Kernel panic on heavy I/O on t420s (Sandy Bridge)

[Luis Carlos Cobo]

Natty Beta 2 on a Lenovo Thinkpad T420s, packages up to date. While copying data form another harddrive or via rsync, I get errors leading sometimes to the filesystem being remounted read-only and others to kernel panic (complete with CAPS LOCK blinking). This makes the computer unusable and I think I risk losing data (luckily have backups).

Tested in console to make sure it was not video problem, go a lot of kernel debug messages printed on the terminal but they do not stay in /var/log (since by the time the error is hit the filesystem is read only, I guess).

I will be glad to provide any further necessary information.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic 2.6.38-8.42
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: luisca 1537 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'PCH'/'HDA Intel PCH at 0xd1620000 irq 49'
   Mixer name : 'Intel CougarPoint HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:14f1506e,17aa21d2,00100000 HDA:80862805,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 20
   Simple ctrls : 8
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw unknown'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC (unknown)'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 1
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Date: Fri Apr 22 18:45:06 2011
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=80ba23de-b8e4-4fd2-91be-14df4a1d338e
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta amd64 (20110413)
MachineType: LENOVO 4170CTO
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic root=UUID=a546a551-7225-43cc-9597-d51b71963739 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.38-8-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.38-8-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.52
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 02/16/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 8CET28WW (1.05 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 4170CTO
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr8CET28WW(1.05):bd02/16/2011:svnLENOVO:pn4170CTO:pvrThinkPadT420s:rvnLENOVO:rn4170CTO:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 4170CTO
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T420s
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Luis Carlos Cobo (luiscarlos)]

The error is "general protection fail". The stack trace starts from alloc_buffer_head, create_empty_buffers, ... ext4_da_get_block_prev...