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Hi,

sometimes, the bootprocess of my gentoo system crashes with following error:

spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7

When I power it down, and reboot it just boots normally. I've got a
2.6.7-kernel with X.org 6.8.0 and Kde 3.3.0. I googled it, but I didn't
find a descend explanation for it, neither did I find a way to solve it.

Therefore, I hope that someone on the newsgroup managed to handle these
errors.

Grtz,

Kristof.

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:46:54 +0000, Kristof wrote:

> Hi,
>
> sometimes, the bootprocess of my gentoo system crashes with following error:
>
> spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7
>

Google this error - IMHO it is not the cause of your crash. AFAIK this is
harmless warning

In alt.os.linux.gentoo, PiotrAF uttered these immortal words:

>> sometimes, the bootprocess of my gentoo system crashes with following
>> error:
>>
>> spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7
>>
>
> Google this error - IMHO it is not the cause of your crash. AFAIK this is
> harmless warning

I agree. I've seen this message many, many times in the past and it hasn't
been an issue, just annoying.

--
Andy.

>>Google this error - IMHO it is not the cause of your crash. AFAIK this is
>>harmless warning
>
>
> I agree. I've seen this message many, many times in the past and it hasn't
> been an issue, just annoying.
>

So isn't there anything you can do to make it stop?

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:26:32 +0000, Kristof wrote:

>>>Google this error - IMHO it is not the cause of your crash. AFAIK this is
>>>harmless warning
>>
>>
>> I agree. I've seen this message many, many times in the past and it hasn't
>> been an issue, just annoying.
>>
>
> So isn't there anything you can do to make it stop?

Flashing your bios might make it go away. Otherwise try and find a better
designed motherboard. Basically its a (fairly harmless) hardware problem.

--
When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?"

Kristof wrote:

> spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7

I have seen similar messages since I installed a PCI
internal modem.

E.S.


--
Remove 'X' to reply via e-mail.
Linux 2.6.7

In article <1099039609.309651@seven.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be>, Kristof wrote:

>sometimes, the bootprocess of my gentoo system crashes with following error:
>
>spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7

You have a minor problem with the motherboard. The 8259A was an old
Intel chip - a "Priority Interrupt Controller" that took 8 signals in,
and gave an octal output of which was the lowest number signal present.
It was used to steer the 8 individual interrupt signals from the IBM
PC into the three pins on the CPU. identifying which interrupt to service.
Your particular problem is that the "wire" associated with IRQ 7 is seeing
noise (likely because nothing is connected to it), and this is randomly
interrupting your CPU. In particularly bad conditions, it might be
confusing the CPU. I really don't think it should crash your system.

>I googled it, but I didn't find a descend explanation for it, neither
>did I find a way to solve it.

Not knowing what motherboard you have (what BIOS, what sockets for cards
to plug into), it's hard to say. I'd look at the BIOS setup, and see if you
can disable the IRQ there, OR have it associated with a card that doesn't
use an interrupt, but has the interrupt pin pulled up. Alternatively, it
might be possible to configure it to a card that does use the interrupt,
and properly pulls it up when not active..

The 8259A was a 16 pin DIP chip, and this _function_ was long ago
incorporated into the motherboard support chip. It's now part of the
"South Bridge" chip on your motherboard.

Old guy

PiotrAF enlightened us with:
> Google this error - IMHO it is not the cause of your crash. AFAIK
> this is harmless warning

AFAIK it's what you get when you load support for a serial/parallel
port without using it.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?