PROBLEM: modprobe hang at startup (3.8.x, 3.9.x, IBM x3550)

[Robert Norris]

We have a number of Intel x3550 servers (Intel 5000-series). They've
been running 3.7.2 fine.

In the last week I've run 3.8.11, 3.8.12 and 3.9.2 on them. All have
long hangs at boot, and later hung tasks in modprobe.

I've only just started doing proper diagnostics on 3.9.2. In the first
run the hang was loading the "radeon" and "tpm" modules. I blacklisted
these and rebooted. Now its stuck on "i5000_edac" and "i801_smbus". So
this is starting to smell like something lower-level, maybe down in the
chipset somewhere.

I'm about to try a bisect. First time I've done so on the kernel, so I
don't quite know how it will go. I'll report back if I manage to figure
out where the problem is coming from. I'd still appreciate any guidance
you might have though!

Cheers,
Rob N.

Attachment: 4.1.version
Description: Binary data

Attachment: 8.1.software
Description: Binary data

Attachment: 8.2.cpuinfo
Description: Binary data

Attachment: 6.dmesg
Description: Binary data

Attachment: 8.3.modules
Description: Binary data

Attachment: 8.4.ioports-iomem
Description: Binary data

Attachment: 8.5.pci
Description: Binary data