I have downloaded kernel version 3.9.4 mentioned as stable in kernel.org.

I have done the following steps :

a) untar
b) make menuconfig. ( In my first attempt, I tried to customize the config file. But later when the error was persistent,I did not alter any config and just saved the default config)
c) make
d) make modules
e) make modules_install install

Step e) throws a few errors

ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vzdquota
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vzevent
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vznetdev
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vzmon
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vzdev
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module power_meter
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module dcdbas

I have tried my best to find out where in the kernel source
tree these modules are. But manual search was not helpful neither
did google help.

1)What I could understand is that the kernel networking part may require the modules. But I donot know a way in which to fix the problem.

2)Secondly, the kernel crashed on booting.
I have tried both 3.8.8 as well as 3.9.4.

3) My final question is that is it mandatory to add the patches provided against the kernel before compiling the source and then trying to install. I did not do that thinking that the website mentioned the source as stable. That why i precluded the idea of applying patches.

I shall be more than grateful for ideas in this regards

Thanks

The error messages indicate you're missing a number of modules (drivers). This is most likely due to them not being part of the default kernel configuration.

You can probably fix this by using your old config as a starting point. Boot your old kernel and see if the file /proc/config.gz exists. If it does, you can simply copy an unzipped version of that file to the /usr/src/linux-3.9.4 directory as .config. Assuming you untar'ed the kernel source in /usr/src, running the following command before step c) should do the trick:
The config file will be missing some options that exist in the newer kernel, but fortunately the Makefile targets "oldconfig" or "silentoldconfig" will take care of that. Use make oldconfig if you want to be prompted for the settings for all new options, otherwise make silentoldconfig (which is run automatically when you run make) should be sufficient.

Another issue is related to OpenVZ. Some of the errors refer to OpenVZ-specific modules, and last time I checked, OpenVZ required the application of kernel patches to work properly. This information may be out of date, so I suggest you check the OpenVZ home page for more information.

If you're not actually using OpenVZ containers (you will know if you do), you may ignore the OpenVZ-related error messages. Your system should still work.