Northbridge Machine Check during package installation (Fedora yarrow)

[Stefan Schroepfer]

Hello all,

after several unsuccessful attempts to install the current Fedora yarrow
x86_64 distribution on a Fujitsu-Siemens V810 workstation (dual opteron)
I need a helping hand.

Each time I tried to install from my CDs, having md5sum-checked isos,
having verified installation media, having double-checked hard-disk
partitions to install to, I come across an error, which occurs at random
times during package installation, and which looks like this:

Northbridge Machine Check exception %016lx %lx,
     (unsigned long)nbstatus, error_code
Uncorrectable condition
Unrecoverable condition

(Pseudocde for now stolen from
http://www.iglu.org.il/lxr/source/arch/x86_64/kernel/bluesmoke.c,
error_code beeing 0 and nbstatus having a value I can provide tomorrow,
if that matters)

After searching for a while I got the impression that faulty hardware
is likely the cause of such kind of problems. Any more hints? What
exactly is likely to be faulty (more details that I could tell my
hardware vendor, besides that "something" is faulty).

Is there any more insight, what else could could cause this problem
(maybe nonetheless a kernel issue, are there any news?).

As a side note: Is there a better place to ask such a question than
on amd64-list?


Best regards,
Stefan Schroepfer