Cannot boot/run ubuntu without "acpi=off" or "nolapic" or "idle=poll". Freezes otherwise.

[CGar]

My laptop is a Clevo P570WM with Intel i7-3970X CPU and 2x AMD Radeon HD 7970M GPU's.
The distro used is Kubuntu 14.04 x64.

Without adding acpi=off or nolapic to the boot flags my laptop freezes a few moments after getting to the login screen. I have tried various kernels but the issue persists on all of them. The issue affects the live CD, the minimal CD and Kubuntu when its installed.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1336451/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[CGar (cgarz)]

But It's not with a package, its with any ubuntu distribution. I can't even get to the point where I could load a package. It may be with the kernel itself. How would I know for sure?

[Dirk F (fieldhouse)]

Your problem was worked around by kernel params. Try that.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 1336451

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v3.18 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

If you are unable to test the mainline kernel, for example it will not boot, please add the tag: 'kernel-unable-to-test-upstream'.
Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-rc7-vivid/

[CGar (cgarz)]

Sorry for the delay. My laptop was away for a while getting repaired. Apparently water magically appeared on the GPUs and the mobo. Allowing the repair to cost me instead of the manufacturer. Lovely :-/

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate all the help I can get. Fed up with windows lol.

Anyway I tried to run apport-collect 1336451. I was unable to do so because there were missing python modules. At 1st it was pyqt4.qtcore. I managed to install that. But after that it was pykde4.kdecore and my Google-fu was not strong enough to find out how to get that.

On the kernel side. I used the kernel from:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/

This is what I did:
- Removed fglrx.
- Rebooted with nomodeset and nolapic.
- Installed:
                    linux-image-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_amd64.deb
                    linux-headers-3.18.0-031800_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_all.deb
                    linux-headers-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_amd64.deb
- Rebooted with only nomodeset.

Unfortunately its still the same as before. Somewhere between 10 to 30 seconds after the login screen loads it freezes completely. The mouse stops moving, its unable to change to a different TTY and I have to force a shutdown by holding down the power button.

Adding the relevent tags and changing to confirmed as requested.

[CGar (cgarz)]

So done some more digging into the problem. I found the page at:
https://01.org/linux-acpi/documentation/debug-how-isolate-linux-acpi-issues

I decided to try them all and see the effects. It went like this:
* acpi=off - Works, but looks terrible, trackpad doesnt work, keyboard spams keys randomly when pressed, unless you can press and release the key in like 1 millisecond.
* acpi=ht - Same as without nolapic.
* pci=noacpi - Says it gave up waiting on root device. That "/dev/disk/by-uuid/*kUbuntu's uuid*" does not exist. (got a pic)
* acpi=noirq - Same as without nolapic.
* pnpacpi=off - 1st attempt, froze at an apparently random point in bootup, touchpad on last line. 2nd attempt, kernel panic - not syncing (got a pic), 3rd attempt, froze at what seems to be the same point as attempt 1 (got a pic). 4th attempt, got to login screen then did the usual freeze. 5th attempt, same as 4th but the bootup was in the correct resolution. nice small text instead of huge zoomed in text.
* noapic - 1st attempt, stalled at bootup, 2nd attempt, got to login screen then the the usual freeze after 8ish seconds, 3rd attempt, same again exept froze almost instantly.
* nolapic - Always works. Is what my default boot options are set to. But performance suffers since then it only uses 1 cpu core.

There is another image of it booting but I forgot to name it with the options I used. Its another kernel panic.

I then tried about 6 times to get as far as logging into tty1. Eventually I was lucky and quick enough to get in. After doing a quick cpuinfo to see the 6 cores working it froze again. But with a message! Another kernel panic. I think this might be the issue:
"Kernel panic - not syncing: Timeout synchronizing machine check over CPUs"

Pic of pci=noacpi - http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/cgar_of_ayr/linux%20boot%20errors/pcinoacpi.jpg
Pic of 2nd pnpacpi=off attempt - http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/cgar_of_ayr/linux%20boot%20errors/pnpacpioff_2.jpg
Pic of 2nd pnpacpi=off attempt - http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/cgar_of_ayr/linux%20boot%20errors/pnpacpioff_3.jpg
Pic of unknown option error - http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/cgar_of_ayr/linux%20boot%20errors/anotherPanic.jpg
Pic of it failing after logging in with no boot options - http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/cgar_of_ayr/linux%20boot%20errors/noParams.jpg

This help anyone think what it might be?

[CGar (cgarz)]

Been experimenting some more. I saw the post at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1084622

The op there also was complaining about not booting without nolapic. But that with nolacpic only 1 core works.

They linked to:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4890758
where they saw these boot options that worked for that user but not for them:
noapic nolapic pci=assign-busses apicmaintimer idle=poll reboot=cold,hard

However they were able to have some success by removing nolapic and just having it as:
noapic pci=assign-busses apicmaintimer idle=poll reboot=cold,hard

Those boot options worked for me too! But I continued experimenting. I managed to remove everything except for idle=poll.

I understand though that this is a real power hog. But my laptop is always plugged in so that’s not "too" bad. I will continue testing it to see if there are any other issues with this option. If not I will probably change my default boot options from nolapic to idle=poll.

I'll edit the title to reflect this new working boot option.

[CGar (cgarz)]

Another update.

The idle=poll option was more of a power hog than I realized. I actually ended up going back to nolapic a few days after I used it. After the electricity ran out much, MUCH faster than it should have.

The most recent thing I looked into is the max cstate options.

processor.max_cstate didn't seem to work.
Though intel_idle.max_cstate does work.

I am able to use up to intel_idle.max_cstate=2.
This is what I now have as my default boot option. Power usage seems to be acceptable and I am able to see all my cores.

When I try intel_idle.max_cstate=3 it fails in the same way as when there are no boot options.

So cstate 3 seems to be where the issue lies, as far as I can tell.

I do not know how to debug this problem though.
Is anyone still watching this bug report?