Bug 212648 - System freeze loading bcm43xx with mem > 1GB on x86_64
Summary: System freeze loading bcm43xx with mem > 1GB on x86_64
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 6
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: John W. Linville
QA Contact: Brian Brock
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2006-10-27 20:38 UTC by Heiko Jakob
Modified: 2007-11-30 22:11 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version: 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2007-01-31 19:00:30 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Heiko Jakob 2006-10-27 20:38:26 UTC
Description of problem:

When loading the bcm43xx module with more then 1 GB memory on x86_64 results in
freezing the system.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
FC6 kernel 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6


How reproducible:
100 %


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot a x86_64 system with more then 1 GB memory
2. Install the bcm43xx firmware
3. modprobe bcm43xx


  
Actual results:

Limiting the memory by adding mem=1023 to the kernel boot parameters everything
works fine.


Expected results:

It should even work with more then 1GB memory.

Additional info:
The problem is discussed on the following URL. It seems it is a problem getting
DMA capable memory below 1 GB. Most bcm43xx Hardware has only 30/31-Bit
addressing and needs DMA below 1GB.
 
http://www.mail-archive.com/bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de/msg02071.html

Comment 1 John W. Linville 2006-10-28 00:18:03 UTC
Test kernels w/ back-ported DMA fixes here:

   http://people.redhat.com/linville/kernels/fc6/

Please give them a try and post the results here...thanks

Comment 2 Heiko Jakob 2006-10-28 16:41:13 UTC
Well, i gave it a try and the module loaded smoothly,
but bringing up the interface with "# ifconfig eth1 up" panics the kernel.

Call Trace:
[<ffffffff8026929b>]show_trace+0x34/0x47
[<ffffffff802692c0>]dump_stack+0x12/0x17
[<ffffffff8029dc68>]down_read+0x15/0x23
[<ffffffff80296254>]blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x13/0x36
[<ffffffff80214e4b>]do_exit+0x1f/0x8c2
[<ffffffff802648c0>]do_page_fault+0x794/0x80f
[<ffffffff8025ccdd>]error_exit+0x0/0x84
DWARF2 unwinder stuck at error_exit+0x0/0x84
Leftover inexact backtrace:
<IRQ> [<ffffffff8035396>] vgacon_cursor+0x0/0x1a5
[<ffffffff882ecb86>] :bcm43xx:bcm43xx_dma_handle_xmitstatus+0x122/0x388
[<ffffffff882db96f>] :bcm43xx:bcm43xx_interrupt_tasklet+0x79f/0x889
[<ffffffff8028edbf>] tasklet_action+0x62/0xac
[<ffffffff80211cd8>] __do_softirq+0x5e/0xd5
[<ffffffff802756ff>] end_level_ioapic_vector+0x9/0x16
[<ffffffff8025d1f0>] call_softirq+0x1c/0x28
[<ffffffff8026a454>] do_softirq+0xc2/0x85
[<ffffffff8026a2e2>] do_IRQ+0xec/0xf5
[<ffffffff8025c509>] ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa
<EOI> [<ffffffff8025bfaa>] system_call+0x1a/0x83
[<ffffffff8025c00e>]system_call+0x7e/0x83

Kernel pamic - not syncing: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!




With best regards 
Heiko


Comment 3 Jarod Wilson 2006-11-01 19:16:16 UTC
Just a data point to add to this one: my PowerBook G4 with 1.5GB of RAM in it
has zero problems loading up the bcm43xx module.

Comment 4 John W. Linville 2006-11-01 19:46:53 UTC
Jarod, is that with the stock FC6 kernel?  Or my test kernel?

Comment 5 John W. Linville 2006-12-12 15:12:20 UTC
Current kernels at the location from comment 1 now have the new d80211 
infrastructure available.  Please give those kernels a try, and be sure to 
change references in /etc/modprobe.conf to bcm43xx-d80211 instead of bcm43xx.  
You probably need to use v4 firmware as well.

Does that work any better for you?

Comment 6 Christopher Stone 2006-12-23 17:55:37 UTC
John I just tested kernel-2.6.18-1.2861.2.1.fc6.jwltest.16 x86_64 kernel and
while the kernel no longer crashes, I could not get my wireless card to work.

I'm not sure which version of firmware I used, I just used what was already
installed nine months ago the last time I tried this.

Comment 7 Christopher Stone 2006-12-23 18:11:17 UTC
I do get this message:
Dec 23 10:07:42 rivendell kernel: bcm43xx_d80211: ASSERTION FAILED
(radio_attenuation < 10) at:
drivers/net/wireless/d80211/bcm43xx/bcm43xx_phy.c:1482:bcm43xx_find_lopair()

Comment 8 megareg 2007-01-02 20:12:05 UTC
This bug seems to be fixed in the recent kernels from kernels.org. Because of
this I use a self compiled kernel to run both the wireless LAN and my 2 gigs of
memory.
Chris` is another well known bug/problem, but in my opinion it has nothing to do
with this one...

Comment 9 Christopher Stone 2007-01-02 20:21:52 UTC
I wish someone would package a vanilla kernel rpm for extras.

Comment 10 Alex Tucker 2007-01-22 21:33:28 UTC
Kernel 2.6.19 fixed this bug for me, and now 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6 is out I've
tested the RH kernel which seems to work fine -- at least I'm submitting this
comment using the bcm43xx driver with 2GB RAM on a x86_64 machine.

Comment 11 John W. Linville 2007-01-31 19:00:30 UTC
Closing based on comment 10.  Please re-open (or open a new bug) if problems 
continue with kernels later than 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6.


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