DL585G2 + RHEL4 U4 x86-64

[Ronny Horgen]

The server has the latest updates from RH, the last BIOS and the last PSP installed. The Linux x86_64 HPET option is set in BIOS, and the pci=nommconf is set in GRUB. We still get this message in dmesg:

ipmi message handler version v33
ipmi device interface version v33
IPMI System Interface driver version v33, KCS version v33, SMIC version v33, BT version v33

ipmi_si: Searching for PCI Vendor 0x103c, Device 0x3302
ipmi_si: Trying "kcs" at memory address 0xf7bf0000
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:01:04.6[A] -> GSI 16 (level, high) -> IRQ 201
ipmi_si: Found PCI BMC at BAR address 0xf7bf0000
ipmi_si: Using PCI Plug and Play interrupt 201
IPMI kcs interface [0] initialized
cpqci: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:01:04.2[B] -> GSI 17 (level, high) -> IRQ 209
warning: many lost ticks.
Your time source seems to be instable or some driver is hogging interupts
rip __do_softirq+0x4d/0xd0

Anyone with an idea why "Your time source seems to be instable or some driver is hogging interupts" shows up?

[Mike Stroyan · Accepted solution]

The symptom looks like a match to this redhat bugzilla report.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=159733

The kernel complains about lost ticks when it should not be complaining.
It is due to be corrected in RHEL 4 U5.

(The message is currently common and harmless. But if there really was a problem that justified the lost ticks warning this problem would mask it.)

[Ronny Horgen]

Thx, nice to know it's harmless, and will be fixed in U5.