Description of problem: Somewhere between kernel 2.4.6-42.0.3 and 2.4.6-55.0.9, there seems to have been introduced a problem with (probably) sata_nv that prevents Sun Ultra-40s (Opteron with nvidia chipset) from booting. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.4.6-55.0.9 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Use up2date to upgrade to kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL.x86_64 from kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.3.EL.x86_64 2. Reboot 3. System locks during reboot Actual results: System locks after giving "ata1: CPB flags CMD err, flags=0x11". Usually this happens immediately after the "Red Hat nash version 4.2.1.0 starting" message early in the boot process. Expected results: System should boot fully into default runlevel. Additional info: I tried a number of different things when booting, such as using the non-smp kernel and passing the "noapic" boot option. In some cases, the boot process got a little farther, but the system always did hang before finishing booting. I'm pretty confident that this is not a hardware problem, since the same thing happens on two separate workstations, and booting to 42.0.3.ELsmp still works. I'll attach dmidecode and lspci output. Please advise what other documentation would be useful.
Created attachment 215221 [details] dmidecode output
Created attachment 215231 [details] lspci -v
Just as an additional datapoint, I am able to boot successfully into rescue mode using the installation CD from RHEL5 (kernel 2.6.18-8.el5 #1 smp).
It appears that applying the latest motherboard BIOS for the Ultra-40 (vsn 1.6) fixes the problem. I have been able to boot successfully to kernel-smp-2.6.9-55.0.9.EL.x86_64 on both of the affected systems here using the new BIOS. Thus, as far as I am concerned, this bug can be closed.
Closing based upon Comment#4.