Re: Linux 2.4.20, Athlon MP and Promise PDC20276 IDE controller

[Krishnakumar B <kitty@cse.wustl.edu>]

On Tuesday, 25 February 2003, Peter Nome wrote:
> 
> Hi Krishnakumar,
> 
> "Am I right in assuming that Linux doesn't enable DMA on this controller?
> How do I determine if DMA is enabled for a ide controller apart from
> relying on the boot message?"
> 
> As you suspect, you're getting DMA all right -- you see it in the boot
> message too, as UDMA(133). To confirm, issue
> 
> hdparm /dev/hde
> 
> Looks good!

Great ! It is good to hear. Do you know why my machine reboots every other
time (only when booting up; I haven't seen it reboot, once up and running)
when booting SMP kernels ? I tried using kernel-2.4.20 and it too exhibits
the same behaviour.

Is there some setting in BIOS that I got wrong ? I am not into any
overclocking business, as these are meant to be used by my prof and other
folks, who care a lot about a stable system than anything else.

Will using mem=nopentium solve the problem and is it the right fix ? Will
enabling/disabling ECC memory checking in the BIOS (the BIOS seems to do
this when I select "Load Optimized Defaults") affect it ?

I seem to be a loss at narrowing down the problem to a single component as
it seems to act according to it's own whims and fantasies. And the fact
that things work with a UP kernel, makes me feel that it is not a hardware
issue. Anyone else with the same hardware experience similar issues ?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
kitty.