# large disk operations freeze system... (nForce2 related?)

## SalsaDoom

Ok, I recently upgraded my computer hardware, and most things work perfect, except for this last problem which I absolutely cannot think of anything that could be causing this. Any large file copying, or taring or anything thats heavy disk usage locks the computer solid. 

Now, it seems to effect both my SCSI and my IDE drive. I've tried changing the drivers in the kernel for both of them, doesn't change anything. Must frusterating, is this problem is linux-specific, windows works as expected. 

Here is my setup, if you have any guess, no matter how remote, let me know. I'll try just about anything really..

Athlon 3200+ CPU

Asus A7N8X Deluxe Mobo (nForce2)

Tekram DC390-U3D SCSI (latest firmware)

SCSI harddrive is Seagate Cheetah X36 18.2 gig

hmm, cant think of anything else that would be relevent.

TIA...

--SDLast edited by SalsaDoom on Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:24 am; edited 1 time in total

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## BitJam

You probably need to enable DMA on your hard drives.   The hdparm program can do this on your IDE drives but I don't know if it works with SCSI.

This will at least give you something to search for.    The hdparm package also contains /etc/init.d/hdparm which you can use if you need to run hdparm at boot time.

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## quattro

What filesystem are you using?

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## Loke^

As it says in the cp-manual, dont use cp to copy large files between filesystems, i'd suggest nautilus or konqueror, dont know it mc uses cp.

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## Janne Pikkarainen

Maybe you have a bad RAM chip? During disk I/O cache/buffer memory would fill up and at certain point it hits the bad RAM --> *crash*.

Have you tried to run memtest86?

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## Nermal

I have the same problem on an abit NF7 v2.0 (nforce2) board..

stable unless I thrash the disk for a long time (last time it died was during a prelink   :Shocked:  )

Not sure whats going on, ram seems to be fine, no segfaults..

I think its an nforce2 issue  :Sad: 

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## SalsaDoom

Well, the problem is still here. I tried a few things, none of them made a difference. I tried using the Vanilla kernel too, but that didn't change anything.

Nermal: Hmmm. It could be an nforce issue. That would be really lame, and probably consistant with when the problem showed up. But its such a horrible reality, I don't want to believe it.

I took Janne's advice and tried out memtest86, even though Windows acted normally. The ram is fine...

Loke, I don't think thats the case, since its not between filesystems... and I would be shocked if this locked the system. I mean, if linux was that stable I doubt anyone would use it. The files are only a few hundred megs a peice anyway, I've done bigger many times. I'm sure we all have... installing even!

Quattro: I'm using ext3...

BitJam: Actually, I have DMA enabled. Hmmm. Perhaps just for shits and giggles I should disable it. With errors like this, who knows?

This sucks ;) I'll try sacraficing a goat soon.

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## Nermal

k dude... hmmm I think I may have fixed something...

I noticed the following in my boot log when I had APIC support enabled in the kernel:

```

NFORCE2: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:09.0

NFORCE2: chipset revision 162

NFORCE2: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later

AMD_IDE: Bios didn't set cable bits correctly. Enabling workaround.

AMD_IDE: 0000:00:09.0 (rev a2) UDMA100 controller on pci0000:00:09.0

    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA

    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA

hda: IC35L060AVVA07-0, ATA DISK drive

hda: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffeba)

hdb: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffeba)

hdb: IRQ probe failed (0xfffffeba)

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

```

Note the evil IRQ probe failed stuff..

Welp.. I disabled APIC and that went away. I haven't had a crash under 2.6 yet.. normally it died a couple of times in a night.  :Very Happy: 

I've done a prelink -afRm (lots of disk thrashing), updatedb, and lots of emerging, and it seems to be ok..

I'll let you know how it goes...

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## SalsaDoom

Hmmm. I turned off APIC, but I never actually got that error.

However, I shall install 2.6 and see if that fixes it. If he does, well, then we can all safety ignore this problem and pretend it never happened in the first place. ;)

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## dtessier

Did 2.6 solve your problems? I'm having tons of trouble with freezes on my new computer, and it always seems to be when there's lots of disk activity. Here's what I've tried so far, without success:

- Disable ACPI

- Switch to vanilla-2.4.22 kernel

- Try running with mem=nopentium

- Disable HIGHMEM support

- Run without X, with modules nvidia, nvnet and nvaudio unloaded

The last things on my list are switching to a 2.6 kernel, and/or recompiling the whole system with less-aggressive CFLAGS...

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## Nermal

try disabling APIC as well as ACPI

APIC seemed to be what was causing all the trouble for me.

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## Wedge_

 *Nermal wrote:*   

> try disabling APIC as well as ACPI
> 
> APIC seemed to be what was causing all the trouble for me.

 

It causes problems for me as well (A7N8X-Deluxe). Totally stable without APIC, but if I turn it on, I'm guaranteed a hard freeze within 10 minutes.

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## dtessier

I'll try rebuilding my kernel without APIC tonight, and I'll report back tomorrow.

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## bonsaikitten

I had problems because the mainboard (northbridge) would overheat under load ... copying more than 30MB at once nearly always brought the system to a hard standstill. Since I put a 40mm fan on the Mobo it has been stable.

Sometimes I wonder why such things have to happen at all ...

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## dtessier

Woohoo!!!  :Very Happy:  Last night I was finally able to build openoffice-ximian! I had previously tried 5-6 times to build it... Thanks for this great tip!

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## sumC

OMG, I'm so happy!!

I have had this problem for a long time, as soon as I did anything disk intensive the computer would freeze. I have tried everything, changed cpu, memory, psu and ide-cabels. Nothing would work and I was thinking of throwing the damn computer out the window(I really mean it) when I stumbled upon this thread.

Disabled APIC in bios and recompiled the kernel without it and the computer has been running fine for hours now, downloading and extracting isos without any problems. I cant belive it, its finally stable   :Shocked: 

One thing that everybody should learn is:

APIC is eveeeel!

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## Lord_Firlionel

Hi,

I've got same problem here as you did, and referring to what has been written before I deavtivated APIC in BIOS. Also, I re-compiled my kernel (2.4.25-Gentoo) without ACPI. But when doing 'dmesg' I got this strange msg within: 

```
ACPI: RSDP (v000 Nvidia                                    ) @ 0x000f75e0

ACPI: RSDT (v001 Nvidia AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff3000

ACPI: FADT (v001 Nvidia AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1fff3040

ACPI: DSDT (v001 NVIDIA AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000

Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda5 video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x317 noapic

Found and enabled local APIC!
```

So, the lapic is still avtivated and my sytem freezes while synching the portage-tree. Is there any possibility to stop my box from doing this?

And what about those strange nvidia-lines when I have a radeon-card?

I also use a A7N8X-Deluxe with 2 harddrives and kde 3.2.1

Thanks for answers!

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