Dell Dimension 2400 buggy BIOS / ACPI issues

[paddymac]

I got a secondhand Dell Dimension 2400 that apparently has a buggy BIOS. I can't complain too much because I got it for free. It only has 256 MB RAM, but it'll support up to 2 GB RAM, and PC2700 is dirt cheap these days. My plan was to upgrade the RAM and use it as a transparent web filtering proxy with a Squid/e2guardian setup. The only functional problem I've encountered is that sometimes it seems a little slow. I've got Funtoo installed, and I thought perhaps the low 256 MB RAM was the problem (it may be), but even when RAM usage reported by top is only around 20% by a process and disk usage is normal, it takes longer for this Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz to do the same thing as an AMD Sempron at 2 GHz (which has 768 MB RAM). I'm wondering if the slowness is due to the timer bug reported by dmesg. In any case, I'll post below the dmesg output that contains error messages. Does anyone know if this is something I can work around? I'm currently running the Debian sources 4.2.6-3. I upgraded the kernel thinking a newer version would fix the issues reported under kernel 3.19.3, but they remained. Maybe someone knows some fixes?

 

 

[    0.000000] ACPI: Early table checksum verification disabled
[    0.000000] ACPI: RSDP 0x00000000000FEB80 000014 (v00 DELL  )
[    0.000000] ACPI: RSDT 0x00000000000FD22A 000034 (v01 DELL   2400     00000007 ASL  00000061)
[    0.000000] ACPI: FACP 0x00000000000FD25E 000074 (v01 DELL   2400     00000007 ASL  00000061)
[    0.000000] ACPI: DSDT 0x00000000FFFCC0F1 002404 (v01 DELL   dt_ex    00001000 MSFT 0100000D)
[    0.000000] ACPI: FACS 0x000000000FE74000 000040
[    0.000000] ACPI: SSDT 0x00000000FFFCE632 0000BA (v01 DELL   st_ex    00001000 MSFT 0100000D)
[    0.000000] ACPI: APIC 0x00000000000FD2D2 00006C (v01 DELL   2400     00000007 ASL  00000061)
[    0.000000] ACPI: BOOT 0x00000000000FD33E 000028 (v01 DELL   2400     00000007 ASL  00000061)
[    0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000

 

 

[    0.105736] Simple Boot Flag value 0x87 read from CMOS RAM was invalid
[    0.105792] Simple Boot Flag at 0x7a set to 0x1

 

 

[    0.128197] ACPI Exception: AE_NOT_FOUND, While evaluating Sleep State [\_S2_] (20150619/hwxface-580)
[    0.128355] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5)
[    0.128407] ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing
[    0.128585] PCI: Using host bridge windows from ACPI; if necessary, use "pci=nocrs" and report a bug
[    0.173283] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (domain 0000 [bus 00-ff])
[    0.173362] acpi PNP0A03:00: _OSC: OS supports [ASPM ClockPM Segments MSI]
[    0.173428] acpi PNP0A03:00: _OSC failed (AE_NOT_FOUND); disabling ASPM
[    0.175058] acpi PNP0A03:00: fail to add MMCONFIG information, can't access extended PCI configuration space under this bridge.
[    0.175517] PCI host bridge to bus 0000:00
[    0.175582] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [bus 00-ff]
[    0.175636] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [io  0x0000-0x0cf7 window]
[    0.175691] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [io  0x0d00-0xffff window]
[    0.175745] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [mem 0x000a0000-0x000bffff window]
[    0.175807] pci_bus 0000:00: root bus resource [mem 0x80860000-0xfebfffff window]
[    0.175891] pci 0000:00:00.0: [8086:2560] type 00 class 0x060000
[    0.175917] pci 0000:00:00.0: reg 0x10: [mem 0xf8000000-0xfbffffff pref]
[    0.176266] pci 0000:00:02.0: [8086:2562] type 00 class 0x030000
[    0.176304] pci 0000:00:02.0: reg 0x10: [mem 0xf0000000-0xf7ffffff pref]
[    0.176316] pci 0000:00:02.0: reg 0x14: [mem 0xfeb80000-0xfebfffff]
[    0.176651] pci 0000:00:1d.0: [8086:24c2] type 00 class 0x0c0300
[    0.176716] pci 0000:00:1d.0: reg 0x20: [io  0xff80-0xff9f]
[    0.176907] pci 0000:00:1d.0: System wakeup disabled by ACPI
[    0.177087] pci 0000:00:1d.1: [8086:24c4] type 00 class 0x0c0300
[    0.177150] pci 0000:00:1d.1: reg 0x20: [io  0xff60-0xff7f]
[    0.177366] pci 0000:00:1d.1: System wakeup disabled by ACPI
[    0.177541] pci 0000:00:1d.2: [8086:24c7] type 00 class 0x0c0300
[    0.177606] pci 0000:00:1d.2: reg 0x20: [io  0xff40-0xff5f]
[    0.177801] pci 0000:00:1d.2: System wakeup disabled by ACPI
[    0.177997] pci 0000:00:1d.7: [8086:24cd] type 00 class 0x0c0320
[    0.178041] pci 0000:00:1d.7: reg 0x10: [mem 0xffa80800-0xffa80bff]
[    0.178150] pci 0000:00:1d.7: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[    0.178394] pci 0000:00:1e.0: [8086:244e] type 01 class 0x060400
[    0.178608] pci 0000:00:1e.0: System wakeup disabled by ACPI
[    0.178798] pci 0000:00:1f.0: [8086:24c0] type 00 class 0x060100
[    0.178812] * The chipset may have PM-Timer Bug. Due to workarounds for a bug,
               * this clock source is slow. If you are sure your timer does not have
               * this bug, please use "acpi_pm_good" to disable the workaround
[    0.179020] pci 0000:00:1f.0: can't claim BAR 13 [io  0x0800-0x087f]: address conflict with ACPI CPU throttle [io  0x0810-0x0815]

