Mailing List Archive

Leif W wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Not sure where to start looking, so I start with the program that threw
> the message. Not sure what information I need to provide or the
> preferred formatting.
>
> I did a BIOS update and now get an error message I never saw before.
> System seems to boot ok, run programs ok, access devices ok (SATA DVD,
> IDE HDD, SATA HDD, network, video, audio, USB, IEEE1394). But I don't
> think Linux knows my CPU (no friendly name for my AMD Athlon 64 X2
> 6000+), and it can't see all my RAM (3 of 8GB). memtest86+ sees all my
> RAM, I think. Not sure if there's any other issues. Disks don't have
> proper file systems or OS installs on them as of yet. 2 discs were part
> of a RAID6 set of 4. 4xSATA HDDs and 2xIDE HDDs. Not sure if it's a
> BIOS setting, software problem, hardware newer than software, etc. I
> didn't notice the error message with previous BIOS version.
>

It's very simple, you installed a BIOS with a broken El Torito stack.

The fact that it boots anyway means that ISOLINUX was able to
successfully guess how to work around it.

> ======== Error message ========
> ISOLINUX 3.31 2006-09-25 isolinux: Loading spec packet failed, trying to
> wing it
> ...
> isolinux: Extremely broken BIOS detected, last ditch attempt with drive = 9F
> isolinux: See http://syslinux.zytor.com/sbm for more information.
>
> ===========================

-hpa

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Leif W wrote:
> But I don't
> think Linux knows my CPU (no friendly name for my AMD Athlon 64 X2
> 6000+), and it can't see all my RAM (3 of 8GB).

The former is an indication that your BIOS doesn't support your CPU.
For AMD CPUs, that is a Very Bad Thing with potentially catastrophic
consequences. Run at your own risk.

For the latter, it's probably because you're running a 32-bit kernel
without PAE support on a 64-bit system.

-hpa

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H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Leif W wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I did a BIOS update and now get an error message I never saw before.
>
> It's very simple, you installed a BIOS with a broken El Torito stack.
>
> The fact that it boots anyway means that ISOLINUX was able to
> successfully guess how to work around it.


Ok, now I'd like to gather specific information, in which way is it
broken, where does it fail, and why? ASUS is notorious for the poor
customer support and poor English<->Chinese translation. I'd like to
send them very simple detailed information about what is broken and why
it is a problem, and instructions on how to reliably reproduce the
problem so they can fix their BIOS. I expect a reply from them along
the lines that "Since it work, it's no problem."

The Knoppix image was positively verified on the HDD, and all of the
files verified (both by MD5 checks). I'm not sure how to verify if the
El Torito segment was properly burnt, or how to rule out faulty DVD
burner, incompatible DVD media, burn software bugs, etc, that may have
affected the El Torito portion of the DVD. Additionally, it's very hard
to catch the error message as it's overwritten by a graphic image very
quickly, and must be cause with a PAUSE key after several reboot attempts.

So, I guess I'm wondering how to generate an ISO image that doesn't do
anything except spew out copious amounts of debug information, and if
it's more than can fit on a standard post-POST 80x25 text display, then
either allow me to scroll back, or better, save to a floppy. It could
be a file system such as FAT12 or newer/bigger, or just raw to the
floppy, I don't care, as long as I can get at the error message data.

Thanks for the tips.

Leif


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H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Leif W wrote:
>> But I don't
>> think Linux knows my CPU (no friendly name for my AMD Athlon 64 X2
>> 6000+), and it can't see all my RAM (3 of 8GB).
>
> The former is an indication that your BIOS doesn't support your CPU.
> For AMD CPUs, that is a Very Bad Thing with potentially catastrophic
> consequences. Run at your own risk.

Not sure if I was clear or if there's a misunderstanding. The BIOS
recognizes the CPU and displays a friendly string, but the Linux does
not. I was thinking maybe the friendly string for my CPU just wasn't in
the kernel's recognition code yet?

If ASUS truly has mucked both El Torito and AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
recognition, it makes me wonder what else they broke in 1004. I suppose
I'll double check by downloading the BIOS from all mirrors and
comparing, and trying different floppies, and different update tools
(ASUS has several BIOS update options), and possibly roll back a version
and see what happens.

Regards,

Leif


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Leif W wrote:
>
> Not sure if I was clear or if there's a misunderstanding. The BIOS
> recognizes the CPU and displays a friendly string, but the Linux does
> not. I was thinking maybe the friendly string for my CPU just wasn't in
> the kernel's recognition code yet?
>

There *IS* no kernel recognition code! The kernel gets this string from
CPUID. On AMD processors, this string is entered by the processor into
the CPU via MSRs.

> If ASUS truly has mucked both El Torito and AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
> recognition, it makes me wonder what else they broke in 1004. I suppose
> I'll double check by downloading the BIOS from all mirrors and
> comparing, and trying different floppies, and different update tools
> (ASUS has several BIOS update options), and possibly roll back a version
> and see what happens.

-hpa

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