After a little research on Google about the issue, it may have something to do with the IO-APIC kernel configuration. However this problem, as reported several times over the linux-kernel mailing list, usually jumps up after some hardware interaction, such as massive backups to different devices (IDE, SCSI, Paralell) or within a few minutes of uptime. My problem, on the other hand, is percieved at shut down sequence, when the computer tries to disable (turn off) the swap partition of the Hard Disk.

Among other things I've seen about this problem is that it usually jumps up when the interrupt handler make a glitch on the interrupts, forcing the CPU to "catch-all" (IRQ7) interrupts. But in my case, the computer freezes, and only happens during shut down (or reboot for that matter).

Has anyone else have this problem, if so, how did you solve it?

Thanks

Thetargos.

Hmmm. Try zeroing the swap partition, then re-formatting it with the -c flag to see if you may have some defective areas.

swapoff
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd<XX>
mkswap -c /dev/hd<XX>
swapon

Thanks for the info, and sorry if I did not tell you if it worked. I'll try that this instant.

mmm... That did not work either. I've done this and recompiled the kernel with Local APIC/IO_APIC compiled in. Now it does not give the IRQ7 error, but just freeze. Will it have anything to do with a filesystem compatibility? I don't really think it would be due to a bad partition, because I had the system running quite good with the stock Red Hat 2.4.20-18.9 kernel (although without the resposiveness I got with the vanilla+Con Kolivas' patch), but since I had to configure it by hand I may have skpped something in the Filesystms configuration options (or version mismatch, perhaps?) Anyway I am stuck here.

Any other suggestion, guys?