Turion64x2 dmesg shows SMP is disabled in Ubuntu 9.10 x86_64

linux_junky · 11-12-2009, 10:43 AM

Hi,

Here is my tale of woe.

I've been working to put back together a broken HP dv2000z Pavilion Laptop. Suffice it to say it has had more than its fair share of issues--I'll spare you the details.

The latest problem was a bad motherboard. The machine is out of warranty, so I opted to shop for a motherboard at eBay, found one, bought, installed.

All well and good. When I put together the machine and did an install of Ubuntu 9.10 from LiveCD, I noticed I could not get the machine to boot unless I specified a kernel boot option of 'nolapic'.

So, I thought, I'll add that to /etc/default/grub--did that and the machine boots up fine.
P.S., I went into the BIOS to check the firmware version--it turns out this motherboard part# is shared by the HP-Compaq Presario V3000 because that is what the Phoenix bios shows.

OK, so I have a newer bios that thinks its a Compaq Presario V3000. Great :P

Then, I decide to pull a terminal session and run htop and noticed it was only showing one core processor.

I went further and checked dmesg which confirmed that SMP is disabled.
cat /proc/cpuinfo also confirms one core present.

uname -a shows:

2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:05:01 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

So, although my machine is back up, SMP is disabled and I can't boot the HDD without nolapic.

Any thoughts on what to do?
Thanks Everyone.

the trooper · 11-12-2009, 11:17 AM

I've seen this with my own machine,also a dual-core Amd.
From what i remember it was because i was using the nolapic option.
Could you try to boot the machine using the noapic parameter instead?.

linux_junky · 11-12-2009, 11:28 AM

Tried 'noapic' just now--the PC pauses as if seeking the HDD and immediately shuts itself down.

the trooper · 11-12-2009, 11:47 AM

Have a look at the following link:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

Look at 'kernel options',see if any of those get you any further.
The only other thing i could suggest would be try another distro if all else fails.

linux_junky · 11-12-2009, 12:04 PM

Unfortunately, that doesn't provide an answer for my issue--just a lot of info.
Thanks anyhow.

Any others out there who have run up against this? What's the remedy?

linux_junky · 11-12-2009, 06:55 PM

In googling further on my issue, I come to find this fellow experiencing the same issue albeit with Intel:

http://forums.opensuse.org/pre-relea...len-cpu-3.html

He has opened a call ticket with kernel.org:

http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14525

I will do the same and see if they merge mine with his.

Thanks Folks.