Hi,
Like a dutiful system administrator, I am using rsync to backup my junk across the network. Suddenly, I get this error message:
Message from syslogd@trex at Jun 23 14:04:06 ...
kernel:[19994.877482] Disabling IRQ #16

My rsync process was running at between 26 and 31 mb/s over the network. After the error, it is running at 2.5 MB/s. That's a real handicap on HD video files and system images. D'oh!

I looked at my interrupts and found them all bunched up on a few IRQs with other IRQs empty. I have (had) 4 pieces of hardware on IRQ 16 and none on 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24-27, ...
root@trex:/r5/bak# cat /proc/interrupts | grep 16:
16: 2197893 701 697 725 IO-APIC-fasteoi uhci_hcd:usb3, pata_marvell, pata_sil680, 3w-9xxx

Why would anybody in their right mind put USB3, PATA drives, a fake raid controller and a real raid controller on the same interrupt when many others are available. Isn't that like everybody sharing one bathroom when there are 17 others available?

There is a BIOS setting for PNP OS. I should have this set to YES to let Linux (suse 11.2/64), not the Asus mobo set the IRQs, right?

The 3w-9xxx is my 8 drive, hardware XOR, caching RAID controller. It's hdparm speed is down to 2.68 MB/s. Normally, it is well above 100 MB/s

Is there any way other than rebooting to fix this? Last time I rebooted SUSE treated me to an hour long, mandatory FSCK on a 3TB partition on this RAID controller.

Thank you,
BrianP

I would suggest trying a reboot with noapic on the boot line, but . . .

Can you get busy as folloes: Write carefully crafted instructions for each offending thing in /etc/modprobe.d, then get busy with rmmod -f and modprobe to see if you can sort it that way.The kernel documentation provides useful modprobe options. Otherwise schedule the reboot for the world cup final :-)).

Actually instead of 'noapic' you should try 'noioapic' or 'nolapic' first.

I have a Gigabyte board where the internet would go out because of similar IRQ problems, it was putting everything on one IRQ, I eventually had to disable all SATA and PATA drivers (all on that one IRQ with the ethernet card) and use AHCI instead, that seemed to use a different IRQ. I don't really understand how it works, but the internet has been on ever since. I suspect a bug in one of the many PATA and SATA drivers. To switch the AHCI you also have to change it in the BIOS for the SATA controller.

Anyway, it may be hard to find an answer, but keep trying, there are many BIOS options you can try as well.