Toshiba NetBook NB205 loss of interrupts prolongs boot process to over 25 minutes

[John H Terpstra]

Freshly installed and updated Ubuntu 10.04 takes over 25 min to boot. Often after booting either WiFi does not work, or the built-in mouse does not work, or both.

To accelerate the boot process, hold the enter key down. The result is a booted system within 2 min.

System is updated and the problem has been seen and witnessed by Steve Langasek who requested this bug report be made.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.32-22-generic 2.6.32-22.33
Regression: Yes
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC272 Analog [ALC272 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jht 1654 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf0440000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC272'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0272,1179ff6e,00100001'
   Controls : 16
   Simple ctrls : 8
Date: Sat May 8 21:31:27 2010
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=48fc45cf-938f-496b-8de2-af0e0bcdf98e
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Netbook 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
MachineType: TOSHIBA TOSHIBA NB205
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=6cb3b359-0b4e-419b-ae19-214370d3412a ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.34
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 04/07/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.bios.version: V1.20
dmi.board.name: KAVAA
dmi.board.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.board.version: 1.00
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: *
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnTOSHIBA:bvrV1.20:bd04/07/2009:svnTOSHIBA:pnTOSHIBANB205:pvrPLL25U-009018:rvnTOSHIBA:rnKAVAA:rvr1.00:cvnTOSHIBA:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: TOSHIBA NB205
dmi.product.version: PLL25U-009018
dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi John,

If you could also please test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

As a release regression, marking this as high priority and targeting for fixing in lucid. Leaving incomplete based on the request for info.

[John H Terpstra (jht)]

For the Toshiba NB205-B210 NetBook it is necessary to add the nohz=off parameter to the kernel boot options. This avoids the slow boot problem (at least until a better solution is found).

[John H Terpstra (jht)]

FYI - I tested the upstream kernels (latest and daily) and found the self-same problem. Additional research found one claim that the nohz=off kernel parameter fixes the problem. This was in fact the work-around - if not the fix.

[Stefan Bader (smb)]

Hi John,

I am not sure I missed this or you did not say: has a previous release worked without problems or was this a new install? The last comment was from May to just to verify: does it still exist? And finally would adding "acpi_skip_timer_override" to the kernel command line change this? Generally is IRQ0 when looking at /proc/interrupts incrementing or seems stuck?

[John H Terpstra (jht)]

On 07/14/2010 08:08 AM, Stefan Bader wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> I am not sure I missed this or you did not say: has a previous release
> worked without problems or was this a new install?

This was a new installation.

> The last comment was
> from May to just to verify: does it still exist? And finally would
> adding "acpi_skip_timer_override" to the kernel command line change
> this? Generally is IRQ0 when looking at /proc/interrupts incrementing or
> seems stuck?

The solution indicated works perfectly.

- John T.

> ** Changed in: linux (Ubuntu Lucid)
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Stefan Bader (stefan-bader-canonical)
>

[Stefan Bader (smb)]

Sort of good and bad. Good because this helps you around the problem. But bad because the underlying problem is something not really be solved generically in Linux. In short the BIOS should set up the timer interrupt and tells the OS via the timer override to which interrupt pin the timer interrupts get delivered. This is usually a "it is 2 instead of 0". But everything breaks if that is not true.
So this would be something to fix in BIOS or at least requires someone with insight into the hw specifications and that is not open. You may try to check whether there is a BIOS update for this netbook that helps, but otherwise this workaround is the only solution I know.