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So, I have a laptop that I was given because it was "broken." I installed arch on it and it boots & runs so it isn't gone yet. However, it is exhibiting some strange symptoms. Occasionally, it will not make it to the HP POST screen and the hard drive indicator will flash orange. This can happen several boots in a row. After using it (whether in X or just on the console) for a while, everything will lock up and I have to shut it down. Nothing shows up in /var/log/everything.log.
Every time it boots, the following shows up in dmesg:
[ 0.000000] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[ 0.000000] WARNING: at drivers/iommu/dmar.c:492 warn_invalid_dmar+0x8f/0xa0()
[ 0.000000] Hardware name: HP HDX18 Notebook PC
[ 0.000000] Your BIOS is broken; DMAR reported at address 0!
[ 0.000000] BIOS vendor: Hewlett-Packard; Ver: F.34; Product Version: Rev 1
[ 0.000000] Modules linked in:
[ 0.000000] Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted 3.2.6-2-ARCH #1
[ 0.000000] Call Trace:
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff8106609f>] warn_slowpath_common+0x7f/0xc0
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff814620f6>] ? bad_to_user+0x6b0/0x6b0
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff8106613f>] warn_slowpath_fmt_taint+0x3f/0x50
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818dd91f>] ? early_ioremap+0x13/0x15
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818d48b6>] ? __acpi_map_table+0x13/0x19
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff8133ff8f>] warn_invalid_dmar+0x8f/0xa0
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff812afcc4>] ? acpi_tb_verify_table+0x54/0x58
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818ff6f5>] check_zero_address+0x57/0xf7
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff814620f6>] ? bad_to_user+0x6b0/0x6b0
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818ff7ac>] detect_intel_iommu+0x17/0xb8
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818d002f>] pci_iommu_alloc+0x44/0x6f
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818dd348>] mem_init+0x19/0xec
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818c7a1f>] start_kernel+0x1da/0x3d1
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818c7347>] x86_64_start_reservations+0x132/0x136
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818c7140>] ? early_idt_handlers+0x140/0x140
[ 0.000000] [<ffffffff818c744d>] x86_64_start_kernel+0x102/0x111
[ 0.000000] ---[ end trace a7919e7f17c0a725 ]---I have flashed the bios already (F.34 is the latest version).
Is it doomed, or have I missed something?
EDIT: SOLVED
Last edited by rhd (2012-06-08 18:04:27)
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Hi,
You have 2 problems ....
the posted log is unfortunately normal for the HP BIOS , This problem has been worked around in the Linux kernel.
You disk problem is also common with older disks and in 1983 when we found it in the HP 7935 disk drive (for server systems) we called it "sticktion".
What happens is that the heads fly so close to the surface that when you spin down and park for a while (it varies) the surface tension between the disk and the heads keeps the disk from spinning up before the timeout and the disk is reported "not ready". This is also happening on my HDX 18 and I am dealing with it by keeping good backups on a different computer and drive, and keeping the disk spinning (no idle spin down). When I do shutdown I have to cycle power many times to unstick the heads. The long term fix is to replace the disk.
BTW XEN does not work with the BIOS iommu problem.
Good Luck
James
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Hi,
You disk problem is also common with older disks and in 1983 when we found it in the HP 7935 disk drive (for server systems) we called it "sticktion".
What happens is that the heads fly so close to the surface that when you spin down and park for a while (it varies) the surface tension between the disk and the heads keeps the disk from spinning up before the timeout and the disk is reported "not ready". This is also happening on my HDX 18 and I am dealing with it by keeping good backups on a different computer and drive, and keeping the disk spinning (no idle spin down). When I do shutdown I have to cycle power many times to unstick the heads. The long term fix is to replace the disk.
BTW XEN does not work with the BIOS iommu problem.Good Luck
James
;_________;
Thanks for the information. I'll look around, see how to keep the disk from spinning down.
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temporary solution to keep disks from spinning down:
hdparm -B 254 /dev/sdaOffline
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