This may be of interest - kernel: 2.5.67-mm1 Linux distro: Red Hat 8.0 + updates Hardware: Celeron 1.2 Ghz on Intel Motherboard 512 MB RAM, 2x e100 ethernet I had run 2.5.67-mm1 for some days and for the most part it ran well in it's duties as dns, squid, vpn/firewall and postfix server, with the only oddity being the ide messages which I reported earlier. I decided to boot with the deadline scheduler to find out if it made any difference to the ide error messages, but the symptoms seem to be unchanged regardless of elevator chosen. As a bonus, the machine produced the kernel dmesg snippet shown below, during boot: (config is attached) Best Regards, Joe ---- snip ---- Freeing unused kernel memory: 312k freed EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,3), internal journal Adding 514072k swap on /dev/hda2. Priority:42 extents:1 kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,1), internal journal EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Slab corruption: start=dfa2f320, expend=dfa2f97f, problemat=dfa2f328 Data: ********6A *************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ******************************************************************************** ***************************************A5 Next: 01 00 00 00 00 80 7E DF 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FF FF FF FF 7C 00 00 00 78 00 00 00 slab error in check_poison_obj(): cache `task_struct': object was modified after freeing Call Trace: [] check_poison_obj+0x15b/0x1b0 [] kmem_cache_alloc+0x132/0x170 [] dup_task_struct+0xaa/0xd0 [] dup_task_struct+0xaa/0xd0 [] copy_process+0x6f/0x1190 [] deadline_move_request+0x5c/0x80 [] ide_do_request+0x2e4/0x500 [] do_fork+0x4d/0x1b0 [] schedule+0x212/0x700 [] blk_run_queues+0x14c/0x360 [] kernel_thread+0x83/0xa0 [] kjournald+0x0/0x530 [] kernel_thread_helper+0x0/0x18 [] journal_start_thread+0x23/0x60 [] kjournald+0x0/0x530 [] journal_reset+0xa0/0xc0 [] journal_load+0x64/0x90 [] ext3_load_journal+0xb7/0x190 [] ext3_fill_super+0x9c2/0xb20 [] get_sb_bdev+0x128/0x170 [] d_alloc_anon+0x1e9/0x430 [] ext3_get_sb+0x2e/0x32 [] ext3_fill_super+0x0/0xb20 [] do_kern_mount+0x56/0xd0 [] do_add_mount+0x8d/0x1b0 [] do_mount+0x145/0x190 [] copy_mount_options+0xcc/0xe0 [] sys_mount+0x136/0x280 [] syscall_call+0x7/0xb kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,5), internal journal EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with writeback data mode. kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,6), internal journal EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with writeback data mode. kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.16, 02 Dec 2001 on ide0(3,7), internal journal EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with writeback data mode. found reiserfs format "3.6" with standard journal Reiserfs journal params: device ide0(3,8), size 8192, journal first block 18, ma x trans len 1024, max batch 900, max commit age 30, max trans age 30 reiserfs: checking transaction log (ide0(3,8)) for (ide0(3,8)) Using r5 hash to sort names blk: queue c04f171c, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff) IA-32 Microcode Update Driver: v1.11 microcode: CPU0 already at revision 28 (current=28) microcode: freed 2048 bytes parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP] parport0: cpp_daisy: aa5500ff(38) parport0: assign_addrs: aa5500ff(38) parport0: cpp_daisy: aa5500ff(38) parport0: assign_addrs: aa5500ff(38) ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver - version 2.2.21-k1 Copyright (c) 2003 Intel Corporation e100: selftest OK. Freeing alive device df064870, eth%d e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Connection Hardware receive checksums enabled e100: selftest OK. e100: eth1: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Connection Hardware receive checksums enabled cpu cycle saver enabled e100: eth0 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full duplex e100: eth1 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full duplex Universal TUN/TAP device driver 1.5 (C)1999-2002 Maxim Krasnyansky Module tun cannot be unloaded due to unsafe usage in include/linux/module.h:428 ip_conntrack version 2.1 (4086 buckets, 32688 max) - 324 bytes per conntrack warning: process `update' used the obsolete bdflush system call Fix your initscripts? mtrr: base(0xf8000000) is not aligned on a size(0x180000) boundary warning: process `update' used the obsolete bdflush system call Fix your initscripts? hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x24 drivers/ide/ide-io.c:109: spin_lock(drivers/ide/ide.c:c0445ee8) already locked b y drivers/ide/ide-io.c/949 drivers/ide/ide-io.c:991: spin_unlock(drivers/ide/ide.c:c0445ee8) not locked hda: lost interrupt hda: dma_intr: bad DMA status (dma_stat=30) hda: dma_intr: status=0x50 { DriveReady SeekComplete } ---- snip ----