FC3 ext3 crash

[Peter Arremann]

Hi,

I own a Dell Inspiron 8500 (2.4GHz, WUXGA display, nvidia card, brookdale 
chipset) that used to run FC1 for months without issues. Ever since I 
upgraded to FC3 the system crashes with error messages similar to this one:

Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference 
at virtual address 00000050
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  printing eip:
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: f88b3842
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: *pde = 2c6af067
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Oops: 0000 [#1]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Modules linked in: i8k nfs lockd md5 ipv6 
parport_pc lp parport autofs4 i2c_dev i2c_core sunrpc video button battery ac 
ohci1394 ieee1394 yenta_socket uhci_hcd ehci_hcd snd_intel8x0m snd_intel8x0 
snd_ac97_codec snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_pcm snd_timer snd soundcore 
snd_page_alloc orinoco_cs pcmcia pcmcia_core orinoco hermes b44 mii 
dm_snapshot dm_zero dm_mirror ext3 jbd dm_mod
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: CPU:    0
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: EIP:    0060:[<f88b3842>]    Not tainted VLI
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: EFLAGS: 00010202   (2.6.10-1.770_FC3)
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: EIP is at ext3_get_inode_block+0x2c/0xee [ext3]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: eax: 00000000   ebx: 001c0d9e   ecx: effdce5c   
edx: 00000001
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: esi: dff5b2b8   edi: 00000001   ebp: f79d9000   
esp: effdcdf4
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Process evolution (pid: 5720, threadinfo=effdc000 
task=ec6c9480)
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Stack: f887b392 ee27fee8 00000001 effdce5c 
00000000 dff5b2b8 00000001 e1000224
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:        f88b3925 ebbe9100 eb68c70c df532221 
e1000224 f88b4173 effdce5c 00000000
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:        dff5b2b8 effdce5c e1000224 f88b444d 
e1000224 e1000224 dff5b2b8 df532221
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Call Trace:
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<f887b392>] __journal_file_buffer+0x10f/0x1e8 
[jbd]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<f88b3925>] ext3_get_inode_loc+0x21/0x215 [ext3]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<f88b4173>] ext3_do_update_inode+0x2f7/0x31e 
[ext3]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<f88b444d>] ext3_reserve_inode_write+0x21/0x81 
[ext3]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<f88b44d1>] ext3_mark_inode_dirty+0x24/0x3a 
[ext3]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<f88b7b02>] ext3_rename+0x40f/0x46e [ext3]
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c016f865>] link_path_walk+0x120/0xdc6
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c0172504>] vfs_rename_other+0xa1/0x101
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c017283c>] vfs_rename+0x2d8/0x325
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c01729d6>] sys_rename+0x14d/0x1e0
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c014e1cd>] unmap_vmas+0xf2/0x28f
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c01519ce>] vma_adjust+0x32d/0x419
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c0152bbb>] unmap_vma_list+0xe/0x17
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c0152f7e>] do_munmap+0x1dc/0x1e6
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel:  [<c0103443>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
Mar 10 12:07:36 lap kernel: Code: 89 c5 57 56 53 83 ec 10 89 d3 89 4c 24 0c 83 
fa 02 0f 95 c0 31 d2 83 fb 08 0f 95 c2 85 d0 74 10 83 fb 07 74 0b 8b 85 e0 01 
00 00 <3b> 58 50 72 0d 8b 8d e0 01 00 00 8b 41 2c 3b 18 76 1b 53 68 07

The exact error message always changes bu it is always in the ext3 module 
somewhere. The crashes were horrible when FC3 was first released (about 3 
hours max between crashes) and have gotten better over time - now i usually 
get around 3 days between crashes.

I have tried several things without solution:
1) open source and proprietary nvidia driver
2) swapped harddisk for other drive of same model
3) swapped harddisk for other drive of different model
4) sucessfully downgraded to FC1 which fixed the issue
5) ran hitachi and seagate drive exercise utilities without issues
6) disabled acpi didn't fix the issue. 
7) set fans to run at full speed to make sure it was not a temperature issue
8) changed from wirelss card to builtin ethernet to make sure pcmcia wasn't 
the issue. 

Anyone have any idea? Is anyone here running FC3 on a 8500 successfully?

Thanks,

Peter.