RE: ACPI causing trouble for X in 5.2

On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, David Cramblett wrote:

>  >>> I have problem with X on 5.2-RC2. Sometimes the whole
>  >>> system hangs when I start X by startx or 'setpmac mls/equal startx'
>  >>> (with MAC policies loaded). In about 30% of attempts it hangs on
>  >>> XFree startup messages and hard reset is required.
>  >>> The problem occurs a little bit too often for some unrelated
>  >>> accident and it doesn't occur at all on 5.1-RELEASE (the same
>  >>> hardware and configuration).
>  >>>
>  >>> Does anyone have similar problem ?
>  >>>
>  >>>
>  >> Yes, see my post from earlier today called "Can't shutdown, logout, or
>  >> restart cleanly."  I have not run 5.1-RELEASE before, so I can't say
>  >> if it didn't happen there, but it definitely happens with
>  >> 5.2-CURRENT.  I'm at my wit's end trying to find out why!
>  >>
>  >Per a post I received on bsdforums.com, try booting up with ACPI turned
>  >off.  This can be done in 5.1 and later by choosing option 2 in the >boot
>  >menu (Boot FreeBSD with ACPI disabled).  Once I did this, it worked >like
>  >a champ.  I'm not sure why earlier versions may not have been affected
>  >by this or if it only affects certain hardware.
> 
>  >Let me know if this worked for you.
> 
> I have the same problem on two builds of 5.2, one is a Sony Vaio 
> PCG-F360 Laptop (PII 400MHz) and the other is a newer P4 system with 
> Asus mother board.  Both worked fine with 5.1 and both broke with 5.2. 
> I was able to work around this problem by booting up with ACPI disabled. 
>   Is there a known issue with ACPI that is being worked on for 5.2 or
> did someone already submit a bug report?  Thanks, David


I was seeing this on my Dell Latitude notebook from a couple of years ago
(C600).  I found that the problem "went away" when I switched off either
ACPI or device apic, so it looks like it's basically an interrupt problem
of some sort.  I'm running with the r128 kernel module for DRI, and John
Baldwin suggested that it might be part of the problem.  I've also been
experiencing continuing ATA problems, so it may well be that a combination
of ACPI and apic changes has resulted in improper handling/routing/... of
interrupts on the box.

You might want to check and see if there are any BIOS upgrades available
for your system -- as ACPI support evolves, older systems with more
questionable ACPI sometimes work less well.  A number of vendors have
released BIOS updates to address this.

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert_at_fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research