This could well be pilot error or even a hardware problem, but here goes: I have some Silicon Graphics 550 Visual Workstations, each with 2 800+ MHZ Xeon CPUs and a i840 chipset. When I ran the 2.2.16-21smp kernel along with the rest of the 2000/08/11 Rawhide release on these systems, I noticed what seemed to be a problem with the kernel USB modules. Specifically, if I "modprobe uhci" or "modprobe usb-uhci" (either way also pulling in usbcore), then isubsequently "insmod aic7xxx" so I can talk to SCSI, the system begins probing the SCSI devices (printing out progress on the console) and then hangs hard, not even responding to the magic-sysrq-key sequences at the console. So far I haven't tried to debug this any further. I tried this on two different SG550 systems and got the same result. Each of the systems had a single disk drive on SCSI bus A, and no external USB devices attached. This problem doesn't happen on SG550 (insmod aic7xxx works fine) if the uhci and usbcore kernel modules are not loaded. This problem doesn't happen on SG550 if I run the 2.2.16-21 kernel instead of the 2.2.16-21smp kernel. This problem doesn't happen with the 2.2.16-21smp kernel and uhci/usbcore kernel modules loaded on a 2-processor SG330 system, which uses a Via Apollo Pro chipset instead of the i840 chipset used in the SG550. Is it possible that there could be some problem with the kernel USB stuff in 2.2.16-21smp not being SMP-safe? If it helps for me to provide additional details, I'd be happy to do so.
First question - are the AIC7xxx and the USB controller sharing the same interrupt line ?
alan writes: > are the AIC7xxx and the USB controller sharing the same interrupt line? Good question -- I checked, and yes, looks like they are. It's a dual-channel SCSI controller that's integrated into the motherboard (like the USB controller). Perhaps an elementary question, but I don't know if it's possible to change these IRQ assignments in my system, or how to do it if indeed it is possible. Suggestions always appreciated. I got the following info using the 2.2.16-21 (not SMP) kernel, because of course the 2.2.16-21smp kernel locks up immediately on this system when aic7xxx and uhci are loaded. dunwoody2:/1.bak> cat /proc/interrupts CPU0 0: 74644 XT-PIC timer 1: 373 XT-PIC keyboard 2: 0 XT-PIC cascade 5: 5782 XT-PIC aic7xxx, aic7xxx, usb-uhci 8: 1 XT-PIC rtc 10: 4037 XT-PIC Intel ICH 82801AA, eth0 12: 1085 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse 13: 1 XT-PIC fpu NMI: 0 dunwoody2:/1.bak> lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82840 840 (Carmel) Chipset Host Bridge (Hub A) (rev 01) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82840 840 (Carmel) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 01) 00:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82840 840 (Carmel) Chipset PCI Bridge (Hub B) (rev 01) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801AA IDE (rev 02) 00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA USB (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801AA SMBus (rev 02) 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA AC'97 Audio (rev 02) 02:1f.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82806AA PCI64 Hub PCI Bridge (rev 03) 03:00.0 PIC: Intel Corporation 82806AA PCI64 Hub Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (rev 01) 03:03.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec 7899P (rev 01) 03:03.1 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec 7899P (rev 01) 04:08.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 2164W [Millennium II] 04:09.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 2164W [Millennium II] 04:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 08) dunwoody2:/1.bak> lsmod Module Size Used by nfs 28768 1 (autoclean) uhci 17872 0 (unused) usbcore 42088 0 [uhci] autofs 9124 2 (autoclean) nfsd 143844 8 (autoclean) lockd 31176 1 (autoclean) [nfs nfsd] sunrpc 52964 1 (autoclean) [nfs nfsd lockd] ppp 20236 0 (autoclean) (unused) slhc 4504 0 (autoclean) [ppp] eepro100 16180 1 (autoclean) agpgart 18600 0 (unused) i810_audio 10600 2 soundcore 2596 2 [i810_audio] ac97_codec 6980 0 [i810_audio] aic7xxx 137432 2 dunwoody2:/1.bak>
2.2 kernels had "opportunistic" USB support, so we could not do enhancements. I struggled with USB on SMP for a year before it started working decently on 2.4. No way in hell I am backporting all that to 2.2. I suggest using 7.2 release with 2.4.9-31 kernel (latest is 2.4.18, but I think VisWS support was dropped from that)
No problem here -- I'm running RH7.2+2.4.9-31 now and everything works great. BTW, "VisWS" support was indeed dropped from the kernel, but that applied only to the SGI 320 and 540 models. The SGI 230,330,550 models were very standard PCs.