Description of problem: On a new Dell Inspiron, the kernel panics and locks the machine up hard when trying to bring up the NIC in the rescue mode from the installation CD. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): RHEL 4 U4 WS x86_64 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot to rescue mode 2. Try to bring up network interface 3. Actual results: Kernel panic Expected results: NIC comes up and I fix machine Additional info: Error message is "Kernel panic - not syncing: PCI-DMA: high address but no IOMMU." NIC is a Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02) according to lspci. Machine is a Dell Inspiron XPS M1210 with a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz CPU. This happens with static IP or DHCP.
Ok, it also locks up hard on first boot when trying to bring up the network. So RHEL simply does not run on this machine (in a usable fashion, anyhow).
It seems that the b44 module loads okay, but the system locks up on "ifup eth0". This is the case whether using the version of the driver supplied in 2.6.9-42.0.2.EL (0.94, May 4 2004, + 3 patches) or the latest available (1.00g, Jun 7 2006).
This is actually a special case of <a href="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=217146">217146</a> which I filed more recently after some investigation. I can add further information here, but it would make more sense to put it there and mark this one as the dupe (though not if that report cannot be opened and dealt with yet!).
Thank you for submitting this issue for consideration in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The release for which you requested us to review is now End of Life. Please See https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/ If you would like Red Hat to re-consider your feature request for an active release, please re-open the request via appropriate support channels and provide additional supporting details about the importance of this issue.
Well done.