Public bug reported:
I'm not entirely sure this isn't a pure hardware issue, but it's been
suggested to me it might be a software issue interacting badly with the
hardware, so I'm filing this bug.
The computer I built a few months back has, ever since it was first
built, occassionally had full-system pauses which last a few seconds
(generally around 5). The GUI, including mouse, locks; audio playing
starts skipping; network packets don't get responded to, all keyboard
controls stop, and no processing in any background task occurs. The
whole machine just stops, then picks right up where it left off a few
seconds later.
During these times, there is no hard drive activity.
I do have the NVIDIA driver installed, but the problem persists even
with that removed and using the stock X.org nv driver (that's with a
fresh boot without ever even loading the proprietary module), so I feel
rather comfortable in claiming it's not the NVIDIA driver at fault here.
There are no log messages generated during these pauses; no errors in
dmesg or /var/log/messages.
It's been suggested that powernow might be the cause. I disabled
powernowd, and while it _seemed_ like the hangups were less frequent,
they did still occur.
The hardware is:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ socket 939
2GB Corsair Value Select PC3200 DDR400 memory
Gigabyte K8N51GMF-9 NVIDIA nForce4 430 motherboard
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 512MB PCI Express video card
Maxtor 160GB SATA 150 hard disk
Sony DVD+-RW ATAPI drive
USB keyboard and mouse
420 Watt power supply
I am running the absolute latest Edgy packages as of this writing, and
have rebooted into the freshest kernel. This problem has persisted
since Dapper was in development.
Note that I am running the x86 version of the distro, not the AMD64
version.
The onboard video card is completely disabled through the BIOS, as are
the serial ports.
The file systems in use are all ext3.
There appears to be no heating problems. The thermal sensors aren't
hooked up to the CPU or anything, but they are inside the case and are
reporting comfortably low temperatures (~26 C), and my purely subjective
test of holding my hand next to the exhaust fans shows that it's blowing
comfortably cool air (this machine barely generates any heat at all, it
feels like; certainly a big difference from the blast-furnace-like old
machine I use as a server).
I'm really at a loss as to what could cause this. If it is a hardware
issue, I really can't figure out what could cause this; my best guess is
that the motherboard is being evil. Given that other people on the
ubuntuforums.org site claimed to have _had_ this problem with Athlon 64
X2 CPUs, but fixed it with kernel updates or removing powernowd, leads
me to believe its a bad reaction between some part of the software
somewhere and the system components, but I just can't figure out what in
specifics.
I'll note I did have problems with the audio support when first built
(the drivers for the chipset were brand new, and weren't really usable
until one of the later Dapper betas), so at least some of the drivers
for this hardware may be a little touchy.
If there's some more diagnostics I could run to help track this down to
a software error (if any) or to show that it's definitely bad hardware
somewhere, I'd really like to know. I'm more than willing to try
anything I can that you suggest.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ uname -a
Linux stargrazer 2.6.17-10-generic #2 SMP Wed Oct 4 18:56:20 UTC 2006 i686
GNU/Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a2)
00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev a1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address
Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM
Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Miscellaneous Control
01:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller
(rev 80)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600] (rev
a2)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
binfmt_misc 13448 1
rfcomm 42260 0
hidp 34176 2
l2cap 27136 10 rfcomm,hidp
bluetooth 53476 5 rfcomm,hidp,l2cap
powernow_k8 15008 1
cpufreq_userspace 5408 0
cpufreq_stats 7744 0
freq_table 6048 2 powernow_k8,cpufreq_stats
cpufreq_powersave 2944 0
cpufreq_ondemand 8876 1
cpufreq_conservative 8712 0
video 17540 0
tc1100_wmi 8324 0
sbs 16804 0
sony_acpi 6412 0
pcc_acpi 14080 0
i2c_ec 6272 1 sbs
hotkey 11556 0
dev_acpi 12292 0
button 7952 0
battery 11652 0
container 5632 0
ac 6788 0
asus_acpi 17688 0
ipv6 272160 12
dm_mod 62232 1
af_packet 24584 2
md_mod 82836 0
sr_mod 18212 0
sbp2 24584 0
parport_pc 37796 0
lp 12964 0
parport 39496 2 parport_pc,lp
joydev 11200 0
tsdev 9152 0
sg 37404 0
usbhid 45152 1
psmouse 41352 0
serio_raw 8452 0
snd_hda_intel 20116 1
snd_hda_codec 164608 1 snd_hda_intel
evdev 11392 2
nvidia 4555092 12
snd_pcm_oss 47360 0
snd_mixer_oss 19584 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 84612 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 25348 1 snd_pcm
pcspkr 4352 0
agpgart 34888 1 nvidia
i2c_core 23424 2 i2c_ec,nvidia
snd 58372 8
snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 11232 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 11400 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
shpchp 42144 0
pci_hotplug 32828 1 shpchp
ext3 142728 3
jbd 62228 1 ext3
ohci1394 37040 0
ieee1394 306104 2 sbp2,ohci1394
forcedeth 32268 0
ehci_hcd 34696 0
ohci_hcd 22532 0
usbcore 134912 5 usbhid,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
ide_generic 2432 0
ide_cd 33696 0
cdrom 38944 2 sr_mod,ide_cd
generic 5764 0
sd_mod 22656 5
amd74xx 15260 0 [permanent]
sata_nv 11268 8
libata 74892 1 sata_nv
scsi_mod 144648 5 sr_mod,sbp2,sg,sd_mod,libata
thermal 15624 0
processor 31560 2 powernow_k8,thermal
fan 6020 0
capability 5896 0
commoncap 8704 1 capability
vesafb 9244 1
fbcon 41504 72
tileblit 3840 1 fbcon
font 9344 1 fbcon
bitblit 7168 1 fbcon
softcursor 3328 1 bitblit
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 43
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov
pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext
3dnow pni lahf_lm cmp_legacy ts fid vid ttp
bogomips : 2012.24
processor : 1
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 43
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 512 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov
pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext
3dnow pni lahf_lm cmp_legacy ts fid vid ttp
bogomips : 2012.24
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0 CPU1
0: 10669297 153 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 12 1 IO-APIC-edge i8042
8: 2 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc
9: 0 0 IO-APIC-level acpi
14: 382323 1 IO-APIC-edge ide0
193: 110897 1 IO-APIC-level libata, HDA Intel
201: 308751 1 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb1
209: 4 1 IO-APIC-level ehci_hcd:usb2
217: 4704044 1 IO-APIC-level eth0
225: 2 1 IO-APIC-level ohci1394
233: 3285622 1 IO-APIC-level nvidia
NMI: 0 0
LOC: 10669442 10669310
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
** Affects: Ubuntu
Importance: Undecided
Status: Unconfirmed
--
system pauses
https://launchpad.net/bugs/64474
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