Interrupts from floppy on lap-top

[Rick Stevens]

Graeme Nichols wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-03-02 at 06:00, Rick Stevens wrote:
> 
>>Manuel Aróstegui Ramirez wrote:
>>
>>>>From: Graeme Nichols <gnichols tpg com au>
>>>>To: "redhat-install-list redhat com"
>>>><redhat-install-list redhat com>
>>>>Subject: Interrupts from floppy on lap-top
>>>>Date: 01 Mar 2004 13:06:33 +1100
>>>
>>>
>>>Graeme Nichols wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hello Folks,
>>>>
>>>>My lap-top is a generic unit based on the SIS
>>>
>>>chipset. >It has a P3 1G
>>>
>>>
>>>>cpu. RH8 os.
>>>>
>>>>My question is this: when I mount the floppy
>>>
>>>sometimes >when I am trying
>>>
>>>
>>>>to work with files on it and I am typing on the
>>>>command line I get a
>>>>message, which interferes with my typing, saying
>>>>something about an
>>>>unexpected interrupt from the floppy.
>>>>
>>>>Any ideas anyone?
>>>>
>>>>-- 
>>>>
>>>>Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>>Graeme Nichols
>>>
>>>
>>>What's the exactly error you get when you're working
>>>with your floppy?
>>>Isn't your floppy corrputed?, have your tried to work
>>>with on an other machine?
>>
>>If it's the (stupid) "Spurious 8253 interrupt" message, you can ignore
>>it.  If it bothers you, you can edit /etc/syslog.conf and make sure that
>>the line that reads:
>>
>>	kern.*                  /dev/console
>>
>>is commented out.  If it is, I'd need to see the message.  If it isn't,
>>comment it out and do an "/etc/rc.d/init.d/syslogd restart".
> 
> 
> Hi Rick, many thanks for the info. It is the message you listed above
> and, yes, it does bother me because if I am typing a command the message
> goes on the command line and, well, becomes annoying. Will do as you
> suggest.
> 
> Thanks again.

No problem.

Just for your information, the 8253 was the original timer chip used to
drive the parallel port on PC hardware.  8253s aren't really used
anymore, but the message is from the early days of the kernel when they 
were and the text persists.

The most common cause of this message is the having the APIC enabled on
certain AMD-based motherboards.  You can either turn off the APIC (by
specifying the "noapic" boot parameter or rebuilding your kernel with it
disabled) or simply ignore the message (which is what the syslog.conf
tweak does).  It's pretty harmless.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-      Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.       -
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