 

 

[    0.201975] pci 0000:00:1d.7: can't claim BAR 0 [mem 0xffa80800-0xffa80bff]: no compatible bridge window

 

 

[    0.242275] pnp 00:04: [dma 0 disabled]
[    0.242887] pnp 00:04: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0401 (active)
[    0.244947] system 00:05: [io  0x0800-0x085f] could not be reserved
[    0.245012] system 00:05: [io  0x0c00-0x0c7f] has been reserved
[    0.245067] system 00:05: [io  0x0860-0x08ff] could not be reserved
[    0.245131] system 00:05: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active)
[    0.245968] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 6 devices
[    0.246036] PnPBIOS: Disabled by ACPI PNP
[    0.289731] clocksource: acpi_pm: mask: 0xffffff max_cycles: 0xffffff, max_idle_ns: 2085701024 ns
[    0.289845] clocksource: Switched to clocksource acpi_pm
[    0.289925] pci 0000:01:09.0: can't claim BAR 6 [mem 0xfea00000-0xfea03fff pref]: address conflict with 0000:01:04.0 [mem 0xfea00000-0xfea1ffff pref]
[    0.290025] pci 0000:00:1f.0: BAR 13: [io  size 0x0080] has bogus alignment

 

 

[   12.710629] [drm:intel_parse_bios [i915]] *ERROR* General definiton block child device size is too small.

 

NOTE: The above drm error is the only message that appears in red text in dmesg output.

 

 

[   22.965671] smsc47m1: Found SMSC LPC47M10x/LPC47M112/LPC47M13x
[   22.965700] ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x0000000000000C04-0x0000000000000C04 conflicts with OpRegion 0x0000000000000C04-0x0000000000000C08 (\WSTX) (20150619/utaddress-254)
[   22.965714] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver
[   25.816244] b44 ssb0:0 eth1: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex
[   25.816256] b44 ssb0:0 eth1: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX
[   25.816430] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready
[  701.073343] smsc47m1: Found SMSC LPC47M10x/LPC47M112/LPC47M13x
[  701.073376] ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x0000000000000C04-0x0000000000000C04 conflicts with OpRegion 0x0000000000000C04-0x0000000000000C08 (\WSTX) (20150619/utaddress-254)
[  701.073390] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver

 

Also, even though smsc47m1 is found, the kernel module is not automatically loaded. And if I attempt to load it manually with modprobe, I get the error message "modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'smsc47m1': Device or resource busy"

[nimbius]

wow! almost a decade old and still runs :)

 

256M is about what you'd get out of a Raspberry pi, but the dimension is chewing up 200 watts of power whereas the pi wouldnt use more than 1 watt.  have you removed all unnecessary modules from the kernel?  are you running 32 bit or 64 bit?  have you run smart diagnostics to make sure your disk is healthy? how long does it take to write a 1gb file to the disk (/dev/zero using dd.)

[palica]

On 11.3.2016 at 1:53 AM, paddymac said:

[    0.178812] * The chipset may have PM-Timer Bug. Due to workarounds for a bug,               
* this clock source is slow. If you are sure your timer does not have               
* this bug, please use "acpi_pm_good" to disable the workaround

It means that your LPC device is old and contains a bug in the PM-Timer (most commonly known as "High Precision Event Time"). I wouldn't bother with it:

The Low Pin Count bus, or LPC bus, is used on IBM-compatible personal computers to connect low-bandwidth devices to the CPU, such as the boot ROM and the "legacy" I/O devices (behind a super I/O chip). The "legacy" I/O devices usually include serial and parallel ports, PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, floppy disk controller and—more recently—the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). The physical wires of the LPC bus usually connect to the southbridge chip on a PC motherboard, which contains the circuit equivalents of the "legacy" onboard peripherals of the IBM PC/AT architecture, such as the two programmable interrupt controllers, the programmable interval timer, and the two ISA DMA controllers.

Unless your TPM requires it and/or your system is giving you headaches related with any of those devices I wouldn't touch it.

 

PS: do you still use it?