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Bug 64971

Summary: Installer hangs when loading aic7xxx module on Intel L440GX+ motherboard and Astor II chassis
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Brian <bugzilla.redhat.com>
Component: kernelAssignee: Arjan van de Ven <arjanv>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact: Brock Organ <borgan>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 7.3CC: bscott, michaelkofler
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2002-05-21 09:10:23 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description Flags
Output from dmidecode none

Description Brian 2002-05-15 09:32:58 UTC 
From Bugzilla Helper:

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.14; Mac_PowerPC)



Description of problem:

Installer seems to hang during the initial 'loading aic7xxx' module 
message.



Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):





How reproducible:

Always



Steps to Reproduce:

1. Insert bootable installation cd-rom

2. Turn on PC



Actual Results:  The installer hangs.



Expected Results:  The installer completes



Additional info:



This identical problem happened under the 7.2 install, and it was 
determined that there was a bug between the 2.4.x kernel running in non-
SMP mode and the aic7xxx card that is embedded into the motherboard. 
The solution was that a redhat person uploaded some install images 
which were SMP enabled.



(As I recall, it was a problem with the APIC system?)
Comment 1 Brian 2002-05-16 21:36:15 UTC 
I guess I should have looked a bit harder, because I was able to get this 
working using workarounds from previous redhat versions. It would be nice if 
this issue could be resolved sometime, as it seems to have reappeared in every 
redhat since 7.1. I don't recall other distributions having the same symptoms 
during that time period.

(the 'linux apic' commandline option fixed this one)
Comment 2 Arjan van de Ven 2002-05-20 12:06:48 UTC 
It's an Intel bios bug; please contact intel for an upgrade
Comment 3 Arjan van de Ven 2002-05-21 08:26:35 UTC 
Also please run the dmidecode program from the kernel-utils
package and attach the output; with that we can make the "apic"
automatic for your exact bios
Comment 4 Brian 2002-05-21 09:10:17 UTC 
Created attachment 58088 [details]
Output from dmidecode
Comment 5 Benjamin Scott 2003-05-07 02:07:38 UTC 
We have an L440GX+ board that exhibits this problem.  The various "pci=", SMP
kernel, and "apic" workarounds did not help.  Fortunately, the system we were
installing to had a RAID controller (used a different driver), and an IDE
CD-ROM.  So, we did a "noprobe" install, skipped the "aic7xxx" driver, and got a
working system.

We then downloaded kernel 2.4.20 (final release, pristine sources), did a custom
build, and tried that.  It worked perfectly.  It appears that Alan Cox obtained
information from Intel that lead to a fix.

See also Bug 78234 (against RHL 8.0), which lead me to this solution.