Re: [BUG-RT] RTC has been stopped-> long delay during boot, soft reboot->GRUB fails to call getrtsecs()

From: Remy Bohmer
Date: Fri Jan 05 2007 - 11:28:23 EST


Hello All,

Thanks to the hint of Dries, I discovered that there was a difference
in my kernel configuration and the kernel configuration of Ingo
I streamlined my configuration to that of Ingo, and now the slow boot
issue is completely gone. I do not understand the exact relation, but
it works for me.

Thanks to you all.

FYI: Attached I have put the differences I had to make to make it work.


Kind Regards,

Remy Bohmer


2007/1/5, Remy Bohmer <l.pinguin@xxxxxxxxx>:
Hello Dries,

Thanks for your reply, but as it looks a lot like the same problem, I
want to mention that we do NOT have a Dell system here. It is a
Fujitsu Siemens i945 motherboard. I also saw the problem about "long
delays during boot by hwclock" on an old i845 Kontron Motherboard,
running the same installation/kernel as I mentioned, which we were
using for years and never showed this problems until we start using
this kernel. The RTC clock that was stopped is only seen twice on this
Fujitsu siemens board, not on any other.

So, as it is not a Dell system ,and we therefor have a different BIOS,
I doubt it is BIOS related. Further, I discovered that the problem
also occured in a system that is not tickless. I can therefor exclude
now that it is NOT related to the CONFIG_NO_HZ option, despite what I
mentioned in my previous mail.

In my case it also was NO battery problem, but removing the battery
was the only way to reset the RTC to get it ticking again.

We have enabled HPET in BIOS and kernel.

I have tested the 2.6.20rc3-rt0 kernel of Ingo (as he suggested) by
booting it a few times, and until now we have not seen this problem,
but the long term will learn if it is really gone.


Kind Regards,

Remy Böhmer



2007/1/5, Dries Kimpe <Dries.Kimpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> In-Reply-To: <3efb10970701020838n61db5388l94b2f0ed38073edd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> I found this mail on the LKML.org list, and didn't want to bother to
> subscribe to the list, so I post this directly. Sorry ;-)
>
> I'm suspecting the problem is not related to the rt-kernel at all.
>
> This looks like a well known (but no real solution as far as I know)
> DELL bios problem.
>
> * Somehow, the RTC gets corrupted and stops counting.
> * On recent dell laptops (D420, a.o.) the BIOS sometimes checks the
> clock (everytime a thorough BIOS check is done)
> and just stops with the message "time-of-day clock stopped" (look for
> this on google); On some systems, one can enter the BIOS setup at this
> point,
> causing the bios to reset the clock and solving the problem. On others
> (like the D420), the only problem is to make the B IOS reinitialize the
> clock.
>
> * Once the clock is corrupted, it never runs again (some say a reboot in
> XP can solve it);
> It is NOT a battery problem. Just disconnecting the battery, causing
> the BIOS to reinitialize NVRAM solves the problem.
>
> I use to have this problem on my D420, and it seemed to go away by:
> - disabling the RTC interrupt in the kernel
> - enabling the HPET timer RTC emulation
>
> More info:
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=176954
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=149565
> https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.15/+bug/43745
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Greetings,
> Dries
>
>
>
> Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
>

--- config.old 2007-01-05 17:22:43.000000000 +0100
+++ config.new 2007-01-05 17:20:31.000000000 +0100
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
#
# Automatically generated make config: don't edit
# Linux kernel version: 2.6.19.1-rt15
-# Tue Jan 2 15:10:14 2007
+# Fri Jan 5 14:40:56 2007
#
CONFIG_X86_32=y
CONFIG_GENERIC_TIME=y
@@ -154,6 +154,7 @@
CONFIG_X86_USE_PPRO_CHECKSUM=y
CONFIG_X86_TSC=y
CONFIG_HPET_TIMER=y
+CONFIG_HPET_EMULATE_RTC=y
CONFIG_NR_CPUS=10
CONFIG_SCHED_SMT=y
CONFIG_SCHED_MC=y
@@ -977,10 +978,10 @@
# CONFIG_WATCHDOG is not set
# CONFIG_HW_RANDOM is not set
# CONFIG_NVRAM is not set
-# CONFIG_RTC is not set
+CONFIG_RTC=y
+# CONFIG_RTC_HISTOGRAM is not set
CONFIG_BLOCKER=y
# CONFIG_LPPTEST is not set
-# CONFIG_GEN_RTC is not set
# CONFIG_DTLK is not set
# CONFIG_R3964 is not set
# CONFIG_APPLICOM is not set
@@ -996,7 +997,9 @@
# CONFIG_NSC_GPIO is not set
# CONFIG_CS5535_GPIO is not set
# CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER is not set
-# CONFIG_HPET is not set
+CONFIG_HPET=y
+# CONFIG_HPET_RTC_IRQ is not set
+# CONFIG_HPET_MMAP is not set
# CONFIG_HANGCHECK_TIMER is not set

#
@@ -1328,7 +1331,35 @@
#
# Real Time Clock
#
-# CONFIG_RTC_CLASS is not set
+CONFIG_RTC_LIB=y
+CONFIG_RTC_CLASS=y
+CONFIG_RTC_HCTOSYS=y
+CONFIG_RTC_HCTOSYS_DEVICE="rtc0"
+# CONFIG_RTC_DEBUG is not set
+
+#
+# RTC interfaces
+#
+CONFIG_RTC_INTF_SYSFS=y
+CONFIG_RTC_INTF_PROC=y
+CONFIG_RTC_INTF_DEV=y
+# CONFIG_RTC_INTF_DEV_UIE_EMUL is not set
+
+#
+# RTC drivers
+#
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_X1205 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_DS1307 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_DS1553 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_ISL1208 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_DS1672 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_DS1742 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_PCF8563 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_PCF8583 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_RS5C372 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_M48T86 is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_TEST is not set
+# CONFIG_RTC_DRV_V3020 is not set

#
# DMA Engine support