Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
10 Posts
0
614753
October 19th, 2006 14:00
Linux USB Problems on Dimension E521 AMD 64 X2
Hi,
Anyone else try running Linux (in my case Ubuntu 6.06) on the E521 with the AMD 64 X2 processor? I am having a problem when using xorg where my USB devices, more often my mouse, but my keyboard has had the problem as well stops working. It is almost like the interrupts start getting masked, but it isn't that. Because when the mouse stops working I am usually able to still use the keyboard.
It happens after a while, and usually in times of heavy use. I guess really instead of heavy I would say normal. But it has never happened that it will be working and then I let it lay idle for a while and then reach for it again and it be frozen.
This started happening under the amd64 version of Ubuntu but I have tried several different versions by now and the problem continues to happen.
As far as troubleshooting it has been a real pain. There is never a message in the kernel log or shown by running dmesg. Actually once or twice I have seen the irq status -71 received, but I am pretty sure that is not the cause, becuase it has only happened about twice out of maybe 40 occurances. And there is no message in the Xorg log either.
I have tried the default amd64-generic kernel the latest amd64-generic, the latest amd64-k8 kernel (I think 2.6.15-27.48) I have tried running the i386 uniprocessor kernel and the latest k7-smp kernel. All of them have the same problem.
In an effort to get to the bottom of it I have re-compiled the kernel according to the directions here: http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Kernel_Compilation_Dapper and turned on debugfs and collected data, but there doesn't seem to be anything of interest. It seems I get hundreds of thousands of lines of -115 status (Which I believe is the controller just telling the device that yeah, I hear ya and I am going to do something EINPROGRESS) and then nothing. The mouse appears to continue to function at least the circuit which senses movement and turns the LED into bright mode. And under Windows I have had no problems at all.
The only solution that always works is to disconnect the USB cable and then reconnect it, which grabs a new device file /dev/input/event7 and probably does some other magic registers with the USB controller, and a bunch of other stuff and then the mouse starts working again.
The only other consistent problem I have noted is the IOAPIC stuff complains about a bug, and sometimes it won't boot and panics, other times it figures out a way to get by and does so. Because of this I have tried booting with noapic and other than changing the way /proc/interrupts looks there seems to be no change in the problem. Eventually under usage the mouse stops responding entirely. Even looking at cat /dev/input/mice there is nothing getting there.
I have upgraded the BIOS to 1.0.3 that had no effect. And also turned off the Cool and Quiet support in the bios.
Any thoughts, recommendations of how to proceed, or any other suggestions are appreciated.
Thank you,
Kevin
Anyone else try running Linux (in my case Ubuntu 6.06) on the E521 with the AMD 64 X2 processor? I am having a problem when using xorg where my USB devices, more often my mouse, but my keyboard has had the problem as well stops working. It is almost like the interrupts start getting masked, but it isn't that. Because when the mouse stops working I am usually able to still use the keyboard.
It happens after a while, and usually in times of heavy use. I guess really instead of heavy I would say normal. But it has never happened that it will be working and then I let it lay idle for a while and then reach for it again and it be frozen.
This started happening under the amd64 version of Ubuntu but I have tried several different versions by now and the problem continues to happen.
As far as troubleshooting it has been a real pain. There is never a message in the kernel log or shown by running dmesg. Actually once or twice I have seen the irq status -71 received, but I am pretty sure that is not the cause, becuase it has only happened about twice out of maybe 40 occurances. And there is no message in the Xorg log either.
I have tried the default amd64-generic kernel the latest amd64-generic, the latest amd64-k8 kernel (I think 2.6.15-27.48) I have tried running the i386 uniprocessor kernel and the latest k7-smp kernel. All of them have the same problem.
