 23: nobody cared

[Jean Delvare]

Le mercredi 21 octobre 2009, Alexander Huemer a écrit :
> Jean Delvare wrote:
> > OK, here I am, sorry for the delay. I've read the discussion thread.
> > Here are the few data points I can offer, in the hope it will help:
> >
> > * While the i2c-i801 driver received some changes in kernel 2.6.30,
> >   none of these are related to PCI nor interrupts. So as the problem
> >   is new in kernel 2.6.30, the i2c-i801 driver alone is unlikely to
> >   cause it. This may, however, be a combination of something i2c-i801
> >   does and something the pci subsystem does since kernel 2.6.30. For
> >   this reason, I would still recommend a bisection if the problem can
> >   be reliably reproduced. I know it takes time, but it is always
> >   easier to fix a bug when we know which commit introduced it.
> >
> > * The i2c-i801 driver does _not_ make use of interrupts. It is
> >   poll-based (I am not exactly proud of that, but that's the way it
> >   is.)
> >
> >   #define ENABLE_INT9		0	/* set to 0x01 to enable - untested */
> >
> >   So I am very surprised to read that this driver would cause an IRQ
> >   storm.
> >
> > * One thing the i2c-i801 driver does on the PCI device is:
> >
> >   err = pci_enable_device(dev);
> >
> >   I presume this is what causes the following message in dmesg:
> >
> >   i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.3: PCI INT B -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
> >
> >   Basically, even though the driver doesn't make use of interrupts,
> >   the IRQ is still registered because this is how the hardware is
> >   setup.
> >
> > As a conclusion, I suspect that 2 things may be happening: either
> > the SMBus is triggering interrupts when told not to. The ICH6 is a
> > bit different from all the other supported chips, I'll double check

My bad, it's an 63xxESB-based board, not ICH6. I must have been
mixing data from a different bug.

> > if we may have missed something. Or, something else is triggering
> > SMBus transactions. SMI and ACPI come to mind. If this is the case
> > then you do not want to use i2c-i801 on this motherboard.
> >
> > Questions to Alexander :
> >
> > * Can I please see the output of "sensors" on your system?
> > * What are the brand and model of your motherboard?
> > * Can we get an acpidump for your system?
> >
> >   
> many thanks for your response. i appreciate that.
> first, the data you requested:
> 
>     sensors:        http://xx.vu/~ahuemer/sensors-ahuemer-20091021.txt
>     acpidump:       http://xx.vu/~ahuemer/acpidump-ahuemer-20091021.txt

The good news is that I can't see any access to the SMBus in the
ACPI tables. Nothing can be said about the SMIs though, without an
intimate knowledge of the BIOS.

>     motherboard:    tyan tempest i5400pw/s5397 with one intel xeon e5420.
> 
> the output of sensors was made _without_ i801_smbus in the kernel.

Then please once again with it. My whole point was to know whether
there was any hardware monitoring chip connected to the SMBus. Your
initial kernel configuration suggests that you have a W83793G chip
there.

> i noticed that the data of w83627hf-isa-0290 is quite weird. i do not
> have an explanation for that.

I do. This happens when the manufacturer decides that the hardware
monitoring features of the Super-I/O are insufficient for their
needs. They add a dedicated chip for the hardware monitoring. This
is particularly frequent on server boards from Tyan and SuperMicro.
Ideally they would _also_ disable the feature on the Super-I/O side,
but often then do not, so the driver still loads, but outputs
garbage.

You can see the following messages in your log:
[    3.878703] w83627hf w83627hf.656: Enabling temp2, readings might not make sense
[    3.881708] w83627hf w83627hf.656: Enabling temp3, readings might not make sense
This is a good hint that this is the case (if the nonsensical data
displayed by "sensors" wasn't enough to convince you.)

So you should stop loading/including kernel module w83627hf.

> if a bisection is what will bring light into this, i am willing to take
> the time.
> so that would be a bisection between 2.6.29 and 2.6.30 ?
> a quicker test case would be good for that, but i don't have one yet,
> just the compilation of gcc, which takes time, even on this machine with
> tmpfs and ccache.

-- 
Jean Delvare
Suse L3
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