Nvidia SATA hangups with newer FC5 test kernel

[Jonathan Berry]

On 3/16/06, Calvin Dodge <caldodge at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have an Asus K8N-VM with an Athlon64 3200+, running in 32-bit mode
> (had too many problems with 64-bit FC4 on two other Athlon64 systems -
> one Nvidia-based, the other ATI-based).
>
> I'm running FC5 test, and ran into a problem after a kernel upgrade.
> (from 2.6.15-1996 to 2.6.15-2041 - hangup also happened with build
> 2032)
>
> The SATA controller would timeout during the boot phase - not at
> first, but during service startup  (the service which stopped was
> never the same - sometimes postfix, sometimes spamd, sometimes
> something else).
>
> I finally did a compare of kernel messages from a 1996 bootup vs a
> 2041 bootup, and saw the difference was that 2041 enabled APIC by
> default, while 1996 didn't.
>
> I added "noapic" to the appropriate line in grub.conf, and now the
> system runs fine in 2041.
>
> I don't really need any help with this now that the system is working
> on the newer kernel, but thought the powers-that-be might mention this
> in some note.  Yes, the install notes might mention disabling APIC,
> but I think a reasonable user might assume that if the initial kernel
> ran just fine "out of the box", then  minor kernel upgrades would
> work, too.

Works fine in 64-bit ; ).  For me at least.  It's not the exact same
motherboard, but I have an nForce4 chipset.  What problems did you
have with 64-bit FC4?

Jonathan