[olug] SuSE 9.0 problems w/X freezing

[Eric Pierce]

Thanks Dan for the tips.  I believe I tried everything you suggested.

I popped out the firewire card (ethernet is on board), but X still crashed
hard.

I even tried deleting the XF86Config file to let Sax2 start fresh.  No change. 
X still crashes hard.

I've changed IRQ values around in BIOS before, but this particular box's BIOS
doesn't let me change the values for these particular devices/slots.

I also tried setpci -s 02:08.8 INTERRUPT_LINE=11  (11 was what SuSE 8.2 put
eth0 at).  That went in quietly.  I also did setpci -s 02:08.8 INTERRUPT_PIN=11
which went in quietly too.  I reassigned the firewire card as SuSE8.2 had it as
well, but I saw no change when doing 'cat /proc/interrupts

And X still crashes.

I just can't figure this one out.  I've used SuSE for a few years now, but I'm
about ready to give up.  However, I did a massive 4 Gig network install of 9.0
(took ~10 hrs. on cable) and hate to give up just yet.

Ugh.

--- Daniel Linder <dan at linder.org> wrote:
> I'll preface this e-mail by saying that I haven't used the "setpci"
> program but I can see that it could be a powerfull tool for these tricky
> situations... :)
> 
> > I did a man of setpci but didn't see anything about setting irq values.
> > Can you enlighten me about reassigning irqs with setpci (or were you
> > thinking of some other usage of it)?
> 
> I would assume that you would have setpci modify the "INTERRUPT_LINE"
> and/or the "INTERRUPT_PIN" settings of one or both of the cards.
> 
> I *think* this would be the command:
> >> setpci A:B.C INTERRUPT_LINE=XXX
> 
> The "A:B.C" is the value for the firewire or eth0 device that "lspci"
> returns for that device.  The INTERRUPT_LINE=XXX would need to be set to
> some other "free" interrupt.  Can anyone try this and see if this works? 
> When you try it, you might want to be in single-user mode and get ready
> for a reset/power cycle just in case the setpci command panics the
> kernel... :)
> 
> > Now the question I have it: Is firewire and eth0's attempt to share IRQ 5
> > causing the system to crash only when X is started?  I don't see the
> > connection.  The system seems quite stable as long as I don't start up X.
> 
> The PCI bus is designed so that multiple devices should be able to share
> the same interrupt.  Unfortunatly, if you have problems it could be either
> hardware or driver based (or both) if either don't hande the sharing
> properly...
> 
> In the past, ways I have circumvented the PCI interrupt problem is to move
> the cards to different PCI slots and have the system "re-learn" devices. 
> through the magic of the PCI specification, there is a `voting` process
> that the cards and the computer bus go through upon bootup that try and
> give each card all that they want without stepping on other devices
> requirements.  Furthermore, some system BIOS'es can "reserve" an interrupt
> for a specific PCI or AGP slot -- might want to "reserve" IRQ 5 for your
> eth0 and make the firewire card find another IRQ.
> 
> If you don't use firewire, you could always remove or disable that card in
> this system -- that would be the quickest solution.
> 
> Dan
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