2.6.8 and 2.6.9 Dual Opteron glitches

[Daniel Egger]

Hija,

I've a few glitches with my brandnew dual Opteron System which I'd
like to share with you. First of all, all those problems seem to
be there with 2.6.8.1 and 2.6.9 but since this seemed to be the
case I moved on with 2.6.9 and hadn't investigated any further
on 2.6.8.1 so some of the issues might only apply to 2.6.9.

1) 32 bit kernel HPET calibration hang: If the kernel is compiled
   with HPET support, the kernel will hang on boot while
   calibrating the timer. The problem goes away if HPET support is
   not compiled in. I've no idea what information to provide to help
   debug this.

2) 64 bit kernel vgettimeofday panic: The kernel panics in
   arch/x64_64/vsyscall.c:169 on boot.

  static int __init vsyscall_init(void)
  {
          if ((unsigned long) &vgettimeofday != 
VSYSCALL_ADDR(__NR_vgettimeofday))
                  panic("vgettimeofday link addr broken");

  Replacing those panic(s) by printk make the machine boot just fine
  and also work (seemingly) without any problems under load.

3) Interrupt distribution 32 bit vs. 64 bit. Below is a copy of the
   current interrupt distribution for the 64 bit kernel which shows
   a huge shift towards CPU1. In a 32 bit kernel the distribution is
   reversed and even more visible than here since in total <100
   interupts will be handled by CPU1 after days of operation. The 64
   bit kernel has all relevant options for K8 (irq balancing,
   NUMA support, etc.) enabled.

           CPU0       CPU1
  0:      15260    4196668   IO-APIC-edge  timer
  9:          0          0   IO-APIC-level  acpi
169:          0          5   IO-APIC-level  ehci_hcd
177:          0          3   IO-APIC-level  uhci_hcd, ohci1394
185:       1999     934839   IO-APIC-level  uhci_hcd, eth0
NMI:       2698       2817
LOC:    4211263    4211263
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

4) ACPI powermanagement (32bit and 64bit): No matter which ACPI options
   I choose in the BIOS, ACPI will only handle the first CPU somewhat
   and leave the second CPU alone. I'd love to have some simple
   powermanagement because the system will get quite warm, even when
   idle, and warm == loud because the fans (which are barely noticeable
   when the system is cold) kick into gear quite fast.

processor id:            0
acpi id:                 1
bus mastering control:   no
power management:        no
throttling control:      yes
limit interface:         yes
active limit:            P0:T0
user limit:              P0:T0
thermal limit:           P0:T0
active state:            C1
default state:           C1
bus master activity:     00000000
states:
   *C1:                  promotion[--] demotion[--] latency[000] 
usage[00000000]
    C2:                  <not supported>
    C3:                  <not supported>
state count:             8
active state:            T0
states:
   *T0:                  00%
    T1:                  12%
    T2:                  25%
    T3:                  37%
    T4:                  50%
    T5:                  62%
    T6:                  75%
    T7:                  87%

processor id:            1
acpi id:                 2
bus mastering control:   no
power management:        no
throttling control:      no
limit interface:         no
<not supported>
active state:            C1
default state:           C1
bus master activity:     00000000
states:
   *C1:                  promotion[--] demotion[--] latency[000] 
usage[00000000]
    C2:                  <not supported>
    C3:                  <not supported>
<not supported>

Ask me for info, you'll get it. ;)

Servus,
      Daniel

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