Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

jfarthing84 · 2016-11-08 12:50:28

After installing Arch on my Surface Pro 4, I get a kernel panic nearly everytime I attempt to install anything with pacman. It never happens when actually doing the system install from the archiso, only after rebooting into the new root. This happens on the current stable kernel 4.8.6, as well as all 4.9-rc's.

The kernel panic goes by so fast that it is impossible to get anything from it. However, I did manage to record it in slow motion with my phone and was able to read it a little. There are multiple bugs: "Unable to handle kernel paging request" two times and then "Scheduling while atomic" about two times.

Is this something that affects everybody or is there a hardware problem with my Surface?

seth · 2016-11-08 13:21:31

This can be due to bad RAM (run memtest86 on it) or because (usually some module) tries to access memory positions out of bounds (like a 64bit address on a 32 bit system or it's just an overflow)
To check on the latter, one needs to see the actual and complete message.

jfarthing84 · 2016-11-08 13:31:07

Oh, I ran Memtest86+ overnight last night and no errors.

Is there an easier way to get the errors that flash by blindingly fast and can't be scrolled back to and aren't logged?

Last edited by jfarthing84 (2016-11-08 13:32:53)

seth · 2016-11-08 13:45:53

dmesg?

jfarthing84 · 2016-11-08 13:49:38

Nope, none of these are in dmesg. The device has to be forced off when it happens.

seth · 2016-11-08 13:58:13

run eg. "dmesg -w | grep -iC2 paging" and cause it.
You could also access the system via ssh and dmesg this way in a terminal with reasonable scrollback buffer and/or redirection capabilities.

jfarthing84 · 2016-11-08 14:02:13

That command returned nothing.

Here is a video of it happening: https://youtu.be/TtSb-sfBc4M

I will attempt to get openssh setup on there and try the SSH route.

Last edited by jfarthing84 (2016-11-08 14:03:35)

jfarthing84 · 2016-11-08 14:46:22

So, I was just able to install the entire behemoth "gnome" pacakge group via SSH without a hiccup. This would have never worked directly from the console. Does that help point to anything?

seth · 2016-11-08 15:20:31

framebuffer module?
Can you do this from within a GUI terminal on the system?
Can you kill the system by simply running "dmesg" (which should print a hell lot of lines)?

jfarthing84 · 2016-11-08 15:39:07

For some reason, gnome terminal won't even launch: "Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.terminal: Timeout was reached". I got that by installing and attempting to run it from xterm.

Installing packages using xterm has not yet caused the system to crash. However, I was able to get it to crash numerous times by usin scp to copy a file from my desktop to it.

Last edited by jfarthing84 (2016-11-08 15:41:15)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-11-08 12:50:28

Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#2 2016-11-08 13:21:31

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#3 2016-11-08 13:31:07

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#4 2016-11-08 13:45:53

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#5 2016-11-08 13:49:38

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#6 2016-11-08 13:58:13

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#7 2016-11-08 14:02:13

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#8 2016-11-08 14:46:22

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#9 2016-11-08 15:20:31

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

#10 2016-11-08 15:39:07

Re: Kernel panic on Surface Pro 4

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