Description of problem: The system clock picks up speed as the system load increases. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): System is updated to latest RPMs Running kernel 2.6.9-34 Problem is reproducible on both EL and ELsmp How reproducible: Put a load on the system. Steps to Reproduce: In my case: 1. Download globus toolkit 4.0 and unzip in /home/globus. 2. Run make. 3. Before this finishes, the system clock is a day into the future. Actual results: Expected results: Additional info: Running ntpd Followed these instructions http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_43_4081.shtm No help. The ntp log shows that it will reset the time by, for example, -93.xxx seconds. Dmesg reported the following at boot: ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IOAPIC ...trying to set up timer (IRQ0) through the 8259A . failed. ...trying to set up timer as Virtual Wire IRQ... failed. ...trying to set up timer as ExtINT IRQ... works. Followed the instructions here: http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nforce/1.0-0301/KnownProblems.html Added acpi_skip_timer_override option to boot line option, but no help, other than getting rid of the error messages. Current setup is a mirrored RAID using Highpoint RocketRAID 1640 controller card. Tried single disk installation and the problem was even more pronounced because the system load was higher. Asus A8N-E Mainboard S939 AMD Athlon64 X 2 4400+ BOX S939 DDR PC3200 1024MB X 2 Seagate 400 GB SATA HD X 2 Asus GeForce6200TC 64/256 PCIE Intel PRO/1000MT Dual Port NIC Tried to reproduce problem using an older kernel (2.6.9-22ELsmp). Ran okay.
can you do an "lspci" so we can figure out what chipset's are being used? Looks like a problem similar to whats happening on some ATI based motherboards.
$ /sbin/lspci 00:00.0 Memory controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Memory Controller (rev a3) 00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 ISA Bridge (rev a3) 00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2) 00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a2) 00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a3) 00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a2) 00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 IDE (rev f2) 00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCI Bridge (rev a2) 00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev a3) 00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3) 00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3) 00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3) 00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE Bridge (rev a3) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 6200 TurboCache (TM) (rev a1) 05:06.0 RAID bus controller: Triones Technologies, Inc. HPT374 (rev 07) 05:06.1 RAID bus controller: Triones Technologies, Inc. HPT374 (rev 07) 05:07.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01) 05:07.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) (rev 01)
Is there an update please? Any word at all?
are you using PowerNow? if so, what timesource is being used? i.e. "dmesg | grep time"
$ dmesg | grep time Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet acpi_skip_timer_override Using tsc for high-res timesource Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4425.48 BogoMIPS (lpj=2212742) per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 2925.47 usecs. task migration cache decay timeout: 3 msecs. Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4422.02 BogoMIPS (lpj=2211014) SELinux: Disabled at runtime. PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:0a.0 to 64 PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:04.0 to 64 PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:02.1 to 64 PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:02.0 to 64
using tsc as the timesource is surely the problem if your using PowerNow! if using PowerNow, you need to use "pmtimer" or "hpet" as the timesource. Pmtimer support didnt go into RHEL4 until U3, so you will need to upgrade if you dont have an HPET on the system that you can use.
I installed RHEL AS4 U3 and and ntpd and have a problem with the system clock. I appreciate that you may wish to offer me the benefit of the doubt as to my level of sysadmin expertise, however, I, like some others who may experience this same problem with RHEL AS4 U3 and the system clock, have not had to deal with such an issue before. Please do help me by elaborating on your reply. Or, are you telling me that this is my problem, and not a problem with RHEL? Many Thanks for you prompt attention to this matter.
Regarding Comment #7, TSC cannot be used as a timesource on multiprocessor SMP systems. AMD systems have unsynchronized TSC's (which go out of sync in a few hours) and when the kernels timekeeping reads the TSC, it may read from any CPU. when the TSC's go out of sync, the kernel may read from any TSC and introduce error into the kernels timekeeping. this is a design issue with AMD and affects all multiprocessor AMD systems running linux. On x86_64, use the "notsc" boot arg to disable TSC based timekeeping. On i386 (i686) use "clock=hpet", "clock=pmtmr", or "clock=pit" to select a different timesource.
After months of waiting, I had given up on RHEL support and moved to SUSE, which seems to have no problem with the system clock.