In an effort to get to the bottom of it I have re-compiled the kernel according to the directions here: http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Kernel_Compilation_Dapper and turned on debugfs and collected data, but there doesn't seem to be anything of interest. It seems I get hundreds of thousands of lines of -115 status (Which I believe is the controller just telling the device that yeah, I hear ya and I am going to do something EINPROGRESS) and then nothing. The mouse appears to continue to function at least the circuit which senses movement and turns the LED into bright mode. And under Windows I have had no problems at all.
The only solution that always works is to disconnect the USB cable and then reconnect it, which grabs a new device file /dev/input/event7 and probably does some other magic registers with the USB controller, and a bunch of other stuff and then the mouse starts working again.
The only other consistent problem I have noted is the IOAPIC stuff complains about a bug, and sometimes it won't boot and panics, other times it figures out a way to get by and does so. Because of this I have tried booting with noapic and other than changing the way /proc/interrupts looks there seems to be no change in the problem. Eventually under usage the mouse stops responding entirely. Even looking at cat /dev/input/mice there is nothing getting there.
I have upgraded the BIOS to 1.0.3 that had no effect. And also turned off the Cool and Quiet support in the bios.
Any thoughts, recommendations of how to proceed, or any other suggestions are appreciated.
Thank you,
Kevin
No Events found!
donnyr3
5 Posts
0
January 23rd, 2007 20:00
Duli
31 Posts
0
January 23rd, 2007 21:00
Hello,
For those having trouble booting the machine with USB drives.
This is a good solution to update the bios without any Windows installation:
Download the MS DOS boot image from here:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=42&func=fileinfo&parent=folder&filecatid=1863
Then you may burn it simply to any CD.
Burn the update file from dell (the .EXE one) to another CD.
Boot your machine with the MS DOS boot cd.
Change the CD and execute the .EXE. I think the CD will be R:
Cheers,
Duli
leopardspard
4 Posts
0
February 1st, 2007 16:00
jz35
9 Posts
0
February 16th, 2007 03:00
First, the distro is not going to matter much - this is a hardware problem/bug which probably a later Linux kernel will fix (which you've already discovered).
My system config is as follows:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+
4GB RAM
160 SATA
Windows Vista 32-bit (default install - did NOT experience any USB problems)
I did NOT upgrade my BIOS because I already had the latest version: 1.1.4
I tried w/ openSUSE 10.2 first and was disappointed to see that once I selected to begin the install I lost picture on my LCD. I then assumed that there was an ACPI problem - so I forced rebooted and restarted the install w/o ACPI only. The install went perfectly - after the install I began having problems w/ the mouse. I found that simply pulling out the mouse from the USB hub and putting it back in brought the mouse back to life. Obviously, this is NOT a satisfactory solution. Since I installed openSUSE w/o ACPI the default kernel had the 'acpi=off' parameter set. This led to the loss of automatic poweroffs, something that I had to have. After some research I tried removing the 'acpi=off' and added the 'noapic' parameter to grub's configuration. I haven't had the USB lockups - neither keyboard nor mouse yet and it's been days - I believe the problem is fixed. Also, I have the full ACPI features as well.
Note: The 'noapic' parameter is spelled n-o-a-p-i-c
This is the kernel line from my grub configuration:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/system/root vga=0x31a resume=/dev/system/swap splash=silent noapic showopts
Good Luck
Message Edited by jz35 on 02-15-2007 11:04 PM
T0NE
2 Posts
0
February 16th, 2007 05:00
madmaxx
2 Posts
0
February 16th, 2007 09:00
Would you give me a few hints on what to check out BEFORE ordering the C521 to make sure I get Edgy/Feisty running on it with as little hassle as possible? I intend to buy sth. like this:
- AMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+
- 1024MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [2x512] Memory
- 250 GB Serial-ATA (7.200 U/Min.), 8 MB DataBurst™-Cache
- ATI® Radeon® X1300 Pro PCI Express, 256 MB
for running Edgy/Feisty on it.
- Do you see any problems?
- May the graphics card be a problem? What do you have in your C521s?
- Can I expect to get BIOS v1.1.4 by default?
