Arch Linux

NorrisNose

Member

Registered: 2014-05-18

Posts: 3

Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

I am running a thinkpad t430 with an nvidia 5400M gfx card.  When the card is enabled in the bios via the 'discrete' setting the system boot hangs before reaching a command prompt (not starting X automatically).  When 'noapic' is passed to the kernel the boot is successful.  This behaviour appears with both the nouveau and nvidia drivers. 

Will system performance noticeably suffer with 'noapic' set?  If so, fixes or suggestions on how to debug the problem are appreciated. 

Thank you.

uname -a

Linux zeus 3.14.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue May 13 16:41:39 CEST 2014 x86_64 GNU/Linux

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family KT Controller (rev 04)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev c4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation QM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108M [NVS 5400M] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
02:00.0 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd MMC/SD Host Controller (rev 07)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 3e)

/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

DEFAULT arch
PROMPT 0        # Set to 1 if you always want to display the boot: prompt 
TIMEOUT 50

UI menu.c32

MENU TITLE Arch Linux
MENU COLOR border       30;44   #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title        1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel          7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel        37;44   #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help         37;40   #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg  37;40   #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout      1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07        37;40   #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg       31;40   #30ffffff #00000000 std

LABEL arch
    MENU LABEL Arch Linux
    LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
    APPEND root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:cryptroot rw noapic 
    INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img

LABEL archfallback
    MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
    LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
    APPEND root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot cryptdevice=/dev/sda2:cryptroot rw noapic
    INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img

LABEL hdt
        MENU LABEL HDT (Hardware Detection Tool)
        COM32 hdt.c32

LABEL reboot
        MENU LABEL Reboot
        COM32 reboot.c32

LABEL poweroff
        MENU LABEL Poweroff
        COM32 poweroff.c32

cat /etc/mkinitcpio.conf  | grep -v '^#'

BINARIES=""
FILES=""
HOOKS="base udev autodetect modconf block encrypt filesystems keyboard fsck"

Last edited by NorrisNose (2014-05-18 22:08:17)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,732

Website

Re: Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

Will system performance noticeably suffer with 'noapic' set?

Seems like your system performance is suffering more without it set...

noapic        [SMP,APIC] Tells the kernel to not make use of any
                   IOAPICs that may be present in the system.

I can't claim to understand all this, but I think it just relates to system interupts for ACPI calls --- it shouldn't slow your system down...
EDIT: Hello NorrisNose & welcome to Arch

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2014-05-18 20:01:16)

---

Are you infected with Wetiko?

NorrisNose

Member

Registered: 2014-05-18

Posts: 3

Re: Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

Thank you for the kind welcome

Yes; running > hanging, and so far there are no performance issues to speak of.

At this point I'm hoping to gain some understanding of the problem.

FWIW, sometimes when booting without noapic the screen will dim right before the hang (boot output stops).

donvitocorleone

Member

Registered: 2014-03-13

Posts: 11

Re: Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

Hi,

I have got the same problem here with a Thinkpad T420 and a Nvidia NVS 4200M since today.

Before I used the "Optimus" setting in the BIOS, and this worked with an external monitor connected via VGA.

Today I switched to a DVI connection, but this did not work with the Optimus setting. The monitor did not get recognized, neither during boot up nor in X.
So I switched to "Discrete video card only" which causes the above described problems: Total freeze during boot-up. Sometimes the screen gets less bright before the freeze.

Noapic works for me as well.

I can't really narrow down the problem though

donvitocorleone

Member

Registered: 2014-03-13

Posts: 11

Re: Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

You did not happen to solve this problem NorrisNose?
I have the feeling the 'noapic' solution is reducing my start-up performance, which is quite annoying.

NorrisNose

Member

Registered: 2014-05-18

Posts: 3

Re: Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

I have not.  The 430 has been switching power states (restart, suspend/resume) without issue and is not suffering from any obvious performance issues.

GSF1200S

Member

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 474

Re: Thinkpad T430 w/ Nvidia 5400M boot hang

Add my T530 to the list of Lenovos that wont boot with the discrete graphics card unless noapic is passed.

I hardly ever use the discrete card however, and when I have, I notice no difference in boot times or system responsiveness with noapic (than using the integrated card without it).