FATEL Error during bootup sequence
 

Start service cpuspeed
FATEL: Error inserting acpi_cpufreq (/lib/modules/2.6.14-1.1656_FC4/kernel/arch/x86_64/kernel/cpufreq/acpi-cpufreq.ko): No such device

What does the preceding service do? How do I fix it?


This is a desktop so the next message doesn't make sense to me. I believe PCMCIA are found only on laptops so I should be able to just turn off the service? If so what service?
Start service pcmcia: Starting PCMCIA services: cardmgr[1725]: no sockets found!

Thanks for the info

most pcmcia cards are found on laptops, but desktops can use them as well (with extra hardware, obviously), so they aren't automatically ignored by desktop kernels. As for the acpi problem, it's related to power management, and as I don't use a 64bit system, it might be something related to that. most systems offer a boot option like "noacpi" or similar to disable this, you'll have to see if yours does, and make the necessary changes to your boot record (or the installation boot process, if you're doing a fresh install). Most of the time it's harmless, it's just telling you that it isn't available, but sometimes it can keep a system from starting up correctly.

Hope this helps.

How I 'fixed' it
 

the message on boot was:

FATAL: Error inserting acpi_cpufreq ...

This had been vexing me for hours. It started happening after I ran up2date and got the latest stuff for my FC4 installation.

It was also causing the system to hang at certain points - I think maybe of high cpu activity.

It seems that this is related to the cpuspeed service which is enabled by default and the update seems to break it - it's to do with managing the cpu clock speed automatically to save power on laptops - why it's enabled for desktops, I don't know.

Anyway, in order to disable it I ran this as root:

/usr/bin/ntsysv -level 0124356

(the level option specifys that this should apply to the following runlevels, in my case, all of them)

you then get an interface where you can go down and uncheck cpuspeed then tab to OK and hit space. et-voila, no more stupid broken default unnecessary service!