Re: Misc problems with Lombard (serial, ethernet, SCSI)

I upgraded to 2.4-test9 (from LinuxCare) and I've got some new data.

Benjamin Herrenschmidt [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

* Serial drivers - At least when talking to the modem, it will occasionally
 cease to work.  I use pppd to connect, and when it disconnects I cannot
 reconnect.  Once this happens, anything that tries to open the port get
 an I/O error.  If I unload the serial module and then reload it, the
 problem goes away for a while.  This started happening around 2.2.15.

Dan Malek recently "ported" a workaround for a HW SCC bug which seem to
fix such problems. (The SCC get stuck sometimes when receiving certain
kinds of bad characters). I'll try to get that merged ASAP.

This seems to be fixed in 2.4-test9

quoted

* MESH Driver - It won't work with my scanner.  The scanner works fine
 under MacOS and used to work under Linux x86.  It has problems with
 disconnects.  Also, once I use it then sleeping and awaking will locks up
 the machine.  Also, unloading the MESH module and reloading it locks up
 the machine.

Paul ? Any clue ? MESH is still a weird beast to me ;)

This also seem to be fixed.

quoted

* Ethernet driver (BMAC) - The driver will occasionally lock up under heavy
 load (I haven't seen this yet with 2.2.17, though).  If I define an alias
 address, bringing down the alias address will also bring down the main
 address (this is still happening under 2.2.17).  Unloading the ethernet
 driver and loading it again causes a lockup.

I've not experieced that before, there are some known issues with bmac
(HW bugs uncovered by comments in Apple's Darwin source code) but AFAIK,
nothing that cause a kernel lockup.

I haven't had the port lockup (it's not a kernel lockup, but the port
just stops working), but I haven't done much heavy traffic.  Unloading
and reloading the driver as a module still causes a machine lockup.

quoted

I'm also seeing random lockups after long periods of running under
heavy load, but this is new and I'm thinking it may be a heat problem.
But just in case, I'll say it.

It may also be a RAM problem. Some Lombards are known to have memory
controller (or RAM, we don't know for sure) problems.
Also, which boot method are you using ?

Haven't done any big builds, but I haven't seen this eithers.


I upgraded to a USB scanner and a USB CDRW, which seem to work fine, BTW.

I am having wakeups from sleeping lock up the machine occasionally;
this seems related to the USB stuff, it only seems to happen when I
remove USB devices, sleep, wakup without them, sleep again, then plug
them back in and wake up.  But I do this fairly often.

Thanks,

Corey

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