# Kernel panic - not syncing: CPU context corrupt

## Nylex

Hi people, I have a new installation of Gentoo and there was no web browser installed, so I did tried to "emerge mozilla-firefox". There were 23 packages to get and I don't know how far it got, but it was doing something to do with GTK when I got this:

CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 0000000000000004

Bank 4: b200000000040151

Kernel panic - not syncing: CPU context corrupt

There were some syslogd messages, but they just repeated the above. I found another thread saying this problem was due to overclocking, although my machine hasn't been overclocked. The machine didn't seem to be doing much after that, so I just rebooted it.

Hardware: Pentium III 800 MHz, 256 MB RAM, ATI Radeon X700 (I think), Seagate 40 GB hard drive, Toshiba DVD-ROM, 3Com Etherlink XL NIC and some other stuff, but not much.

I'm not sure what I should do, try to "emerge mozilla-firefox" again?

Any help appreciated, thanks.

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## Vietor

Run memtest86+

Boot of a current LiveCD and at the prompt type 'memtest86'. Wait for errors.

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## Nylex

I tried that and there weren't any errors :/. Any more ideas?

Thanks again.

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## kueitao

It seems to be some hardware issue. Please show dmesg output and say what kernel you have.

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## Nylex

Kernel is 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 and dmesg says:

Linux version 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 (root@800mhz) (gcc version 3.3.5 (Gentoo Linux 3.                    3.5-r1, ssp-3.3.2-3, pie-8.7.7.1)) #1 SMP Wed Aug 10 12:27:03 BST 2005

BIOS-provided physical RAM map:

 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000000e7000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)

 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 00000000040fd800 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000040fd800 - 00000000040ff800 (ACPI data)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000040ff800 - 00000000040ffc00 (ACPI NVS)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000040ffc00 - 0000000010000000 (usable)

 BIOS-e820: 00000000fffe7000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)

256MB LOWMEM available.

On node 0 totalpages: 65536

  DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1

  Normal zone: 61440 pages, LIFO batch:31

  HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1

DMI 2.1 present.

ACPI: RSDP (v000 PTLTD                                 ) @ 0x000f6ac0

ACPI: RSDT (v001 PTLTD    RSDT   0x00000000 PTL  0x01000000) @ 0x040fda87

ACPI: FADT (v001 GATEWA TABOR II 0x19991217 PTL  0x000f4240) @ 0x040ff78c

ACPI: DSDT (v001 GATEWA TABOR II 0x00000000 MSFT 0x01000004) @ 0x00000000

Allocating PCI resources starting at 10000000 (gap: 10000000:effe7000)

Built 1 zonelists

Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda3

Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- you can enable it with "lapic"

mapped APIC to ffffd000 (01242000)

Initializing CPU#0

PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 32768 bytes)

Detected 796.619 MHz processor.

Using tsc for high-res timesource

Console: colour VGA+ 80x25

Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)

Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)

Memory: 254148k/262144k available (2961k kernel code, 7380k reserved, 1207k data                    , 232k init, 0k highmem)

Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.

Calibrating delay loop... 1572.86 BogoMIPS (lpj=786432)

Mount-cache hash table entries: 512

CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0383f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000                     00000000 00000000

CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 0383f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 0                    0000000 00000000

CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K

CPU: L2 cache: 256K

CPU: After all inits, caps: 0383f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000040 00000000 0000000                    0 00000000

Intel machine check architecture supported.

Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.

Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.

Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.

Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.

ACPI: setting ELCR to 0200 (from 0e20)

CPU0: Intel Pentium III (Coppermine) stepping 03

SMP motherboard not detected.

Local APIC not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.

Brought up 1 CPUs

CPU0 attaching sched-domain:

 domain 0: span 01

  groups: 01

  domain 1: span 01

   groups: 01

NET: Registered protocol family 16

PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd983, last bus=1

PCI: Using configuration type 1

mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)

ACPI: Subsystem revision 20050309

ACPI: Interpreter enabled

ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing

ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)

PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)

Boot video device is 0000:01:00.0

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 *5 7 9 10 11 12)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 9 10 *11 12)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 9 *10 11 12)

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 5 7 *9 10 11 12)

ACPI: Power Resource [PFAN] (off)

Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay

pnp: PnP ACPI init

pnp: PnP ACPI: found 12 devices

SCSI subsystem initialized

usbcore: registered new driver usbfs

usbcore: registered new driver hub

PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing

PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq".  If it helps, post a report

pnp: 00:00: ioport range 0x7000-0x700f has been reserved

pnp: 00:00: ioport range 0x8000-0x803f could not be reserved

Machine check exception polling timer started.

audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)

audit(1123926216.897:0): initialized

inotify device minor=63

Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).

Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.

lp: driver loaded but no devices found

Linux agpgart interface v0.101 (c) Dave Jones

agpgart: Detected an Intel 440BX Chipset.

agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xec000000

[drm] Initialized drm 1.0.0 20040925

ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]

ACPI: Fan [FAN1] (off)

ACPI: CPU0 (power states: C1[C1] C2[C2])

PNP: PS/2 Controller [PNP0303:KBC,PNP0f13:MICE] at 0x60,0x64 irq 1,12

serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12

serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1

Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 8 ports, IRQ sharing disabled

ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

pnp: Device 00:0b activated.

ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.

parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7 [PCSPP(,...)]

lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).

mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice

io scheduler noop registered

io scheduler anticipatory registered

io scheduler deadline registered

io scheduler cfq registered

Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M

FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 10

PCI: setting IRQ 10 as level-triggered

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0f.0[A] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ                     10

3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html

0000:00:0f.0: 3Com PCI 3c905C Tornado at 0x1000. Vers LK1.1.19

Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2

ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:07.1

PIIX4: chipset revision 1

PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later

    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x10c0-0x10c7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio

    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x10c8-0x10cf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio

Probing IDE interface ide0...

input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0

hda: ST340014A, ATA DISK drive

input: ImPS/2 Logitech Wheel Mouse on isa0060/serio1

ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

Probing IDE interface ide1...

hdc: TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1402, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15

Probing IDE interface ide2...

Probing IDE interface ide3...

Probing IDE interface ide4...

Probing IDE interface ide5...

hda: max request size: 1024KiB

hda: 78165360 sectors (40020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(33)

hda: cache flushes supported

 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3

hdc: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, UDMA(33)

Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20

libata version 1.11 loaded.

ohci1394: $Rev: 1250 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0e.2[B] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ                     10

ohci1394: fw-host0: OHCI-1394 1.1 (PCI): IRQ=[10]  MMIO=[e8014000-e80147ff]  Max                     Packet=[2048]

ieee1394: raw1394: /dev/raw1394 device initialized

usbmon: debugs is not available

USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2

ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 9

PCI: setting IRQ 9 as level-triggered

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:07.2[D] -> Link [LNKD] -> GSI 9 (level, low) -> IRQ                     9

uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB

uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1

uhci_hcd 0000:00:07.2: irq 9, io base 0x00001080

hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found

hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected

usbcore: registered new driver usblp

drivers/usb/class/usblp.c: v0.13: USB Printer Device Class driver

Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...

usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage

USB Mass Storage support registered.

usbcore: registered new driver usbhid

drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.01:USB HID core driver

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.9rc2  (Thu Mar 24 10:33:39                     2005 UTC).

ALSA device list:

  No soundcards found.

oprofile: using timer interrupt.

NET: Registered protocol family 2

IP: routing cache hash table of 1024 buckets, 16Kbytes

TCP established hash table entries: 16384 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)

TCP bind hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 196608 bytes)

TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 16384)

ip_conntrack version 2.1 (2048 buckets, 16384 max) - 220 bytes per conntrack

ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team

ipt_recent v0.3.1: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>.  http://snowman.net/proje                    cts/ipt_recent/

arp_tables: (C) 2002 David S. Miller

NET: Registered protocol family 1

NET: Registered protocol family 17

ACPI wakeup devices:

PCI0 USB0 UAR1 UAR2

ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S5)

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.

Freeing unused kernel memory: 232k freed

kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023]  GUID[00023c0021016ea4]

Adding 498004k swap on /dev/hda2.  Priority:-1 extents:1

EXT3 FS on hda3, internal journal

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0f.0[A] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 10 (level, low) -> IRQ                     10

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## radoslawc

Hi

1) try to do some "hardware debuging" (literally  :Smile: ) - take of CPU cooler clean it from dust, apply new thermal grease, take off RAM clean it's pinned side, reinsert addon cards.

2) try to run mprime ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/mprime2413.tar.gz observe your CPU temp if it fails again although temp isn't too high -  bad news propably CPU is broken

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## Nylex

If it was a hardware problem, surely I'd have kernel panic errors and stuff in Slackware too (I dual boot)? I've not had any sort of error like that when I use Slack.

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## radoslawc

Ok, then try to disable [] Machine check exception in procesor type and features. Maybe it's producing wrong output causing kernel panic.

However, I strongly suggest to run mprime for some time (1 h) to check if hardware is ok.

Cheers

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## Nylex

I might try mprime when I have some more time. The other thing you said to do, do you mean I have to recompile the kernel?

Thanks again.

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## radoslawc

 *Nylex wrote:*   

> I might try mprime when I have some more time. The other thing you said to do, do you mean I have to recompile the kernel?
> 
> Thanks again.

 

yup, machine check exeption isn't changeable through sysctl or something like that (unless I'm not aware of) 

recompile kernel with this option disabled (also the second and third under it I don't remember right now - check for non fatal errors or something like that just look at procesor type and features)

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## kueitao

Sorry for being here too late after asking you to post dmesg output...

Anyway I agree with radoslawc suggestion to disable MCE, but never before being sure you don't have hardware problems. 

 *radoslawc wrote:*   

> Ok, then try to disable [] Machine check exception in procesor type and features. Maybe it's producing wrong output causing kernel panic.
> 
> However, I strongly suggest to run mprime for some time (1 h) to check if hardware is ok.
> 
> Cheers

 

Sometimes can happen that some MOBO or other attached device to cause CPU context corruption because of special situations that are of very difficult tracing. I have sometimes followed discussions on the LKML about those issues and often there has been no different solution than disabling MCE.

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