2.6.24.3 SMP kernel sees only one of my 2 cores..

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 19:15:26 +0000,
  Alan Cox <alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:41:36 -0400
> Gautam Thaker <gthaker at atl.lmco.com> wrote:
> 
> > I am running Fedora Core 8 w/ all the updates installed. The kernel
> > version is 2.6.24.3-34.fc8 SMP. I  have been using the system happily
> > for about 2 months. I don't know just when, but in last week, the
> > kernel sees only  1 of my 2 cores. I know i have run quite some time
> > w/ 2 cores. I am not sure if this is related to some SW update or a
> > bios problem (i loaded "defaults" in bios) or can the CPU actually
> > break and be left w/ just 1 core?  I do see a msg at start up, at very
> > start, that says:
> > 
> > i8042c: can not read CTR when initializing i8042.
> 
> Thats a keyboard handling emulation bug in the BIOS, unrelated. Go into
> the BIOS and turn off USB legacy emulation. However I don't think its
> anything to do with your vanishing core

You might see if 431882 looks to be the same bug. If it is then you will at
least have a way to tell if things didn't work correctly early in the boot
process so that you can reboot right away.