- What is lost by setting "noapic"? Will I -have- to deactivate it?
- Is there a big difference in performance/application availability/other? between running 32bit or 64bit Linux on the C521?
- Finally, the mother of all questions ;-) : Would you buy the machine again for using Linux (ubuntu) on it?
Thanks in advance for your replies! madmaxx
Message Edited by madmaxx on 02-16-2007 05:34 AM
Message Edited by madmaxx on 02-16-2007 05:36 AM
frv2dell
10 Posts
0
February 16th, 2007 16:00
about your question 'Would you buy C521 again for running Linux (ubuntu)?'
i have just 2 weeks with a Dell C521, then i didn't use this so much but i have a good experience with the stability of dell hardware over linux.
my system is:
- AMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 5600+
- nVidia C51
- 2GB RAM
- Ubuntu Feisty desktop AMD64 HERD CD 3
(see: http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_linux&thread.id=8304 )
your questions:
1.- Do you see any problems?
if you want to install ubuntu, you have to see this:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/76976
there is a fail with the Ubuntu 'Edgy Eft' and C521, the kernel can't be loaded, then i use 'Feisty Herd 3' (see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyReleaseSchedule )
and the system run fine, but when i try to install the process of partitions fail, (the bug 76976), i had to create the partitions by hand and then i could install.
2.- May the graphics card be a problem? What do you have in your C521s?
i have not problems running with driver vesa like a generic video card... i don't try a specific driver yet.
3.- Can I expect to get BIOS v1.1.4 by default?
yes, if your hardware is release from factory after 31-jan...
4.- What is lost by setting "noapic"? Will I -have- to deactivate it?
i think (but not sure) just need to deactivate if you have problems with IRC
5.- Is there a big difference in performance/application availability/other? between running 32bit or 64bit Linux on the C521?
you need 64bit app's for running a 64bit system (obvious) and for example, there is not an 'Flash Player' for 64bits (for linux nor windows), then in linux you need to run a) a 32 bit chroot environment (see: http://www.ubuntu-es.org/index.php?q=node/5148 ) or install 32bit support under 64bit... (see: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FirefoxAMD64FlashJava )
then doing this, you lost performance...
6.- Would you buy the machine again for using Linux (ubuntu) on it?
of course, but, i will recomend to you? well, just if you have time to config some things by hand..
one more thing, i use 2 graphics card and the C521 was a little difficult to found a vga for pci express... and Dell don't sale this hardware with 2 vga outs.
FRV
jz35
9 Posts
0
February 17th, 2007 01:00
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Kernel_Parameters_for_ACPI/APIC
jz35
9 Posts
0
February 17th, 2007 01:00
I'm not sure what kind of performance hit can take place when disabling APIC, since APIC is used in multiprocessor systems and we are talking about the AMD Athlon 64 x2.
frv2dell
10 Posts
0
February 19th, 2007 15:00
FRV
ars1976
1 Message
0
March 4th, 2007 01:00
FabFulcro
1 Message
0
April 18th, 2007 18:00
neurotoxin
1 Message
0
April 29th, 2007 23:00
~JMB
spcjak7221
2 Posts
0
July 14th, 2007 21:00
Looking at the updates available on the Dell site I noticed that all the optical drives have firmware updates. See here:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&ServiceTag=&SystemID=DIM_P4_E521&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=
If you read the release notes (specifically for the Phillips - I haven't looked at the rest) it states: "This firmware has been observed to resolve an issue in which the mouse "freezes" for about 30 seconds during user activity.". Hmm... so the optical drive can cause the mouse to "freeze".
I had installed a lite-on dvd burner instead of going with one from Dell. I downloaded the latest firmware for that and I'm now problem free.
Try updating the firmware for your optical drive... or just disconnect it and see if the problem goes away.
The only other thing I did was to disable any sata ports I wasn't using in the bios.
spcjak7221
2 Posts
0
July 14th, 2007 22:00